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Matt Hancock looms large in The Telegraph‘s Lockdown Files series which ended earlier this month.
For more background, see parts 1 and 2.
Matt Hancock latest
The series continues after an update on latest news about the UK’s former Health and Social Care Secretary.
On Saturday, March 25, 2023, The Guardian reported that Hancock had been one of a handful of Conservative MPs caught in a prank set up by the left-wing activist group Led By Donkeys, ‘Top Tory MPs ask for £10,000 a day to work for fake Korean company’ (emphases mine):
The former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and former health secretary, Matt Hancock, agreed to work for £10,000 a day to further the interests of a fake South Korean firm after apparently being duped by the campaign group Led by Donkeys.
Kwarteng attended a preliminary meeting at his parliamentary office and agreed in principle to be paid the daily rate after saying he did not require a “king’s ransom”. When Hancock was asked his daily rate, he responded: “It’s 10,000 sterling” …
The senior politicians have complied with all relevant rules and referred to their obligation to their constituents during preliminary meetings. The Led by Donkeys project, conducted with investigative reporter Antony Barnett, comes at a time when people face a cost of living crisis. The campaign group released a report on its investigation on Twitter on Saturday, with recorded undercover footage …
The purported firm that approached the politicians did not exist and had a rudimentary foreign website with fake testimonials. MPs have been warned by the Home Office to be on their guard against the “threat of foreign interference”, and the group’s investigation demonstrated the ease with which they seemed able to gain access to the MPs.
Led by Donkeys is understood to have approached 20 MPs from the Conservative party, Labour and Liberal Democrats after examining the outside earnings of MPs on the parliamentary register of interests. An email sent by the fake investment and consulting firm, Hanseong Consulting, said it wanted individuals for an international advisory board to “help our clients navigate the shifting political, regulatory and legislative frameworks” in the UK and Europe.
It said advisers would be required to attend six board meetings a year, with a “very attractive” remuneration package and “generous expenses” for international travel. Five MPs agreed to be interviewed on Zoom, with one who was clearly suspicious of the firm’s credentials terminating the call. The MPs were interviewed by a woman purporting to be a senior executive, with a backdrop of the skyline of Seoul, the South Korean capital, at her office window …
In early March, Hancock agreed to an online meeting for the advisory role. The Telegraph had that week published his leaked cache of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages, but he seemed relaxed for the meeting with the fake foreign firm. He said it had been “quite a busy week” but that March was the “start of hope”.
“We were wondering, do you have a daily rate at the moment?” he was asked by the interviewer, posing as a senior business executive. “I do, yes,” Hancock replied. “It’s 10,000 sterling.”
… Hancock is an independent MP after he had the whip suspended for taking part in I’m a Celebrity, for which he was paid £320,000, with Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson saying at the time that “MPs should be working hard for their constituents”.
Hancock said in the meeting that he followed the “spirit and letter” of parliamentary rules, and would also require additional approval for the role because he had been a minister, but outside interests were permitted. He said he was mindful of the responsibility to serve his constituents …
Led by Donkeys was established in 2018 as a campaign in response to Brexit. Its high-profile projects and satirical stunts have since included a spoof episode of the BBC show Line of Duty with Boris Johnson being interrogated by the anti-corruption AC-12 unit and painting the colours of the Ukrainian flag outside the Russian embassy in London.
A spokesperson for Hancock said: “The accusation appears to be that Matt acted entirely properly and within the rules, which had just been unanimously adopted by parliament. It’s absurd to bring Mr Hancock into this story through the illegal publication of a private conversation. All the video shows is Matt acting completely properly.”
Furthermore, Matt will be looking for a new job as he will not be standing again as an MP come the next general election.
Although I am not a defender of Hancock, former BBC presenter Jon Sopel is hardly in a position to take pot shots at him, considering that he, too, fancies filthy lucre, as Guido Fawkes revealed on Monday, March 27:
Days earlier, on March 18, The Mail‘s Richard Eden reported that Hancock’s girlfriend and her estranged husband sold their South London house to Gordon Ramsay for several million pounds:
Should she ever tire of turning her boyfriend, Matt Hancock, into a TV star, Gina Coladangelo has a lucrative alternative career as a property tycoon.
I can disclose that she and her estranged husband, Oliver Tress, managed to sell their marital home to fiery TV chef Gordon Ramsay and his wife, Tana, for a staggering £7.5 million.
It’s an astonishing price for the area of South London. Not only is it almost double the £3.8million that Gina and Tress paid in 2015, but it’s £2.5 million more than the top price paid previously for any property in their street.
Zoopla had estimated its value as between £3.8 million and £4.6 million …
The sale, which Land Registry documents confirm went through in January, is all the more impressive as it comes when British property prices are predicted to plunge by ten per cent.
The five-bedroom Edwardian house is in one of London’s most desirable areas. Ramsay, 56, and his wife, 48, bought it in their joint names from Gina and Tress, the founder of upmarket homeware and clothing chain Oliver Bonas.
Gina, 45, left Tress, 55, with whom she has three children, for former health secretary Hancock, 44, who competed in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!.
Ramsay, who has an estimated fortune of £175 million, already owns a huge house, said to be worth £7 million, less than a mile away …
Last year, he, Tana and their five children were reported to have temporarily moved out after work began on a super-basement …
Tatler adds:
It is easy to see why Ramsay might need a new home. The chef announced at the start of the year that he and wife Tana are expecting their sixth child. On the Heart Breakfast show, the chef said that ‘there’s one more on the way’ to join their five children: Megan, 25, twins Jack and Holly, 23, Tilly, 21, and Oscar, three. Holly recently featured as one of the most eligible singles at Tatler’s Little Black Book party. According to Hello! magazine, the Ramsays are believed to have paid in cash for their new luxury pad; they also own a £6 million house in Cornwall and a mansion in Los Angeles. Gordon and Tana marked their 26th wedding anniversary very recently, having married in Chelsea in 1996.
On March 6, as The Lockdown Files were drawing to a close, The Telegraph reported, ‘Matt Hancock cancelled after indiscreet WhatsApps “upset” travel industry’:
A major international travel conference has axed Matt Hancock from its programme after The Telegraph revealed he had been highly critical of the travel sector during the pandemic.
The Institute of Travel and Tourism (ITT) confirmed that Mr Hancock will no longer be speaking at its annual conference in Doha, Qatar, saying that the messages uncovered by The Telegraph had caused upset to many in the travel industry.
Last week, as part of its Lockdown Files series, The Telegraph revealed that Mr Hancock and Simon Case, the country’s most senior civil servant, shared jokes about those being forced to stay in quarantine hotel rooms during the pandemic …
The former health secretary was also highly critical of the airline and airports industry, describing them as being “totally offside” and “unhelpful”, while Mr Case [top civil servant Simon Case] labelled them as “horribly self-serving” ...
In a statement to The Telegraph, Steven Freudman, chairman of the ITT, said that Mr Hancock had become a “major distraction”.
He added: “We have over 25 distinguished speakers and it would have been unfair on them for the focus to have been solely on Matt Hancock.”
The ITT annual conference is regarded as one of the sector’s key annual events, with thousands of travel professionals and high-profile speakers from across the globe attending.
The initial decision to invite Mr Hancock as a speaker at the conference was widely criticised by sector figures even before The Lockdown Files revelations were published.
Industry figures told The Independent that they wanted the ITT to reconsider its decision, accusing Mr Hancock’s policies of “destroying the sector” and resulting in thousands of travel jobs being lost …
Dr Freudman said: “The original invitation was issued in the hope that Matt Hancock would recognise the damage that he and his government caused the travel industry with its handling of the pandemic.
“We were also hoping that he might confirm that lessons had been learnt and that any future crises would be handled differently.
“However, his WhatsApp messages have upset many of us in the travel industry and his presence would clearly have been a major distraction.”
The Telegraph has contacted Mr Hancock for comment.
That day, Hancock’s lawyer appeared on GB News and was introduced as such. He responded vehemently that he did not want that detail mentioned. The presenter calmly read out the lawyer’s email to GB News stating that he permitted them to describe him as Hancock’s lawyer. The lawyer sheepishly responded that he forgot to type ‘not’. Comedy gold:
Isabel Oakeshott describes The Telegraph ‘bunker’
Hancock gave Oakeshott access to the 100,000 WhatsApp messages because she co-authored his book, Pandemic Diaries.
On Friday, March 24, she wrote an article for Tatler describing what working in seclusion with The Lockdown Files reporters was like at the beginning of 2023:
… The Daily Telegraph was the only newspaper that consistently challenged the lockdown agenda and had a track record of managing huge investigations in the public interest – famously exposing the MPs’ expenses claims in a scandal that rocked Westminster in 2009. They immediately agreed to put a full team of top journalists on the project: The Lockdown Files.
In a secure bunker, well away from the main newsroom, I worked alongside their reporters, filleting the messages: a team of eight or so, full time, for eight weeks. To avoid hackers, our computers were not connected to the internet. We worked from hard drives stored overnight in a safe. Anything printed was swiftly shredded. Nobody else came into the bunker, which, as the weeks went by, became increasingly unhygienic. Discarded takeaway containers, half-eaten packets of Colin the Caterpillar sweets, mouldy mugs and other detritus were strewn over every grubby surface. Hunched over our computers in a room with no windows, we were like lab rats in some dubious experiment, wracked by colds, coughs and – oh, the irony – Covid. By the week of publication, our core team had swelled to some 25 writers and digital news experts. The Daily Telegraph’s newsroom was emptying out – leaving those who remained wondering where all their colleagues had gone.
There was a curious voyeuristic pleasure in reading the banter between Government ministers and their aides – including some very flirty exchanges between two household names. Who was sending who the heart emojis and who was complimenting who on their sexy outfits? I’ll leave it to your imagination. Suffice to say, they wouldn’t be too happy if that news was in the public domain.
On Sunday, March 26, we got an answer about the heart emojis. Michael Gove sent them to Hancock:
Hancock responded, ‘You have been true throughout’.
Gove explained to Sophy Ridge on Sky News that he agreed, particularly on that day, with Hancock’s course of action. No surprise there. They’re cut from the same cloth.
Guido Fawkes has the interview:
Oakeshott’s article continues:
The WhatsApp from Matt Hancock came through at 1.20am: ‘You have made a big mistake,’ it said darkly – leaving me to imagine what punishment he had in mind. The following day, he released a furious statement, accusing me of ‘massive betrayal’. Fair enough – I had breached his trust and would face plenty of questions about that decision. But did anyone outside the media bubble seriously doubt it was for the public good? The torrent of grateful messages from ordinary people, often with harrowing personal stories about their own suffering during lockdown, was answer enough for me … Dining in a mountain restaurant in the French Alps, my partner, Richard Tice [leader of the Reform Party], was surprised – and touched – to be passed a note by the waiter from a fellow diner who had recognised him. On the crumpled piece of paper were the words ‘please thank Isabel’.
