On a brisk October morning in London, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson once again found himself at the center of a storm—this time, not in Parliament, but before the UK’s independent public inquiry into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus was sharp: the closure of schools, the impact on children, and whether the government failed to prepare for what Johnson himself called a "nightmare idea."
Johnson, who led the country from July 2019 to September 2022, appeared before the inquiry on October 21, 2025, facing tough questions about the government’s decisions in the early, chaotic days of the pandemic. According to the Associated Press, he denied that his government had failed to properly prepare for the horror of shutting down schools, but he did not shy away from accepting responsibility for the consequences. “I was very much hoping that we wouldn’t have to close schools,” Johnson testified. “I thought it was a nightmare idea.”
The inquiry, which Johnson himself agreed to establish after mounting pressure from bereaved families, is expected to run through 2027. Its current focus is on children—the group many feel bore an outsized share of the pandemic’s burdens. The UK’s response to COVID-19, particularly the abrupt school closures and the shift to online learning, has come under heavy scrutiny. More than 230,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the UK since early 2020, and the government’s efforts to slow the spread included some of the most disruptive measures in modern British history.
“It felt to me as though children who were not vulnerable, not particularly vulnerable to Covid, were paying a huge, huge price to protect the rest of society,” Johnson told the inquiry, as reported by Agence France-Presse. He described the loss of education caused by school closures as a "disaster" he wished could have been avoided. “Was the disappointment, anger, the additional frustration of a large number of kids a disaster? Yes, it was,” Johnson admitted. He went further, reflecting, “I think, looking back on it all, the whole lockdowns, the intricacy of the rules, the complexity, particularly for children, I think we probably did go too far, and it was far too elaborate.”
But not everyone is satisfied with Johnson’s regrets and apologies. Outside the London inquiry venue, campaigners from the charity Long Covid Kids gathered, their voices rising above the city’s bustle as Johnson left the building. “Shame on you,” they shouted, echoing the anger of many parents who believe their children were overlooked. Harbinder Dhaliwal, a Londoner whose three children have suffered long-term health impacts from COVID-19, captured the mood: “I think that on the whole children were an afterthought, there was no proactive thought process about the impact on children. I would like an apology from the government, from Boris for how our children were overlooked.”
The question of whether the government was adequately prepared for the possibility of school closures has become a central issue in the inquiry. Johnson insisted that officials were overwhelmed by the acceleration of the virus but maintained that the Education Department had considered school closings as early as February 2020. “Everybody understood that school closures was part of the tool kit that we might sadly have to use,” he said. “We were being forced by events, by the spread of the disease, to deploy that solution much earlier than we wanted.”
However, this claim was challenged by testimony from his own education secretary at the time, Gavin Williamson. Williamson told the inquiry that he had been given only one night to develop a plan to close schools in March 2020—a period he described as abrupt and “discombobulating.” He said he had not asked school officials to prepare an assessment on closures in early 2020 because it wasn’t recommended, and Johnson hadn’t ordered it. According to the Associated Press, Johnson denied suggestions, including one from Jon Coles, a former director-general at the Education Department, that there had been an “extraordinary dereliction of duty” in not planning earlier for how to close schools.
As the pandemic spread swiftly in March 2020, the government faced a rapidly changing landscape. Britain closed schools for long periods and moved to online learning during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. The government’s handling of these closures—how quickly they happened, how little time schools had to prepare, and the lack of communication with children—has drawn criticism from educators, parents, and advocacy groups alike.
Dan Paskins, of Save the Children UK, didn’t mince words about the consequences: the rushed decisions, he said, had damaged a generation of children, and “no amount of regret will undo the harm that has been done.” Johnson, for his part, acknowledged the deep cost to children, saying, “children paid a huge price to protect the rest of society.” Yet, he also reflected on what he would have done differently. When pressed on the decision not to hold events specifically for children to explain the government’s COVID measures—despite frequent televised press conferences for the general public—Johnson conceded, “I certainly think it was a mistake ... for us not to find some way to interact more with children, particularly those who have been affected by the exams problems.”
The public inquiry, chaired by a former Court of Appeal judge, is a massive undertaking. Its purpose is to investigate matters of public concern, establish facts, and draw lessons for the future. Unlike a court of law, it does not rule on civil or criminal liability, and its recommendations are not legally binding. Still, the process provides a rare, unvarnished look at the decisions made in government’s highest offices during one of the country’s gravest crises.
For many, the inquiry is about more than just accountability—it’s about understanding how, in the rush to protect the public, some of the most vulnerable were left behind. The testimony of Johnson and his ministers paints a picture of a government caught off-guard, forced to make impossible choices with limited information and even less time. Yet the sense remains, among parents and campaigners, that children were not at the center of those decisions.
As the inquiry continues, running through to 2027, it will sift through the evidence, the regrets, and the apologies. It will weigh the claims of overwhelmed officials against the lived experiences of children and families. And perhaps, in doing so, it will offer not just answers, but a measure of closure for those who feel their voices were lost amid the chaos of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
