THE Chancellor is facing explosive allegations of being responsible for the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new book on the government’s handling of the crisis. 

In Failures of State, extracts of which have been printed in the Times, senior sources from the Sage committee allege that Prime Minister Boris Johnson followed the advice of Chancellor Rishi Sunak rather than heeding their own warnings to enter lockdown as Covid-19 infections rose.

In mid-September, government advisers Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty urged the Prime Minister to impose a short “circuit-breaker” to bring infections down. The pair argued that without drastic intervention, the country was on track for 200 to 500 deaths a day by early November.