Lord Sumption on Hancock: ‘a fanatic’
On March 10, after The Lockdown Files came to an end, Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court justice and guardian of civil liberties, wrote an editorial for The Telegraph: ‘Matt Hancock was never a policy maker — he was a fanatic’:
The 19th-century sage William Hazlitt once observed that those who love liberty love their fellow men, while those who love power love only themselves. Matt Hancock says that he has been betrayed by the leaking of his WhatsApp messages. But few people will have any sympathy for him. He glutted on power and too obviously loved himself.
Some things can be said in his favour. The Lockdown Files are not a complete record. No doubt there were also phone calls, Zoom meetings, civil service memos and the like, in which the thoughts of ministers and officials may have been more fully laid out …
Nevertheless, Hancock’s WhatsApp messages offer an ugly insight into the workings of government at a time when it aspired to micromanage every aspect of our lives. They reveal the chaos and incoherence at the heart of government, as decisions were made on the hoof. They expose the fallacy that ministers were better able to judge our vulnerabilities than we were ourselves. They throw a harsh light on those involved: their narcissism, their superficiality, their hypocrisies great and small. Above all, they show in embarrassing detail how completely power corrupts those who have it.
… Even the most ardent lockdown sceptics accept that in extreme cases drastic measures may be required. But Covid-19 was not an extreme case …
No government, anywhere, had previously sought to deal with epidemic disease by closing down much of society. No society has ever improved public health by making itself poorer …
The fateful moment came when the government chose to go for coercion. This ruled out any distinction between the vulnerable and the invulnerable, because it would have been too difficult to police. It also meant that ministers began to manipulate public opinion, exaggerating the risks in order to justify their decision and scare people into compliance. So we had the theatrical announcement of the latest death toll at daily press conferences from Downing Street. Shocking posters appeared on our streets (“Look him in the eyes”, etc). Matt Hancock announced that “if you go out, people will die”.
The scare campaign created a perfect storm, for it made it more difficult to lift the lockdown …
Hancock was the chief peddler of the idea that everyone was equally at risk from Covid-19. This proposition was patently untrue, but it was useful because it frightened people. “It’s not unhelpful having people think they could be next,” wrote his special adviser, who knew his master’s mind well. Other countries did not behave like this. In Sweden state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was able to reassure his public that a lockdown was neither necessary nor helpful. Events have proved him right.
… Matt Hancock insisted on schoolchildren wearing masks in class in spite of scientific advice that it made little difference, because it was necessary to keep up with Nicola Sturgeon. When Rishi Sunak had the temerity to suggest that once the vaccine rollout started the lockdown should be relaxed, Hancock resisted. “This is not a SAGE call,” he said, “it’s a political call.”
Once ministers had started on this course, there was no turning back. It is hard to admit that you have inflicted untold damage on a whole society by mistake. Hancock resisted shortening the 14-day quarantine period in spite of scientific advice that five days was enough, because he did not want to admit that the original policy had been wrong. Relevant evidence was simply shut out. His response to the success of Sweden’s policies was not to learn from it but to dismiss it as the “f—ing Swedish argument”. Having no grounds for rejecting the Swedish argument, he had to ask his advisers to find him some. “Supply three or four bullet [points] of why Sweden is wrong,” he barked.
The adrenalin of power is corrosive. It was largely responsible for the sheer nastiness of the Government’s response to criticism. Hancock lashed out at the least signs of resistance or dissent. He wanted internal critics sacked or moved. He suggested the cancellation of a learning disability hub in the constituency of an MP who intended to vote against the tier system. Ministers “got heavy” with the police to make them tougher on the public …
I’ll get to the learning disability hub in a moment. Shameful, just shameful.
Lord Sumption’s editorial continues:
There is no sign that Hancock either thought or cared about the wider consequences of his measures. He seems to have believed that there was no limit to the amount of human misery and economic destruction that was worth enduring in order to keep the Covid numbers down. Rishi Sunak is on record as saying that any discussion of the wider problems was ruled out in advance, and this is fully borne out by the WhatsApp messages. Any hint from Sunak or business secretary Alok Sharma that the cure might be worse than the disease provoked an explosion of bile but no actual answers.
Hancock fought tooth and nail to close schools and keep them closed. Deprived of many months of education, cooped up indoors and terrified by government warnings that they would kill their grandparents by hugging them, children suffered a sharp rise in mental illness and self-harm although they were themselves at no risk from Covid-19. Cancer patients were left undiagnosed and untreated. Old people, deprived of stimulation, succumbed to dementia in large numbers. Small businesses were destroyed which had taken a lifetime to build up. A joyless puritanism infected government policy. No travel. No wedding parties or funeral wakes. No hugs. Anyone who spoke up for a measure of decency or moderation in this surreal world was promptly slapped down as a “w—er”.
Real policy-making is never black and white like this. It is always a matter of judgment, of weighing up pros and cons. In that sense, Matt Hancock was never a policy-maker. He was a fanatic.
Why did hitherto decent people behave like this? In Hancock’s case, at least part of the answer is vanity. The crisis was good for his profile. He saw himself as the man of action, the Churchill of public health, the saviour of his people, earning the plaudits of a grateful nation. As early as January 2020, he was sharing a message from a sycophantic “wise friend” assuring him that a “well-handled crisis of this scale could propel you into the next league”. He fussed over his tweets. He pushed his way in front of every press camera. He tried to divert the credit for the vaccines from Kate Bingham to himself. “I think I look great” is one of his more memorable messages.
Sumption says that Boris Johnson, his Cabinet and his advisers could not have restrained Hancock. Boris had no strategy, and the others were lacklustre:
Apart from Sunak and Gove, his Cabinet was probably the most mediocre band of British ministers for nearly a century. Collectively, they proved unable to look at the whole problem in the round. Their eyes were never on the ball. They were not even on the field. These are the lessons of this sorry business.
Blocking disability hub
Hancock did not tolerate Conservative MPs voting against his health policies during the pandemic.
On Tuesday, March 7, The Telegraph led with a story about James Daly MP from Bury North:
‘Matt Hancock’s plan to block funding for disabled children if MP opposed lockdown’ tells us:
Matt Hancock discussed a plan to block funding for a new centre for disabled children and adults as a way of pressuring a rebel Tory MP to back new lockdown restrictions, The Lockdown Files show.
WhatsApp messages between Mr Hancock, the then health secretary, and his political aide show they discussed taking a plan for a learning disability hub in Bury, Greater Manchester, “off the table” if James Daly, the Bury North MP, sided against the Government in a key vote.
It came ahead of the vote on Dec 1, 2020 on the introduction of a toughened new local tiers system of restrictions for England.
The Telegraph has also obtained a WhatsApp message with an attached list of 95 Conservative MPs planning to vote against the tier system and detailing their concerns about it.
The article has that list.
On November 20, 2020, Allan Nixon, one of Hancock’s Spads (special advisers) WhatsApped his boss:
… Thoughts on me suggesting to Chief’s spads that they give us a list of the 2019 intakes thinking of rebelling. Eg James wants his Learning Disability Hub in Bury – whips call him up and say Health team want to work with him to deliver this but that’ll be off the table if he rebels
These guys’ re-election hinges on us in a lot of instances, and we know what they want. We should seriously consider using it IMO
Hancock replied:
yes, 100%
James Daly only found out about this through The Lockdown Files:
Mr Daly – whose constituency is the most marginal in the UK mainland with a majority of just 105 – told The Telegraph he was “appalled” and “disgusted” that the disability hub, for which he had been campaigning, had been discussed as a way of coercing him into voting with the Government.
He said he had never been contacted by the Whips’ Office and no threat to block the scheme had been made.
The conversation between Nixon and Hancock continued on December 1, 2020:
On the morning of the vote, Mr Hancock messaged his adviser to say: “James Daly is with us”, but Mr Nixon responded with the caveat: “If extra hospitality support is forthcoming.”
Later that day, Mr Nixon also forwarded his boss a new list of MPs who were undecided on the vote. In the event, Mr Daly voted against the Government, according to the parliamentary record.
In total, 55 Conservative MPs opposed the tiers system, forcing Mr Johnson to rely on Labour abstaining to get the measures through. It was, at the time, the biggest rebellion of the Johnson administration.
After revealing that he had not been contacted by the Whips’ Office, Mr Daly said: “It sounds like the whips didn’t bother.”
The Bury North MP said he was surprised that the hub, which would allow specialists to coordinate activity under one roof, was even being threatened because “it never got dangled in the first place”.
He added: “They were never proposing to give it to me. I still don’t have it. Even though I have repeatedly campaigned for it, Hancock never showed the slightest bit of interest in supporting it. I had a number of conversations with Hancock at that time, but I can definitively say the hub was never mentioned.
“I think it is appalling. The fact that they would only give a much needed support for disabled people if I voted for this was absolutely disgusting.”
Mr Daly had discussed the need for the centre with Mr Hancock in January 2020. In a post on his website about “how we improve health outcomes for all Bury North residents”, he published a photograph of himself with the then health secretary. The hub, he said, would benefit “the most vulnerable in our community”.
That afternoon, The Telegraph published ‘Rishi Sunak rebukes Matt Hancock over plot to block disability funding’:
Downing Street has rebuked Matt Hancock after it emerged that he had discussed a plan to block funding for a new disabled centre to pressure a Tory MP to back lockdown restrictions …
Asked whether this was not the way Rishi Sunak would like his ministers to operate, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Of course. There are rules and guidelines which apply.
“I can’t speak for the actions of a former government. I think you heard from the Prime Minister, who said it’s important that the inquiry looks at all the issues in a complete way rather than relying on piecemeal bits of information.
“You will know that funding decisions are taken in line with strict guidelines to ensure value for money set out in the spending framework, and ministers’ departments are held accountable for their decisions.”
Allison Pearson: Hancock ‘should be arrested’
After The Telegraph published No. 10’s rebuke to Hancock, one of the paper’s columnists, Allison Pearson, weighed in with ‘Matt Hancock should be arrested for wilful misconduct in public office’:
… Dismayingly, if not entirely unpredictably, it was the very restrictions Matt Hancock and his lockdown zealots told us were necessary to save the health service which have very nearly finished it off. “The NHS has collapsed anyway as a direct result of the lockdowns and the vast backlog they caused,” says my source. Ironies don’t come much more bitter than that …
Just when you think he has sunk as low as is humanly possible, he ponders using children with special educational needs as leverage (“yes 100%,” enthused Hancock). By unhappy coincidence, I have just had an email from Rob, a father with an autistic son. This is what Rob wrote: “Lockdown sent him from a happy 14-year-old into a complete psychological breakdown. The fear of why everyone was wearing masks, the breaking of routine (so important for SEN children) and closing of schools. He was utterly terrified. The knock-on-effect for our family has been devastating. Thanks to anti-psych meds he’s slowly getting there, but from the second lockdown onwards it’s destroyed the fabric of our family to say nothing of our life savings being lost (self-employed). To read the WhatsApps in The Telegraph makes me so angry. Having the heartbreak of a disabled child made worse by self-aggrandising fools is almost too much to take. Administering psychiatric medicines to your child tends to focus the mind as to where the blame lies and it isn’t with Isabel Oakeshott.”
