Boris Johnson has rejected claims he presided over a toxic and chaotic culture at the heart of the UK government during the pandemic, and accused the COVID-19 Inquiry of being "totally muddled".

The failure to take COVID-19 seriously cost 23,000 lives in the pandemic's first wave in 2020, according to Baroness Heather Hallett's report into the government response to the crisis .

But in a newspaper article, Boris Johnson said the inquiry - which he set up - had failed to answer the "big questions", specifically: where the virus came from, and whether lockdowns were worthwhile.

Writing in the Daily Mail, the former prime minister said the report should be filed "vertically", and insisted those involved in the pandemic response were "doing our level best".

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