In England, the commission of inquiry responsible for evaluating the management of the Covid was overtaken by the dissemination in the press of thousands of WhatsApp messages directly implicating Boris Johnson and his Minister of Health, Matt Hancock. The “lockdown files”, so nicknamed by the “Daily Telegraph”, the daily behind the revelations, bring to light thousands of messages exchanged at the time of the pandemic, and show how public health decisions affecting million English were taken.
We see Boris Johnson probing the chief medical adviser for the United Kingdom, Chris Whitty, on the possibility of confining only those over 65, after reading an article in the “Spectator” which suggested it. We learn that the decision to impose the mask in the corridors of colleges and high schools was taken solely to avoid a “clash” with Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland.
These messages also show how Matt Hancock fought at the end of December 2020 to close schools against the advice of the Minister of Education, Gavin Williamson, who wanted to avoid sacrificing youth. Gavin Williamson is also exposed in these conversations, where he accuses teachers of looking for “an excuse” not to work.
Tests in nursing homes
For Matt Hancock, the most compromising undoubtedly remains these messages showing that he was behind the decision, taken at the start of the pandemic, not to systematically test all entries into retirement homes. This decision contributed to the spread of Covid among the elderly, one of the reasons why mortality soared so quickly in England.
Matt Hancock has not been Minister of Health since June 2021, after being forced to resign for having broken barrier gestures with his mistress in his office where a camera had been subtly hidden in the smoke detector. Since then, he has tried to get back into politics, by participating in a reality show, “I am a celebrity”.
The various tests simulating a survival in the middle of the jungle, in the mud, in the middle of toads and snakes, did not allow him to redeem himself in public opinion. Suspended from the Conservative Party, Matt Hancock announced in December that he would not stand for re-election.
Origin of the great unpacking
Before the opening of the public inquiry commission on the management of the pandemic, the former minister wanted to publish his own version of the facts, in a book, “Pandemic Diaries” (“Journal of the pandemic”), written by a former political journalist from the “Sunday Times”, known for her “anti-lockdown” positions. That’s where this big unboxing came from.
During the months of writing, Matt Hancock told the journalist, Isabel Oakeshott, nearly 100,000 WhatsApp messages exchanged during the pandemic. Although having signed a confidentiality agreement, Isabel Oakeshott nevertheless decided to deliver all of these conversations to the “Daily Telegraph” which, after having analyzed them for several weeks, now distills the most compromising extracts from them every day.
Amazing turnaround
Faced with this astonishing turnaround, the journalist, at the origin of several major political scoops but whose reputation in terms of reliability had already suffered, was invited to explain herself on the “Talk TV” channel. She assures that there was “nothing personal against Matt Hancock” and that his decision was motivated by “the general interest”. “The public inquiry won’t deliver its findings for a decade or more. We could have a new pandemic next month, next year. We cannot afford to wait ten years for these answers,” she said.
In the meantime, Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer has called for the independent public inquiry to deliver its findings “before the end of the year”. It would be a tour de force, considering how long it took the most recent commissions to publish their work. The investigation into the war in Iraq lasted nearly seven years, and even twelve years for that on Bloody Sunday.