Well, there’s another Hancock Triumph. A 14-year-old boy who successfully had the pants frightened off him. (Hope you feel proud of yourself, Matt.) Are Members of Parliament seriously not going to debate what we suspected, but now know for sure, was done quite deliberately to Rob’s son and thousands of other vulnerable children, some of them no longer with us because they were scared into taking their own lives? …
As for Matt Hancock, he has lost the Whip and, unfortunately, can no longer be disciplined by the Conservative party. The slithy tove can – and must – be dragged before a Select Committee. Personally, I would like to see him in jail for the vast hurt he has caused.
Are there grounds for a prosecution of the former minister for misconduct in a public office? Did Matt Hancock “wilfully misconduct himself to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder without reasonable excuse or justification”? …
Now, that’s what I call an Urgent Question.
Also of interest is ‘Dominic Cummings takes “nightmare” swipe at Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock’.
I hope to wrap up the rest of my review of The Lockdown Files tomorrow.
The past week was a newsy one in the UK.
We had Boris’s hearing before the Privileges Committee and Matt Hancock being stung by a fake consultancy.
However, it all began on Monday, March 20, and continued on Wednesday with the approval of the Stormont Brake Statutory Instrument of the Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland.
The Windsor Framework replaces the Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol, which everyone knew was imperfect and this new framework replaces it. According to the Government, it renders the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill unnecessary.
However, it seems to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that it goes too far in favouring the EU. Who can forget the beaming smile on Ursula von der Leyen’s face when she signed it alongside Rishi Sunak at the end of February? She knew she had the cat by the tail. Unfortunately, Rishi is still in the dark, as is most of Parliament:
The only vote on it in Parliament was on Wednesday, March 22, 2023. It should be emphasised that was not a vote on the Framework as a whole but only on one statutory instrument (SI) of it, the Stormont Brake.
Rishi overly promoted the Stormont Brake, which, in principle, grants a veto to the Northern Ireland Assembly via the UK Government of new EU acts or rules that it disagrees with.
I cannot see it working as smoothly as specified below. The EU holds the better hand of cards here.
This Twitter thread comes via Jess Sargeant, senior researcher at the Institute for Government, beginning with the flowchart:
The Northern Ireland Assembly, once it reconvenes (the DUP are resisting for the time being), will have a new Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee to inform MLAs’ (assembly members’) decisions on pulling the Brake:
The Brake can be triggered by 30 MLAs from two parties. The Secretary of State (SoS) for Northern Ireland, who sits in Parliament, then reviews the proposed trigger. If the SoS finds it valid, he then liaises with the EU:
In principle, any resolution must have ‘cross-community’ support in Northern Ireland before being implemented, unless there are exceptional circumstances:
The DUP oppose it as do members of the ERG (Parliament’s European Research Group), but it has majority support among MPs:
On Tuesday, March 21, the ERG interviewed the SoS for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris MP, a 90-minute session available on parliamentlive.tv. Heaton-Harris could barely look the MPs in the eye as he maintained that voting on the SI (Stormont Brake) was but one of many votes. Perhaps inconveniently for him, a civil servant sitting next to him said that Downing Street would consider a majority vote on the SI proof that MPs approved of the Windsor Framework.
Here is some background on that session from Monday, March 20. Heaton-Harris is on the left of the photo with the ERG’s Sir Bill Cash MP on the right:
Guido Fawkes tells us that the ERG wanted to interview Rishi Sunak rather than Heaton-Harris (emphases in the original):
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris will appear in front of the European Scrutiny Committee tomorrow afternoon, just a day before MPs vote on the Stormont Brake element of the Windsor Framework Brexit deal in the House of Commons. The Committee’s chair, Sir Bill Cash, had previously invited Rishi Sunak, with Cash accusing the PM of dodging scrutiny by repeatedly skipped the invitation. As a compromise, he’s sent Heaton-Harris as his loyal lieutenant…
With the DUP voting against the deal, and the ERG expected to announce their own verdict tomorrow – also not looking positive – it won’t be smooth sailing for wise-cracking Heaton-Harris. Stay tuned…
More background from the morning of Tuesday, March 21 follows. The ERG session with Heaton-Harris took place in the afternoon.
A small but vocal opposition bloc was building. Pictured below are Sir Bill Cash, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Rishi:
Guido’s post said, in part:
Tory MPs speaking to Guido say they nonetheless expect the Tory rebellion to be “soft“, and “they’ll have to have uncovered something pretty bad for a lot of people to vote against it”. The Telegraph has heard similarly, with one MP saying the group were “genuinely torn”…
The ERG’s Legal Advisory Committee’s review of the Windsor Framework can be found here. Although it is 137 pages long, the first 28 pages are the immediately relevant ones. As opponents of the Windsor Framework point out, the Green (customs) lane won’t become greener as Rishi said, but rather pinker, as the report states on page 13 (purple emphases mine):
Before coming to the specifics of how the “green lane“ would operate as regards movements of goods which would fall within it, it should first be pointed out that there will continue to be many goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland which will fall outside the scope of the “green lane“ arrangements and will therefore be subject to the full panoply of EU external border checks, even though those goods are not going to be exported into the Republic or elsewhere in the EU. Businesses within Northern Ireland acquiring goods from Great Britain which intend to sell their products within Northern Ireland, elsewhere in the United Kingdom or to the rest of the world will continue to be damaged by these controls and duties while receiving no conceivable benefit from the NI Protocol arrangements.
The general position will remain that, outside the specific accommodations, EU customs laws will apply to the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland (this internal movement is treated as an “importation“26) and to importations of goods from the rest of the world. In other words, there is a customs border, within UK territory, across the Irish Sea, and the EU‘s rather than the UK‘s external customs duties will apply to imports from the rest of the world. Importantly, goods which are to be used by businesses in Northern Ireland for “commercial processing“ will be subject to EU customs duties, unless the business or the type of processing falls within a specific exemption.
This is why, since Brexit, most British businesses will not ship to Northern Ireland. Big corporations, such as supermarkets, do and will continue to do so, but even British retail chains (e.g. department stores) are not willing to put up with the paperwork and specific knowledge required to ship to Northern Ireland. It’s just too much hassle.
For that and many other reasons, the ERG chair Mark Francois called the Framework’s Stormont Brake ‘practically useless’:
Commercial Chancery Barrister Steven Barrett explains why the Stormont Brake could result in ‘huge and ongoing fines’ for the UK:
The EU can calculate any perceived industry losses if the Brake is applied:
The fines could extend from year to year:
Therefore, the Brake might never be applied:
The ERG’s Mark Francois stated:
The star chamber’s [the aforementioned report’s] principal findings are: that EU law will still be supreme in Northern Ireland; the rights of its people under the 1800 Act of Union are not restored; the green lane is not really a green lane at all; the Stormont brake is practically useless and the framework itself has no exit, other than through a highly complex legal process.’
Thought so.
That evening, another prominent Brexit supporter, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said on his GB News show that he would not be supporting the Government in the vote on the Stormont Brake on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 22:
This was his Moggologue that evening, and the transcript:
Rees-Mogg said that the Government’s view, based on a very short summary of the Framework, differs to the ERG’s report, which comes much closer to the EU-focused reality:
… everybody has to look through it in detail and that’s what’s been done by the committee set up by Mark Francois, the chairman of the European Research Group, which went to really strong legal advisers to see.
What was actually happening and what they came up with was not the same as the view given by His Majesty’s government.
Indeed, it was closer to the view that was in fact given by the European Commission.
So the Government claimed that 1700 pages of EU laws are disapplied.
The report found no EU laws will be disapplied or removed from Northern Ireland.
We were told that the jurisdiction of the European Court would be disapplied.
The report found Northern Ireland will remain subject to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, as was said to me by a very senior member of the DUP, European Union law remains a major part of Northern Ireland’s settlement and in certain areas outranks UK law.
So we were told that the deal would restore Northern Ireland’s place in the Union and safeguard sovereignty. Because this is what it’s about. We voted to leave as one United Kingdom, not as Great Britain, and then separately.
Northern Ireland and we are one people.
Under the Act of Union of 1800, we were told that there would be green lanes and you know what a green lane is.
When you come back from your holidays, you go through a green lane and nobody stops you.
But the green lane to Northern Ireland requires 21 pieces of information to be given.
So what was it at that line in Macbeth that may apply to the Windsor framework, the multitudinous Irish Sea and Canadine?
The green one is made red. And last of all, the Stormont brake, which is what we’re actually voting on tomorrow, is said to be hard to use.
But even then we’ve been told that though the vote technically is on the brake, we’re actually voting on the whole of the protocol. So even if the brake is good, we’re being asked to vote on the bits that are not good.
And the Guardian angels of unionism, the DUP, have said that it’s not good enough. So that’s the position we’re in. We are facing a vote tomorrow.
I will not find it possible to support His Majesty’s Government in this vote …
Rees-Mogg then interviewed a KC (King’s Counsel) who is a specialist in EU law. He said much the same thing …
… as did former Conservative Home Secretary and former Brexit Party MEP Anne Widdecombe:
On the morning of Wednesday, March 22, The Telegraph reported that Boris Johnson MP would vote against the Stormont Brake SI:
The former prime minister said in a statement to this newspaper that the proposals would keep the province “captured by the EU legal order” and were “not acceptable”.
Mr Johnson is expected to interrupt his appearance during the House of Commons Privileges Committee hearing on partygate to vote when the division bell rings …
Mr Johnson told The Telegraph: “The proposed arrangements would mean either that Northern Ireland remained captured by the EU legal order – and was increasingly divergent from the rest of the UK – or they would mean that the whole of the UK was unable properly to diverge and take advantage of Brexit.
“That is not acceptable. I will be voting against the proposed arrangements today. Instead, the best course of action is to proceed with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, and make sure that we take back control.”
The decision sees Mr Johnson reprise the role he adopted during the final year of Theresa May’s premiership, when he put himself at the front of a group of Tory MPs voting against her Brexit proposals.
A few hours later, Liz Truss said she would also be voting against the SI:
That afternoon, MPs divided — voted — on the SI, which won over nearly all of the Commons. Only 29 MPs voted No, among them the nine DUP MPs:
MPs had very little time to consider the Windsor Framework. There was Rishi’s speech to Parliament after it had been agreed, so, 90 minutes. Then there was the 90-minute debate about the SI, which, in reality, was Downing Street’s way of approving the whole Framework. Ergo, three hours of discussion about our national sovereignty with regard to Northern Ireland.
On Thursday, March 23, former DUP leader, Arlene — now Baroness — Foster wrote about this parlous state of affairs for The Express:
The Prime Minister promised a vote on the Windsor Framework deal, and this was it – all 90 minutes of it.
The Stormont brake is the central selling point of the agreement between the Government and the European Union to remedy the defects of the NI Protocol.
The idea is that if the Assembly activates the Stormont Brake, then the Government will decide whether to veto whichever new European law has been foisted on the people of Northern Ireland without their say so.
