Rishi Sunak has already provided a statement of evidence to the Covid Inquiry, but this morning’s hearing spent more time examining his interview with Fraser in The Spectator last summer. Hugo Keith KC was particularly interested in whether Sunak had a line of communication with Boris Johnson that wasn’t recorded. Keith was referring to a line in the interview which says Sunak tried not to challenge the Prime Minister in public or leave a paper trail because it would be leaked:
He tried not to challenge the Prime Minister in public, or leave a paper trail. ‘I’d say a lot of stuff to him in private,’ he says. ‘There’s some written record of every-thing. In general, people leak it – and it causes problems.’
Sunak claimed the paper trail was what ‘the author’ wrote, and ‘the author’ (Fraser), offers more detail on that here.
Sunak also argued that it was not possible for all conversations between ministers to be recorded. He said:
‘I think the point I’d probably challenge is its significance. I think it is genuinely impossible for every single conversation between two cabinet ministers, whoever they are, to be recorded. I mean, there aren’t civil servants following cabinet ministers through the division lobbies, on a typical evening, where they might be chatting about something or if I was having lunch with my family in the garden at the same time that the Prime Minister was, on a typical weekend in Downing Street, and we’d obviously be chatting as we were barbecuing or something. I mean, it’s just it’s gonna be impractical to think that every single conversation between two cabinet ministers can be recorded in that way. But I think everyone would accept that, I think that;s obviously fine because what is happening is when there are formal decisions to be made and formal conversations to be had, those are happening with individuals. They are minuted.’
What sounded rather less convincing was Sunak’s claim that he hadn’t been aware of any real dysfunction in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office in the way that other witnesses have repeatedly described. He told Huge Keith KC that he ‘didn’t work directly in No. 10 or in the Cabinet Office, so it’s hard for me to comment on that other than to say that my interactions with No. 10 and the Cabinet Office during this period felt fine to me.’ He insisted that he been able to ‘input advice to the Prime Minister or when decisions were being made’ and that he ‘didn’t feel I had been shut out’.
There has been a strange generosity from Sunak and Johnson in their evidence to the Inquiry. Listening to this morning’s evidence, you might be forgiven for thinking the then Chancellor had been really happy about the way the government made decisions on lockdown, and that his relationship with Johnson had been consistently rosy, with happy chatter at weekend barbecues. The Inquiry is having a short lunch break. Perhaps Sunak will offer more insight into the dynamics in government this afternoon.
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