Boris Johnson told senior advisors during the Covid pandemic that he was "no longer buying" the idea that the NHS was overwhelmed and that the virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people”, according to evidence presented to the UK Covid inquiry.

The bombshell revelations emerged in notebook entries from the UK Government's former chief scientific advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance, who described a "quite bonkers set of exchanges" with the then-Prime Minister in August 2020.

Sir Patrick wrote that Mr Johnson was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going".

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In another entry from December 2020, Sir Patrick suggested that the PM was siding with a group of Conservative MPs who favoured letting the virus "rip" through the population instead of imposing new curbs to suppress the spread of a new and more transmissible 'Alpha' strain of the Covid.

Sir Patrick wrote: "He [Johnson] says his party 'thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just Nature's way of dealing with old people - and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much'. Wants to rely on polling."

The Herald: Chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance (centre) with Boris Johnson and chief medical officer, Sir Chris Whitty, in September 2021Chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance (centre) with Boris Johnson and chief medical officer, Sir Chris Whitty, in September 2021 (Image: PA)

It comes after a memo of a meeting held in March 2020 between the PM and then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak indicated that Mr Johnson had compared lockdown measures to "killing the patient to tackle the tumour" and questioned "why are we destroying economy for people who will die anyway soon?”.

The latest diary entries were presented as the PM's former chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, and Lee Cain - Downing Street's director of communications during the pandemic - gave evidence to the UK Covid inquiry.

Mr Cummings, who was sacked in November 2020, told the inquiry that Number 10 was "completely unsuitable" and "not configured to be the nerve centre of a national crisis like Covid".

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He said the UK Government's pandemic response improved once the Covid taskforce was created, but prior to that had been "extremely chaotic".

Mr Cummings said there were "a lot of the wrong people in the wrong job" in the Cabinet Office, describing it as a "bomb site" and a "dumpster fire" when he took up his role as adviser to Mr Johnson in July 2019.

He said: "It's become incredibly bloated. It's acquired huge numbers of people, huge numbers of teams.

"And particularly on the whole, the sort of deep state, national security side, crisis management, has become in all sorts of ways extremely opaque and effectively completely invisible to any political figure, including the prime minister."

Mr Cummings told the inquiry that "pretty much everyone" in Downing Street compared Mr Johnson as a shopping trolley due to his propensity to change direction.

"Pretty much everyone called him a trolley, yeah," Mr Cummings said.

The Herald: Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson pictured in September 2019Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson pictured in September 2019 (Image: PA)

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Brenda Doherty, whose mother died aged 82 in March 2020 after contracting Covid-19 in hospital, said reading comments made by Boris Johnson about older people in the pandemic was like being "punched in the stomach".

Speaking as part of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK campaign group, she accused the former prime minister of having had a "callous and brutal attitude".

She said: "I feel like I've been punched in the stomach after reading Boris Johnson's messages this morning.

"They are psychotic."

Mr Cummings told the inquiry that up to two weeks before the UK went into lockdown, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - the group of scientists advising the government - had agreed with the Department of Health's plan of a single peak in the virus, with herd immunity by September 2020.

He said there was a "fatalistic" approach within government which did not envisage attempting to create new systems to control the spread of coronavirus.

He said: "My view is that what ought to have happened is that as soon as the first reports came at the end of December, on roughly New Year's Eve 2019, we should have immediately closed down flights to China, we should immediately have had a very, very hardcore system at the airports and borders and there should have been a whole massive testing infrastructure."

However, he said border closures were never seriously considered. 

"If you're going for a single wave herd immunity by September... then faffing around at the borders wasn't regarded as relevant or coherent with such a strategy."

The Herald: Lee Cain arriving to give evidence to the UK Covid inquiryLee Cain arriving to give evidence to the UK Covid inquiry (Image: PA)

Earlier in the day, Lee Cain - who resigned as Number 10's director of communications in November 2020 - said Covid was "the wrong crisis for this prime minister’s skillset".

Mr Cain added: “He [Johnson] is somebody who would often delay making decisions. He would often seek counsel from multiple sources and change his mind on issues. Sometimes in politics that can be a great strength …

“If you look at something like Covid, you need quick decisions and you need people to hold the course and have the strength of mind to do that over a sustained period of time and not constantly unpick things … I felt it was the wrong challenge for him mostly.”