The chances of the Government actually vetoing new European law is next to negligible. As pointed out by the legal opinion of the ERG the Stormont brake is worse than useless because the bar has been set so high and there must be a willingness by the Government to actually trigger the veto – not likely on current experience.
The Government has shown itself in fear of the European Union starting a trade war regardless of how unlikely that is and so they continue to appease the EU’s outrageous demands.
It is plain as the nose on your face that the Windsor Agreement was oversold as something it was not.
It was an improvement on the NI protocol, I absolutely acknowledge that, but it falls short of dealing with all the problems. And the Prime Minister and his cheerleaders would have been far better suited to have been honest with us all instead of trying to spin us into the willing suspension of disbelief.
We were told by the PM that the Irish sea border has gone – it clearly hasn’t – but this claim in the latest Government infographic has been downgraded to… wait for it… “ removes any sense of a border in the Irish sea”… You really couldn’t make it up.
How refreshing it would have been if the Prime Minister had announced his deal by saying, “I have moved the negotiations forward, I have made some wins. I recognise it doesn’t deal with all the problems, but I will keep working with European colleagues to monitor the issues”.
Instead we were treated to spin on a scale not seen since the justification of the Iraq war!
Let’s have a look at the reality of the deal:
Firstly, the Stormont Brake is not a veto, no matter what the hapless NI Secretary of State says. The current version is an attempt to put a veneer of consent on the fact that European law will still apply in my part of the United Kingdom.
The mechanism could be strengthened by the Government, because after all Parliament is sovereign, but my guess is that they will not want to upset Brussels.
The Windsor Framework does not deal with the recent decision of the Supreme Court which stated that the Protocol suspended the internal UK trade element of the Acts of Union.
Again, the Government could remedy this element by passing a simple piece of legislation as the later law will take precedence – will they do that? – it would go a long way to dealing with the constitutional aspects of the Protocol.
Another of the elements of the Windsor Framework was the construction of green lanes and red lanes. Sounds good you may think – anything going to NI for final destination from GB will go through the green lane and anything transiting through to the Republic of Ireland will go through the red lane.
However, it is not that simple as there are still forms to be completed to go through the green lane and there is still not full clarity about what goes through the green lanes.
One of the hauliers in NI has described the green lane under the Windsor Framework as not really green but pink, i.e. a lighter version of the red lane!
And what about those manufacturers in NI who only serve the UK market – do they have to abide by EU rules even though their goods are not going to the EU?
As you can see there are many important questions still to be answered and dealt with, but it appears the Prime Minister just wants to push on and prioritise good relations in Europe over internal constitutional issues.
Many who supported Brexit see this Framework as a gateway back into the EU.
Alex Story explained in his article for The Express, ‘Sunak capitulated — this is step one to UK’s craven re-joining of the EU’:
Sunak’s Windsor Framework breaks up the United Kingdom. It creates a border that did not exist and that no one wanted.
In effect, Sunak chose subjugation and humiliation.
He didn’t kick the can into the long grass so much as build a framework for our eventual and full capitulation.
Accepting no divergence between the United Kingdom and a sclerotic European Union is tantamount to climbing back onto the Titanic to hear the band strike up a tune one last time.
A country unable to pass her own laws to serve her own people according to their needs is not sovereign.
In the short term, given the mess that is the Conservative Party and the duplicity of the Labour Party, there is little doubt that the Government will get its way – by hook or by crook.
Accepting humiliation once, however, is a sure way of guaranteeing we will suffer more indignities at ever decreasing time intervals until, in the end, our heads bowed, we will be forced to re-join on extraordinarily onerous terms. The French will have it no other way.
By choosing short term expediency instead of solid principles, the Government is telling us that our country no longer matters to it.
If this sounds like an exaggeration, it is worth remembering that beyond the empty rhetoric and the torrent of dishonesties we hear daily lies a graveyard of broken promises and discarded pledges.
The jam is always promised for tomorrow.
Our borders are none existent; Our children are under attack in their schools and in their towns; Our police are no longer concerned about real crimes such as burglaries, assaults, and grooming.
Our Government no longer knows how to govern and is desperate to delegate the arduous task to a non-democratic body beyond our shores …
And a country unable to govern itself cannot long survive …
Sunak, to his very small electorate, promised competence.
From the point of view of a marketing exercise, the Windsor Framework and the deception it carried had a certain panache.
But, what the big print giveth, the small print taketh.
In this case, the small print points to one of the greatest acts of abject surrender to a foreign power we have ever witnessed.
Sunak is ensuring the constant interference of the European Union into our internal affairs.
And, lo, so he has.
On Friday, March 24, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic formally adopted the Windsor Framework:
Guido’s post says:
Sefcovic is in London today to formally adopt the agreement, after MPs voted in favour of the Stormont Brake element on Wednesday. The one and only time they’ll get to do so…
Speaking just before rubberstamping the deal, Cleverly said:
By formally approving the Windsor Framework, we are delivering on our commitment to provide stability and certainty for Northern Ireland. The Framework is the best deal for Northern Ireland, safeguarding its place in the Union and protecting the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. I look forward to further effective cooperation with the EU on key issues, such as security and energy.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is still vowing not to return to power-sharing in Northern Ireland though…
Good for him and the DUP.
This will end up being as divisive as Brexit, because the other main parties in Stormont are ready to resume power-sharing.
Yesterday’s post introduced Matt Hancock’s hunger for absolute control during the coronavirus debacle.
The story, with excerpts from The Telegraph‘s The Lockdown Files, continues after a brief interlude.
Giles Coren: ‘we all broke the rules’
On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 22, broadcaster and Times columnist Giles Coren, son of the late humourist and Punch editor Alan Coren, gave a radio interview in which he said that ‘we all broke the rules’, meaning during the pandemic.
The subject arose as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taking his place at the parliamentary Privileges Committee hearing to defend himself over Partygate.
As a result, Giles Coren trended on Twitter — and not in a good way:
A few of the cleaner tweets follow:
However, this next tweet nails it. Giles Coren doesn’t mean average Britons. He’s referring to the media class and other privileged oafs:
Which brings me neatly to Matt Hancock.
Hancock wants immunity over care home deaths
On March 4, 2023, Chronicle Live recapped an article from the Mirror about a talk that the former Health and Social Care Secretary gave to a group of top-flight London lawyers about who was to blame for care home deaths (emphases mine):
Matt Hancock told a gathering of city lawyers he should be immune from court action over Covid blunders, The Mirror reports – just days before shocking WhatsApp messages he sent during the pandemic were published.
Mr Hancock said he should not be held personally responsible for failings during the fight against Covid-19, such as the Department of Health and Social Care’s failure to safeguard care home residents, simply because he was Secretary of State. Instead he said that “HMG” – the whole Government – should take the blame.
This comes even as prominent campaigners call for the ex-minister to be prosecuted.
He was heard saying that he believes lawyers pursuing him personally “were chasing tabloid headlines”. He was speaking to lawyers from firm Mishcon de Reya in a talk over his book, Pandemic Diaries, coming just months after his stint in the I’m A Celebrity jungle.
Mr Hancock has furiously denied claims that his leaked WhatsApp messages show he ignored Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty’s advice to test all people going into care homes.
His department’s policy of discharging untested patients into them from hospital was ruled unlawful by the High Court in April in a case brought by Dr Cathy Gardner, who lost her father. At the time of the ruling, union GMB said the department had shown a “callous disregard” for care homes.
The messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph this week by Isabel Oakeshott, journalist and the co-author of Mr Hancock’s memoir, show he thought committing to testing people coming into care homes from the community – including staff – didn’t “add anything” and “muddies the waters” …
And 12 days ago he held an online question and answer session with top lawyers from Mishcon de Reya and told them it was wrong that a Secretary of State of a department should be held legally responsible for failures and it should be “HMG” instead. Currently, the defendant in any judicial review against a Government department has to be the Secretary of State.
But Mr Hancock said: “I don’t think it’s an appropriate use of the courts to essentially go chasing tabloid headlines. You know, ‘Hancock broke the law’ – I didn’t break the law.” In the Q&A, Mr Hancock also claimed to have “banned alcohol” in his department to stop his team being “more social”.
Some of the leaked WhatsApp messages reveal then-aide Gina Coladangelo – who is now his partner – telling him there were drinks in the fridge to celebrate hitting his testing target in May 2020. She wrote, adding a beer glasses emoji: “Drinks cold in fridge at DH. Feel free to open before we are back.”
A spokesperson for Mr Hancock confirmed he did not introduce a booze ban until the next January. Mr Hancock also blasted criticism of the Tories’ bungled PPE procurement as “offensive” in the Q&A and justified writing off £12billion of PPE, most of it unusable, saying: “I’d rather save lives.”
… Meanwhile, activist Gina Miller, leader of the True and Fair Party and who took the Government to court over Brexit, has written to Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley calling for Mr Hancock to be prosecuted.
She wrote: “The threshold has been met to investigate Mr Hancock for gross negligence manslaughter… a common law offence that carries a maximum of life imprisonment.”
‘Mr Vaccine’
As 2020 dragged on for many of us, Hancock was keen for his moment of glory, as The Telegraph related in ‘Inside Matt Hancock’s desperate bid to be known as ‘Mr Vaccine”’.
Emphases mine below:
Matt Hancock feared he would not get credit for the UK’s vaccine success and described the speeding up of the jabs rollout as a “Hancock triumph”.
The former health secretary’s WhatsApp messages show he fought to be the face of Britain’s vaccine campaign at the height of the pandemic and became furious if he thought others were getting the credit.
And he was told by his media advisers that fronting Britain’s vaccine programme would allow the press and public to “forgive” him for imposing lockdowns and that “politically” he must balance the two.
However, the Department of Health and Social Care had to work with the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on the vaccine procurement.
Hancock was unhappy:
Mr Hancock had already battled with his Cabinet colleagues over who should have overall control of the procurement strategy, and struck an uneasy compromise between the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine made things worse for him:
In November 2020, the Department of Health caught wind that Pfizer was planning an imminent announcement that its vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective against Covid-19.
The Pfizer vaccine was the first to report its interim trial data and went on to be the first to be administered to the public in the UK the following month …
On hearing that the news was about to break, Mr Hancock bemoaned he was not live on camera and worried he would be overshadowed by Alok Sharma, the then business secretary.
The article has a screenshot of the WhatsApps he exchanged with adviser Damon Poole:
Pity I’m not up in the Commons!
I should do a clip
We should pump out the NHS doc
Do No10 know?
When Poole answered in the affirmative, Hancock was eager to do the media round the next morning:
I should DEFINITELY do the round tmrw
Just to reinforce the point, he messaged Poole again:
It MUST NOT be Alok!
On December 8, Hancock appeared on ITV’s breakfast show, Good Morning Britain (GMB), to watch the first Britons, a man and a woman, both elderly, get their ‘jabs’:
… Mr Hancock gave one of his most memorable interviews of the pandemic …
Wiping a tear from his eye, he told the programme it had “been such a tough year for so many people” and he was relieved that people could at last “get on with their lives”.
The lady was Margaret Keenan, aged 90 at the time. She received her jab in Coventry.
The man’s name was William ‘Will’ Shakespeare. He was 81 at the time and has since died (nothing to do with the vaccine). When the presenter announced his name, it was hard to know whether Hancock was laughing at it or crying about his step-grandfather who died of Covid (more here).
The frames extracted from that moment don’t exactly make for comfortable viewing. Thank goodness someone online captured them for posterity. Don’t miss the caption:
However, there was no immediate big media momentum for Hancock after those initial jabs, even though millions of people watch GMB.
On Boxing Day 2020, Damon Poole WhatsApped Hancock to ask if he had spoken with journalists from the Sunday papers. Poole did not like all the articles about the vaccine, which he called ‘this vaccine spray’. As it was the day after Christmas, Hancock hadn’t looked at the papers until he heard from Poole:
Now I’ve seen it. Sure it’s not No10?
Poole replied:
I’m pretty sure it’s them
MOS [Mail on Sunday]/Times/Tele[graph]
Hancock fired back:
The thing that p—–s me off is the Mail on Sunday links it to Rishi. What’s that all about?
The first few days of 2021 proved no better for Hancock’s desired media exposure. On January 7, Hancock asked Poole to send him the link to a Mail story with the headline ‘Vaccine approval is finally cut from TWENTY days to five’. Poole sent him the link and added:
MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency] briefing [I’m] pretty sure
Hancock asked if that was true. Poole said he thought it was and sent him a link to a tweet of the Mail‘s front page:
Hancock replied:
I CALLED FOR THIS TWO MONTHS AGO. This is a Hancock triumph! And if it IS true we neeed [sic] to accelerate massively.
The Lockdown Files article continues:
The strategy of taking credit for the vaccine, and therefore the impact on lockdown restrictions, was eventually given its own slogan: “Own the exit.”
The phrase is repeated several times between Mr Hancock and his aides in the months that followed.
Then, finally, there was success at last. On January 11:
… the day the official vaccine delivery plan was published, Mr Hancock sent Mr Poole screenshots of news articles about his announcement.
Hancock messaged Poole:
These shots are extraordinary. Positive coverage in the Sun AND Mail.
Poole replied:
Keep riding it through to spring – own the exit!
Well, Hancock owned his own exit that June. That’s for sure.
‘Headless chicken’ over vaccines
Not everyone who worked with Hancock would call him ‘Mr Vaccine’.
Clive Dix wrote a first-person article for The Telegraph about his experience, ‘I worked with Matt Hancock on Covid vaccines – he’s a headless chicken’:
I worked with Matt Hancock the whole time I was at the Vaccine Taskforce and he was, without doubt, the most difficult of all the ministers because he didn’t take time to understand anything.
He was all over the place, a bit like a headless chicken. He often made statements saying “we are going to do X and we want to let the world know about it”, but we were dealing with an uncertain situation in bringing the vaccines forward.
The manufacturing process was brand new and any process like this is fraught with problems, which we need to fix as we go along, but normally you would spend two or three years stress-testing something like this.
Hancock was laying down timelines by saying things like “we will vaccinate the whole population”, and these timelines drove his behaviour.
Hancock was upset when there was a problem with the AstraZeneca vaccine production:
When we said the AstraZeneca vaccine had manufacturing problems, that is when Hancock panicked.
He didn’t believe us. We were working night and day to make it work and he was turning around and saying: “I have said the UK population will all get vaccinated.”
But we couldn’t change the nature of the process and he didn’t get that. He thought it was like procurement. That is where his behaviour came from. He panicked and that led to them going to India and taking vaccines that had been meant for the developing world.
I thought that ethically it was very wrong to take doses that it had been agreed would go to the developing world just to meet an arbitrary timeline. This is why I ended up resigning, because I could no longer advise a government that acted on these terms.
Nonetheless, the team pressed on with getting doses from India:
Here, we were taking 10 million doses from the developing world just to meet Hancock’s timeline and it was a timeline that had just been plucked out of the air. We were still well ahead of the majority of the world, ministers should have been upfront and said that we can vaccinate everyone within a month, but we won’t quite hit the timeline. They should have admitted that they were slightly wrong.
I couldn’t stop them doing it, because it wasn’t my job to make policy decisions about where we get the vaccine from. But I said if this is where you are, then I don’t want to advise this government anymore. I didn’t resign there and then, but I did resign in March 2021. I didn’t want to disrupt the work.
It was all driven for the wrong reasons and then Hancock – rather than put his hands up – blamed the Vaccine Taskforce for stalling.
For him to be sending messages and saying Kate Bingham [head of the Vaccine Taskforce] was not reliable is appalling.
On October 4, 2020, Damon Poole WhatsApped Hancock a link to a Financial Times article: ‘Less than half UK population to receive coronavirus vaccine, says task force head’.
Hancock replied that he didn’t have a subscription to the paper, which is behind a paywall. He asked Poole:
… is that Kate?
When Poole responded in the affirmative, Hancock messaged back:
If so we absolutely need No10 to sit on her hard. She has view [sic] and a wacky way of expressing them & is totally unreliable. She regards anything that isn’t her idea as political interference
Poole messaged back, agreeing, saying he’d had a ‘blazing row’ with her when he was working at No. 10.
Clive Dix resumes his story, alive with memories of Hancock:
We were working as hard as we could and he thought he could just come in and make a bold statement to the public and tell us that we have got to do it. I don’t think he understood the process. He was a loose cannon.
Dix tells us more about how Health and Social Care worked with BEIS. Here, too, Hancock had to have his own way:
The taskforce sat in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and that is where the budget came from. We reported to Alok Sharma and then Nadhim Zahawi came in as vaccines minister. Hancock wanted to get involved and because he was secretary of state, Alok stepped aside.
He was using the vaccine to protect his reputation.
Dix, who was a volunteer, gives us an insight into the wider politics involved:
I had worked for nine months from 4am until midnight without any pay to do this.
It is certainly extraordinary to see how two-faced they are. They were all nice to me to my face but to see what they were saying to Boris Johnson was particularly unpleasant.
It reflects badly on Nadhim and all the civil servants who worked so hard to get this right. In my humble opinion, Hancock was actually the problem.
Hancock hoped to treat French Covid patients
Incredibly, during lockdown, Hancock wanted to appeal to French president Emmanuel Macron to allow his nation’s coronavirus patients to be treated in the UK.
With the NHS under pressure, Hancock somehow thought he managed to find spare beds … for the French.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the French as much as I love the British and the Americans, in no particular order. They’re the three societies I know the best. But this was a step too far.
After all, the Government locked down the UK to save the NHS, right? So how was it that Hancock suddenly found spare beds, especially for patients from other countries?
Meanwhile, British patients with cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses couldn’t get a look in to a doctor, never mind a hospital.
The Telegraph‘s ‘Matt Hancock’s secret plan to import French Covid patients’ says that, in November 2020:
Matt Hancock planned to bring French Covid patients to the UK for treatment during the second wave of the pandemic, despite national lockdown restrictions in force to protect the NHS.
Messages between the then health secretary, his advisers and Boris Johnson, then the prime minister, show he hoped to offer “spare” intensive care unit beds to Emmanuel Macron to help the French president deal with a major outbreak in his country in November 2020.
At that time, Britain was under a second national lockdown that was sold to the public as necessary to prevent the “medical and moral disaster” of an overwhelmed NHS.
But Downing Street and the Department of Health and Social Care created a secret plan to transfer Covid patients from the busiest French hospitals, bringing more cases of Covid to the UK.
However, that wasn’t enough. Hancock also wanted to make the same offer to Italy. The article has screenshots of the relevant WhatsApp messages.
That aside, let’s continue with France:
The plan is not thought to have ever been implemented, but Mr Hancock said: “We may need to make a similar offer to Italy,” despite exponential increases in Britain’s own case numbers.
On Nov 13, Mr Hancock shared with his top advisers a letter that he planned to send to Olivier Veran, the French health minister, offering to import French Covid patients to the UK for treatment.
“I have seen the pressure on your hospitals, and that some patients are being transferred abroad,” the letter said. “We have our epidemic largely in the north of England, and some spare capacity in London and the south.
“We could provide some ICU beds to which you could transfer some patients. Would that be helpful to relieve pressure on your most affected regions? Our countries have always stood by each other in times of need.”
By this point in the European second Covid wave, the UK was looking to Europe as case numbers exploded in France, Italy and Spain, with a second national lockdown imposed in an attempt to reduce transmission.
France had already been taken off the UK’s travel corridor list, meaning that any person travelling to Britain from France was required to quarantine for 14 days or face a fine. By late November, France and Britain had similar rates of the virus, with around 275 cases per 100,000 people.
However, on October 31, Boris stated publicly that the UK had reached capacity:
In an address to the nation on Oct 31, Mr Johnson said that even in the south-west of England, where Mr Hancock had proposed housing French patients, “it is now clear that current projections mean they will run out of hospital capacity in a matter of weeks unless we act”.
He said that if new measures were not imposed, the growth of Covid numbers would mean that “doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would get oxygen and who wouldn’t”, adding: “The overrunning of the NHS would be a medical and moral disaster beyond the raw loss of life.
“It is crucial to grasp that this general threat to public health comes not from focusing too much on Covid, but from not focusing enough, from failing to get it under control.”
It should be noted that Hancock got this mad idea from a life peer and was immediately swept up by it:
An earlier WhatsApp conversation between Mr Hancock and Mr Johnson about the idea shows it originated with Lord Llewellyn of Steep, who was then serving as Britain’s ambassador in Paris.
“I love this idea of Ed Llewellyn’s to offer Macron (privately) to treat some of their cases where they have pressure on the health system,” Mr Hancock wrote to Mr Johnson on Oct 2, 2020. “Because we have a regional problem we also have regional capacity in East Anglia (Cambridge?) or the SW.”
Lord Llewellyn is now serving as the UK’s ambassador to Italy. He is a former Downing Street chief of staff, serving in Number 10 under David Cameron.
The mind boggles.
That’s enough Matt Hancock for one day.
Don’t worry. There’s more to come.
Soon.
Yesterday’s post on The Telegraph‘s Lockdown Files series focused on top civil servant Simon Case and how Government ministers and advisers brought about the first lockdown in 2020 after pressure from the media.
Today’s post looks at The Telegraph‘s revelations about the then-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock.
He had a deep hunger for absolute control and brooked little opposition.
Grudge against NHS chief Simon Stevens
It is unclear exactly why Hancock bore a grudge against Simon Stevens, who headed the NHS at the time of pandemic and resigned in 2021. Stevens was later elevated to the Lords.
On March 4, The Telegraph published ‘Matt Hancock’s campaign to remove NHS chief revealed’ (emphases mine):
Ministers tried to remove the head of the NHS just five days after the first Covid-19 case was detected in the UK.
The Lockdown Files reveal the animosity shown towards Lord Stevens of Birmingham, the chief executive of NHS England.
Six months into the pandemic, Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, declared “removing SS [Simon Stevens] will be a massive improvement”.
On another occasion, Mr Hancock was so visibly angered by the NHS chief that his own advisers warned him: “Simon needs a kick… don’t make yourself look bad in the process”.
The messages between ministers and officials disclose the lack of regard both in Downing Street and the Department of Health for Lord Stevens, despite widespread praise of his stewardship of the NHS for seven years.
The private messages also appear at odds with the Government’s support for the NHS during Covid, while belittling its boss behind the scenes.
Lord Stevens finally retired from the post in July 2021 and was made a life peer in recognition of his services to the NHS.
But the messages reveal that Mr Hancock and Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, were conspiring to get rid of him for at least 18 months before he finally stepped down.
Nine days after Chinese authorities first shared the genetic sequence of Covid-19, Mr Hancock messaged Mr Cummings explaining he was approaching Lord Ara Darzi, an eminent professor of surgery, to “persuade” Lord Stevens to quit.
The article has screenshots of various WhatsApp conversations, excerpted below.
On February 3, 2020, Dominic Cummings was eager for Stevens to leave and messaged Hancock:
We must get on with it now. Announce next week as part of reshuffle frenzy and it will all get lost in that
Cummings was out of luck. It did not happen.
In the early weeks of the pandemic in April 2020, Hancock seemed to be overly exercised by Stevens:
Mr Hancock criticised Lord Stevens in a Downing Street meeting, during which he was so visibly angered that his special adviser Allan Nixon remarked by WhatsApp: “You look like you’re losing grip in front of No 10 by having a go at Simon like that. Simon needs a kick but don’t make yourself look bad in the process.”
Mr Hancock responded: “It’s ok – he needs to know he is massively f——g up. And I’ll tell the room what happened once the video is off.”
Mr Nixon replied: “Ok but be aware from afar it looks like you’re cracking under pressure.”
The article states:
It’s unclear precisely why Lord Stevens irritated Mr Hancock so much, but when he quit, NHS sources said his successor was likely to be someone “less outspoken and less willing to challenge Government”.
Lord Stevens had clashed with successive Tory administrations over NHS funding, and The Lockdown Files also show clashes over tackling the virus and the rolling out of the vaccines.
Dentistry became an issue in May 2020:
Mr Hancock was again furious with Lord Stevens, this time over the NHS chief executive’s issuing of guidance allowing dentists to reopen in June. Mr Johnson complained he had not been aware of the guidance being changed.
Boris WhatsApped Hancock:
I told Simon Stevens he should have warned us and he grovelled
Hancock replied:
I hit the roof with him. Unbelievable. Have you read the letter I’ve sent about the future of the NHS? We need to get cracking…
Their disagreement continued:
The files also contain text messages between Mr Hancock and Lord Stevens, in which they argue over whether the NHS chief executive had permission to make the announcement on dentists reopening, which the Government had wanted held back for its televised press conference.
In August, Hancock sent a message to Cummings about possible new legislation which would give government ministers more control over the NHS. It ended with this:
Removing SS will be a massive improvement — but we still need a Bill to do it properly.
In December 2020, Hancock and Stevens disagreed about the vaccine rollout:
Lord Stevens was angered in December 2020 about a claim being briefed to the media that millions of people were due to receive the jab by Christmas.
On December 13, he WhatsApped Hancock and a group of senior health officials and advisers:
There is no version of reality whereby “several million people will receive the vaccine before Christmas” so whoever briefed that might want to urgently undertake some course correction before that inevitably becomes clear
When Stevens announced his resignation in 2021, public pronouncements differed considerably from private conversations:
Even after Lord Stevens announced that he was stepping down, Mr Hancock continued to be irked by him.
The three health secretaries he had served alongside – Mr Hancock, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid – had jointly signed a letter praising Lord Stevens.
The letter included a statement saying his “tireless efforts to improve patient safety, and secure access to innovative medicines like Orkambi, have had a huge impact on the lives of so many”.
But after he was shown the letter, Mr Hancock – who had by then been forced to resign over an affair in his office – asked for the reference to the drug Orkambi to be removed.
The NHS uses Orkambi in treating cystic fibrosis.
Hancock complained in a message to his Spad (special adviser) Allan Nixon. Nixon asked what he should say to Sajid Javid, Hancock’s successor at Health and Social Care.
Hancock replied:
Because it was really you and me
He did make the move on opening up to more meds, but only did this one with huge arm twisting
How petty.
Hancock chose to save reputation over cutting quarantine
This was The Telegraph‘s front page on Monday, March 6, 2023:
He did not want to cut self-isolation time because it would:
imply we’ve been getting it wrong.
Clearly they had got it wrong.
Doesn’t admitting a mistake show the measure of a person or an organisation, including a government? Personally, I respect that.
It would have been easy enough to rationalise, too. Hancock could have said that medical experts now know more about the virus, which the data from Test and Trace supported.
But no.
Hancock was too weak — and power-hungry — a man to admit a mistake.
Excerpts follow from that day’s lead article, ‘The leaked messages that reveal how Matt Hancock chose saving face over cutting Covid quarantine’, which concerns England:
At points during the pandemic, more than 600,000 people a week who had been in close proximity to a Covid case were told to quarantine for 10 days.
In total, the policy resulted in more than 20 million people – a third of the entire population – being told to self-isolate, regardless of whether they had symptoms.
Now, WhatsApp messages seen by The Telegraph show that a proposal to replace that with five days of testing had been discussed as early as November 2020 – but was not put in place.
The Lockdown Files show that Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, was told by England’s Chief Medical Officer [Chris Whitty] that they could change the policy in “favour of testing for 5 days in lieu of isolation”. At that stage, the self-isolation period was 14 days.
But instead of taking Prof Sir Chris Whitty’s advice, Mr Hancock rejected the idea – fearing that it would “imply we’d been getting it wrong”.
Switching to a five-day testing regime would have transformed the way the country was able to operate during the pandemic.
A month after Sir Chris gave his advice, isolation was reduced to 10 days – a length which continued to wreak havoc on businesses and services.
Having heard every coronavirus briefing, I suspected this all along. It is good to see confirmation of it now.
Things got worse in 2021 with the ‘pingdemic’. You couldn’t make this up:
By the summer of 2021, so many people were sent automated “pings” by the NHS Test and Trace app telling them to stay at home that restaurants and other businesses were forced to close through lack of staff.
The app proved to be so sensitive that neighbours were being pinged through walls, causing large numbers of people to delete the app in frustration. The Government ended up having to exempt some key workers from self-isolating to prevent the NHS and critical food supply chains from collapsing.
Some relief came in August that year:
those who were under the age of 18 years and six months and those who were fully vaccinated no longer had to isolate if they were a close contact.
Self-isolation policies lasted nearly two years:
… it took until Feb 2022 for self-isolation guidance for contacts of positive Covid cases to be scrapped altogether, by which time NHS Test and Trace had cost the taxpayer around £26 billion.
Discriminatory quarantine exemptions proposed
In August 2020, a 14-day quarantine period was in place for Covid case contacts and travellers returning to the UK from abroad:
The policy caused havoc for holidaymakers and split up families for months, with most people unable to take an extra fortnight off work to quarantine on return.
On Aug 5, messages from the then health secretary to the “MH Top Team” WhatsApp group appear primarily concerned with the self-isolation restrictions placed on people returning to the UK from abroad, rather than those on close contacts of people infected with the virus. The group included his aides and officials from his private office.
Mr Hancock asked: “Where are we up to on test & release and also high net worth quarantine exemptions?”
Replying to this point, a senior civil servant said: “On test and release expecting update today – on high net worth BEIS [Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] lead but we’ve asked for it.”
When Mr Hancock returned to the issue two weeks later, this time he asked only about the policy that applied to “high net worth” business people …
At this point Emma Dean, one of his aides, interjected to ask Mr Hancock to “clear” a quote on Leicester, which was only just being released from lockdown because of higher rates of the virus in the area …
Having approved the statement, Mr Hancock returned to the issue at hand – lifting travel restrictions for “high net worth individuals”. The former health secretary appeared surprised to hear that the policy had not been given the green light by the business department …
Ms Dean’s concern that there might be a “comms risk” associated with the policy to release only wealthy business travellers from self-isolation proved to be correct.
When news leaked in November 2020 that the Government planned to exempt City dealmakers, hedge fund managers and company bosses flying to the UK from the 14-day quarantine rule, the public was furious …
… on Nov 17 2020, Mr Hancock did receive some scientific advice in favour of loosening restrictions on self-isolation for people contacted by NHS Test and Trace.
Mr Hancock, however, was worried about how the move would play out with the public.
I wonder. By then, he was clearly enjoying his control over the public.
On a related topic, another Telegraph article, ‘Ministers feared “racist” label if they spoke about Covid spread’, discusses the problem with locking down cities such as Leicester and some in the north of England. To make it look more equitable, nearby areas with low rates of infection were also locked down, which brought complaints from several MPs. The Government also worried about getting their messages across to areas with high minority populations.
Pingdemic ‘crippled’ economy
Also in March 6’s Telegraph was an article by one of their business columnists, Matthew Lynn: ‘Hancock’s overzealous “pingdemic” crippled Britain’s economy — and we’re still paying the price’.
Hancock was not alone in developing policy, however, his was the face we saw most often, whether on television or at the despatch box. He had a huge role to play in the parlous state of the economy during and after the pandemic:
It was, for several months at least, the most dreaded sound in any factory, warehouse, shop or cafe. Ping. The NHS app notifying a colleague they had been in contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19. In a flash, workers would depart, and schedules would have to be hastily re-organised.
For months, businesses were barely able to operate normally, output collapsed, and a culture of absenteeism was created that the UK is still struggling with three years later.
And yet, it now appears the isolation rules were for some time far stricter than they needed to be. The “pingdemic” may have been unnecessary – and so too the damage to businesses that it caused …
In November 2020, during the second lockdown, the Chief Medical Officer advised first that 14 days of isolation was only marginally safer than 10 days, and that even that could be replaced with five days of daily testing. It was rejected by Matt Hancock, the then health secretary.
In fairness, tweaks to the rules were made. In mid-December 2020, the 14-day rule was cut to 10. Then in August 2021, after the ‘pingdemic’ reached its height, the isolation rule was lifted if you were under 18 or fully vaccinated.
However, the important point is this: for a long stretch of 2021 we may not have needed such rigid isolation rules for contacts of those with Covid.
And yet at that time, it was already clear to everyone that isolation was having a devastating impact on the economy. It was hard enough for anyone to operate any kind of a business during the chaos of lockdown, with its bewildering mess of constantly changing rules on what you could and couldn’t sell, to whom, and under what conditions.
To make a bad situation even worse, however, the pingdemic meant any kind of commercial operation was constantly crippled by staff shortages.
Looking back at the news stories from the time, businesses were pleading for something to be done …
… very big companies could shift staff around so that at least their most crucial operations could continue.
Yet small companies didn’t have that option, and with 20 per cent or more of their employees pinged, they often had no choice but to close down completely.
Isolation hit the productive heartlands of the economy – manufacturing, construction and distribution – hardest of all. And the smaller the business, the more it suffered …
First, the UK lost a huge amount of output. The near 10 per cent drop in GDP during the pandemic was the worst in British economic history.
… even if it was only a couple of percentage points that could have been saved, that would have made a huge difference to the final cost of Covid-19.
Next, it created a culture of absenteeism. If you wanted to take a few days off work, there was never an easier time. Simply report that you had been pinged and few questions would ever be asked.
That has carried on, even after the virus has disappeared. The Office for National Statistics reports that days off for sickness are running at the highest level for more than a decade, while a more recent survey by Fruitful Research found a 29 per cent increase in absenteeism since the pandemic ended.
The UK already had a dreadful record on productivity, but the pandemic made it a whole lot worse.
Finally, we have been left with a legacy of debt. Companies had to borrow money or dip into their reserves to cope with closures, while the Government was forced to borrow far more to deal with higher costs on the back of lower tax revenues. It will take generations to pay all that back.
… We could have cut the time much earlier than we did and saved the economy a huge amount of pain.
I couldn’t agree more.
I have been writing about the pandemic for three years now. You can read every entry on my Marxism/Communism page under Coronavirus. With each new post on the subject, I experience the same thoughts and emotions about how much the policies devised to notionally combat this virus caused havoc not only in the UK, but also other Western nations.
I will have more on Matt Hancock tomorrow. Some will wonder how much more there is to write about him. There is still more, so much more.
The Telegraph stopped publishing their Lockdown Files series earlier this month.
However, I still have quite a few bookmarks to get through from the series.
Simon Case: ‘Mr Killjoy’
On March 10, I left off with the top civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, rumoured to be considering his career options, more about which below:
Guido Fawkes points out that Case strangely never got a fine (fixed penalty notice) for No. 10 get-togethers during lockdown, even though a Prime Minister (Boris) and a Chancellor (Rishi) did:
On March 7, 2023, The Telegraph reported that, in 2020, Case called himself ‘Mr Killjoy’ (emphases mine below):
Britain’s most senior civil servant said he was “Mr Killjoy” in meetings with “bouncing Boris J” because the former prime minister was too optimistic about the economy during the Covid pandemic.
Simon Case, hired by Mr Johnson from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s office to work on the pandemic, was later promoted to Cabinet Secretary and remains in post serving Rishi Sunak.
WhatsApp messages leaked to The Telegraph and published in The Lockdown Files investigation show him complaining about Mr Johnson in June 2020.
In a morning conversation with Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, Mr Case said a strategy meeting later that day would be “even more all over the shop than usual” …
The Telegraph has screenshots of Case’s WhatsApp exchanges with Hancock. Case wrote:
We got stuck with PM enthusing about how there were great opportunities ahead for the UK economy …
He ended the message with a forehead slap emoji.
Hancock responded:
He’s right. There are. Did you mention there are also some challenges?
Case replied:
Yes — I am becoming Mr Killjoy in meetings with Bouncing Boris J
The article then discusses Case in the present. The Lockdown Files have not done him any favours:
… he has served three prime ministers during his time in office, having occupied the role in September 2020 under Mr Johnson and throughout Liz Truss’s tenure in Downing Street.
In recent days, he is understood to have been privately criticised by senior civil servants, including the permanent secretaries of a number of government departments.
“The general feeling among perm secs is that his leadership has been relatively weak. Lots of perm secs will tell you that attacks on the Civil Service have increased in the last few years,” a senior Whitehall source told The Telegraph.
“His instinct is more to tuck away and get things done through other routes and back channels rather than stick his head above the parapet. All of that feeds into that criticism of Simon where some have described him as being a bit spineless.”
Sources close to Mr Case suggested he was considering resigning and expected him to pursue a new career in academia.
“I think that when he joined the Civil Service in 2006, it was that or academia,” said one friend. “I think that the academic world is something he makes no bones about, that he’s always admired. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did embrace an academic career once he retires.”
Another source said Mr Case would be unlikely to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and take a peerage, adding: “I just don’t see the Lords as something he’d be interested in. I think an academic route would be a much more attractive option.”
Mr Case’s allies in Government were fighting back on Tuesday, insisting he had no intention of resigning and was pushing ahead with plans. The Cabinet Secretary is scheduled to be in York this Friday, meeting civil servants, and in Glasgow next week, with a speech engagement at a Civil Service conference due in July.
A senior Cabinet Office source told The Telegraph: “He is not about to resign this week, next week, or any time soon. He is cracking on with the job.”
It is understood Mr Case had conversations with some of Mr Sunak’s senior advisers in the wake of the revelations in The Lockdown Files and was assured over his position.
On that subject, another Telegraph article appeared that day, ‘Rishi Sunak refuses to say Simon Case should stay in post after WhatsApp backlash’:
Rishi Sunak has refused three times to say he has confidence that Simon Case will remain the Cabinet Secretary until the next election, amid a growing backlash to his pandemic-era WhatsApp messages.
The Prime Minister was on Tuesday night asked to comment on speculation that Britain’s most senior civil servant was preparing to stand down, but initially said only that he “continues to support the government’s agenda,” including on small boat crossings.
It came as Labour sources said Sir Keir Starmer would sack Mr Case if he w[ere] to win the next election and The Telegraph revealed new WhatsApp messages in which he criticised “bouncing Boris” Johnson for being too optimistic about the economy during the pandemic.
The 44-year-old mandarin has been accused of “naivety” after a tranche of messages obtained by this newspaper showed he mocked people forced to quarantine in hotels during the pandemic and described Mr Sunak as “bonkers” …
Asked for a third time about the controversy in a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Sunak said he looked forward to working with Mr Case “for a very long time to come” but declined to say whether he thought he would still be in post by the next election.
Cabinet Secretaries typically remain in post in the period before and after a general election to oversee the transition between administrations, leading to speculation in Whitehall that this is a “natural moment for him to do it” …
A spokesman for Sir Keir denied that he had already decided to sack Mr Case if Labour wins the next election.
In a briefing with reporters and press conference on Tuesday Mr Sunak was asked three times whether he believed Mr Case would remain in post and refused to address the issue directly, claiming he had “hadn’t actually seen any of the messages”.
Cabinet Office sources pointed to the end of his third answer, where he praised Mr Case’s record in government, adding: “I’m very grateful to him for that and I look forward to working with him for a very long time to come, quite frankly.”
The lockdown sex ban
The Lockdown Files also told us how the ban on sex was arrived at during the first lockdown in the Spring of 2020:
Professor Sir Chris Whitty [Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at the time] warned against imposing the lockdown “sex ban” because the public was not “likely to listen” to an order not to see their partners, The Telegraph can disclose.
England’s Chief Medical Officer said the Government should use a “bit of realism” and stop short of an outright ban, instead encouraging couples not living together to avoid contact “if they can”, leaked WhatsApp messages show.
Sir Chris’s warning came on March 24 2020 – the day after Boris Johnson, then the prime minister, gave the first order that the public should “stay at home” and avoid contact with people living in other households.
For couples living separately, it became an effective sex ban because the public was not allowed to meet up in houses that were not their own …
James Slack, then Mr Johnson’s official spokesman, asked Sir Chris and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, whether couples could see each other and warned that the Government could be entering “choppy waters” by separating them.
“Sorry for this, but the biggest Q of the day for our finest political journalists is: can I see my boyfriend or girlfriend if we don’t live in the same household?” he asked a group WhatsApp conversation containing the two men, Downing Street officials, Mr Johnson and Matt Hancock, the then health secretary.
Sir Patrick replied that the “aim is to break contacts between households so the strict answer is that they shouldn’t meet or should bunker down in the same house. But Chris can give the official CMO love advice”.
But Sir Chris said the rules should be relaxed to encourage public compliance.
“I think a bit of realism will be needed,” he said.
“If it’s a regular partner I don’t think people are likely to listen to advice not to see them for 3 weeks or maybe more.
“We could say; if they can avoid seeing one another they should, and if either of them has an older or vulnerable person in the house they must.”
But in a press conference later that day, Dr Jenny Harries, Sir Chris’s deputy, and Mr Hancock said couples should either decide to move in together or remain apart for the duration of lockdown.
“If the two halves of a couple are currently in separate households, ideally they should stay in separate households,” said Dr Harries.
“The alternative might be that, for quite a significant period going forwards, they should test the strength of their relationship and decide whether one wishes to be permanently resident in another household.”
Mr Hancock added: “There you go. Make your choice and stick with it.”
The most high-profile breach of the guidance on couples living separately was by Prof Neil Ferguson, a scientist on the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
He resigned from his post after The Telegraph revealed he had invited his married lover to his home on at least two occasions.
He was reinstated several months later.
The article continues:
The guidance for non-cohabiting couples remained in place for two months, until June 1, when it was strengthened with legislation that meant that anyone breaching them could be prosecuted.
The legal rules banned gatherings of two or more people from different households indoors, although couples were free to meet outside.
The rule became known colloquially as the Government’s “sex ban” …
The ban was lifted for some couples in England on June 13, 11 weeks after it was first imposed, when the Government introduced “support bubbles” to alleviate loneliness and isolation.
The new rules allowed people living alone to “bubble” with another household and stay overnight.
How lockdown became a reality
Never mind the sex ban, ‘The messages that reveal how Britain was plunged into lockdown’ is much more intriguing.
In January 2020, Boris was Prime Minister with an 80-seat majority, and we were in our transition year of fully leaving the EU with remaining negotiations underway. For conservative Britons, the world looked bright.
However, a few weeks before, on December 30, China issued a public health alert after a cluster of patients in Wuhan province had respiratory problems.
Here in the UK:
… ministers and officials were discussing the possibility of the outbreak spreading to Europe and possibly the UK.
As the weeks passed, there was mounting frustration over Downing Street’s reluctance to engage. Number 10 was buoyed by the UK’s recent departure from the EU and did not want Boris Johnson, the then prime minister, making gloomy proclamations about diseases.
On January 23, exactly two months before Boris announced lockdown:
Gina Coladangelo, Mr Hancock’s aide and now his partner … was part of a group chat involving the then health secretary and his special advisers …
She WhatsApped a link to a Daily Mail story about passengers arriving at Heathrow receiving advice to ring the NHS 111 number if they got ill. She asked:
I am assuming PHE [Public Health England] have this already under control…??
Emma Dean, a Spad (special adviser) in the Department of Health replied:
Completely.
That day, a civil servant messaged Hancock’s media Spad Jamie Njoku-Goodwin:
Should I be worried? About this virus
Njoku-Goodwin quipped:
You might want to cancel you [sic] romantic holiday to Wuhan…
On February 8, Coladangelo sent a link to a Sky News story about a Briton being among five people in France with coronavirus. The following day she sent another link about a Briton infected in Mallorca.
Lord Bethell, the then-minister representing the Department of Health and Social Care in the House of Lords, joked:
Mallorca! Damn, there goes the fallback plan.
By the end of the month, Hancock was busy talking with the devolved nations — Wales, Scotland and Northern — about an ‘action plan’.
On February 29, Dominic Cummings tweeted a link to a Mail story about an Israeli vaccine which, according to the paper, was ‘just WEEKS away’. The Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance replied, in part, that it would take:
many months at the very and most optimistic best.
Chris Whitty replied, in part:
For a disease with a low (for the sake of argument 1%) mortality a vaccine has to be very safe so the safety studies can’t be shortcut. So important for the long run.
So they already knew the mortality rate was low. Interesting.
Six minutes later, Vallance replied again:
… existing drugs best things to try for this outbreak. Accelerate vaccine testing where we have good candidates for future, and prepare for manufacturing capacity for longer term.
Existing drugs were never allowed. I would like to see the detail behind that.
On March 1, Boris’s adviser James Slack put forward the press briefing format, which he ran by Dominic Cummings.
That evening, Cummings proposed a Singapore-style response to the virus, because:
My impression is media do not expect china [sic] style response nor do they think it possible …
The following day, James Slack asked for advice on whether people should stop shaking hands, as the subject had come up on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that morning.
Cummings, ever in the zeitgeist, responded:
I’ve stopped!
By March 5:
There were also highly sensitive discussions about what to do if the NHS ran out of staff and beds. If push came to shove, could unqualified volunteers help in intensive care units? Could families be shown how to care for their own sick and dying?
Day by day, the disaster moved closer to home. Terrifying scenes in Italy, where hospitals were overwhelmed by gasping Covid victims and distraught doctors were having to turn away the dying patients were fuelling a sense of impending doom in the UK.
Rumours swirled that Parliament might be forced to close for up to five months. A nervous public was beginning to stay away from restaurants, pubs and theatres – the start of a disastrous hiatus for the hospitality industry.
Warning that insurance would rapidly become a problem, Mr Cummings told Mr Hancock that businesses were “starting to scream” about cancellations. The Department of Health hastily registered Covid as a “notifiable disease”, making it easier for companies to claim compensation.
On March 6:
As people began to panic buy, the Government started talking to supermarkets about how to maintain supplies. Officials wondered whether the Government was being seen to do enough.
On March 7, the Government began thinking about a possible ventilator shortage.
On March 8, Hancock messaged Slack about France:
FYI France has just banned gatherings of over 1000 and said no kissing or handshakes. I imagine we will get some questions over why that’s different to our approach
Slack replied:
I think we’re heading towards general pressure over why our measures are relatively light touch compared to other countries. Also why we aren’t isolating/screening people coming back from Italy. We’ll need to explain very calmly that we’re doing what actually works.
Oh, if they had only left it there, but they didn’t.
On March 9, discussions took place about prioritising life-saving healthcare.
On March 10, the Cheltenham Festival (horse racing) opened and would last through March 13:
The first split was over mass gatherings. In England, Sage continued to advise against cancelling big sporting events. On March 10-13, the Cheltenham Festival went ahead. The Scottish government took a different view. As the pandemic progressed, an increasingly vocal Nicola Sturgeon was a persistent source of anxiety for Number 10 …
Slack sent out a message. Note that the media appear in it:
For the first time, it feels as if we’re under sustained pressure today over why we aren’t doing more. A split with Scotland would be particularly difficult.
We are also in a bad place on Italy. To the media mind, we’re asking UK nationals to self isolate and saying no one should travel to Italy, but Italians arriving in the U.K. are free to ignore our advice, hop on the Tube and visit tourist hotspots.
On March 11, the then-Digital Culture Media Sports Secretary Nadine Dorries was the first MP to get Covid:
Amid speculation over who else she might have infected, Downing Street was being asked whether Mr Johnson was at risk.
Hancock replied, in part:
PM was not in close contact with Nadine. You have to be within 2m of someone to pass it on, which he tells me he was not. CMO content with this
James Slack asked for an answer on the policy about Italy. Hancock responded:
Because of the level of risk in Italy
Hmm.
Patrick Vallance sent a message, the first part of which reads:
Not correct that the test does not work on people with no symptoms. It does and that’s why we contact trace.
Hmm.
Hancock responded to Vallance’s message, in part:
… Patrick what you’ve said is not right.
The clinical advice I’ve had is that the test is NOT reliable on people without symptoms.
I thought so, even at the time.
He ended with this:
Can the scientists please clear this up urgently
The article continues:
Inside Downing Street and the Department of Health, senior figures were fixated by growing calls from the media for more action. Anxious to retain control of the narrative, they fretted that Mr Johnson was being too cautious about imposing restrictions, and discussed how best to change his mind …
Cummings sent a long message reflecting his frustration. At that point, the Government advised frequent and lengthy handwashing. Cummings wanted social distancing measures, citing the new CDC policy in the United States and imagining what the British media and/or the public would say:
*’WHY WAIT 5 DAYS WHY NOT MOVE NOW AND FLATTEN CURVE EARLIER??’*
Slack replied, excerpted:
Agree with all of this. We’re at a tipping point in the media cycle … The Times and The Telegraph leader columns today point to the growing disquiet …
On March 14, the Cheltenham Festival was over. It was blamed for an uptick in cases. Meanwhile:
All over the world, politicians wrestled with the moral and practical implications of letting the virus run its course, allowing populations to build up “herd immunity”.
It was a source of much heated debate in government, but “letting it rip” was never UK Government policy. Mr Hancock was furious when Sir Patrick publicly suggested otherwise …
The article has screenshots of the many WhatsApp conversations that took place about testing, the media and schools.
On the evening of Monday, March 16:
Mr Johnson addressed the nation and warned that, without drastic action, the virus would spiral out of control.
The next day:
The elderly and vulnerable were told to stay at home for 12 weeks. Schools would remain open – but not for long. Ministers rushed through legislation giving the Government unprecedented new power to take control of essential services and restrict individual freedoms. Some hospitals were already beginning to struggle because of staff absence …
On March 19:
As the nation headed inexorably towards its first-ever national lockdown, some voices, notably those in the Treasury including Liam Booth-Smith, the then chancellor Rishi Sunak’s special adviser, were trying to present the alternative argument …
Booth-Smith asked, quite rightly:
… so how much additional benefit does ‘locking down’ actually get you?
Cummings, a lockdown zealot — even though he would violate the policy himself by driving his wife and young child to County Durham — replied:
All stop using lockdown it’s confusing
We’re trying to stop all non essential social contact. The problem is defining non essential
By Friday, March 20, Rishi’s optimistic budget of March 11 had died a death:
Mr Sunak, who had already announced billions of pounds worth of Covid loans and grants, unveiled his furlough scheme, under which the Government undertook to pay 80 per cent of workers’ salaries.
All pubs and hospitality were ordered to close from midnight that night. Then came the problems with personal protective equipment …
On the evening of Monday, March 23, at 8:00 p.m.:
the UK went into full lockdown with Mr Johnson’s order to “stay at home”. It was the first of three national lockdowns [in England, anyway], the last of which would only be lifted more than 12 months after the first had begun.
WhatsApp auto-delete now active
In the wake of The Lockdown Files, The Telegraph reported that some in government were changing their WhatsApp settings: ‘Ministers activating auto-delete on their WhatsApp messages’:
Cabinet ministers are using technology that automatically deletes WhatsApp messages, raising fears they are circumventing the Government’s transparency rules.
Some frontbench figures have switched on a function offered by the social media service that effectively means messages self-destruct after a short time period, such as a day.
It calls into question whether ministers are fully following guidance that electronic messages about government policy should be stored for possible Freedom of Information requests.
Some political advisers have even switched on the technology in the wake of The Lockdown Files, which revealed some of the 100,000 WhatsApp messages involving Matt Hancock.
Opposition MPs called for the practice to be stopped on Tuesday, questioning why government ministers would choose to automatically delete some messages …
Such discussions are theoretically covered by the Government’s existing transparency rules but they rely on ministers deciding which messages are relevant and storing them.
The Cabinet Office has guidance on the use of private emails which also applies to “other forms of communications and records which deal with departmental business”, such as WhatsApp messages.
The guidance reads: “The responsibility for deciding whether emails should be retained rests with the originator and recipient.
“In general terms, a record need only be retained if it is needed for substantive discussions or decisions in the course of conducting official business.”
How many ministers are using the automatic deletion tool on WhatsApp and for how many interactions is unclear.
Similarly it is not known how often ministers pass on WhatsApp messages about detailed policy discussions to the civil service to be stored.
However, the fact that some ministers are using the automatic deletion mechanism has prompted some MPs to raise concerns that not enough information is being stored …
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “In the modern age, ministers will use a variety of communication channels for discussions so appropriate arrangements are in place for the management of electronic communications.”
Who else is among those who have set WhatsApp to auto-delete? None other than Simon Case, as The New Statesman reported on March 17. Their scoop comes from Boris’s sister Rachel Johnson:
Props to Rachel Johnson, the journalist and sister of the former prime minister, Boris. She provided great value for money for attendees of the Society of Editors’ Media Freedom Conference in London on Wednesday, 15 March.
Chairing a panel discussion on the press, politics and police, Johnson provided her audience of journalists with something of a scoop on Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, who has come under pressure over leaked WhatsApp messages that have come to light in the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files. (One message showed Case saying it was “hilarious” that holidaymakers were being “locked up” in quarantine hotels.)
“I had to be in contact with Simon Case about something a month or so ago,” said Johnson. “And when I was WhatsApping him, my WhatsApps disappeared because he’s now set his phone so that all his WhatsApps disappear immediately.” She added: “I think they disappear within hours, even. You know, so there’s no record of all the things he’s said to me.”
(Without wishing to overcomplicate this story, the Chatterer would note as well that, in January, Johnson said Case had questions to answer in the row over whether the BBC chairman Richard Sharp played a role in a loan-guarantee arrangement between Boris Johnson and the former PM’s distant cousin Sam Blyth.)
Who’d a thunk it?
More on The Lockdown Files tomorrow.
Before David Cameron became Prime Minister in May 2010, Conservatives used to encourage marriage and the family.
Very few Conservatives these days speak highly of either institution in or out of Parliament.
Two debates in the House of Commons within a week of each other demonstrate the low regard the Conservative Government has for families.
Education
On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Conservative MP Miriam Cates, who represents Penistone and Stockbridge (a Red Wall constituency), expressed her concern to Rishi Sunak over the adult — not to mention deviant — nature of the sex education curricula offered in schools in England.
The Telegraph reported (emphases mine):
Rishi Sunak has ordered an urgent review of sex education after The Telegraph exposed evidence of the widespread teaching of “age inappropriate” materials in schools.
MPs have welcomed the news, but warned that the review must be independent as the Department for Education (DfE) has produced “confusing” guidance.
This week, nearly 50 Conservative MPs wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to launch an independent inquiry into “age inappropriate” sex education following evidence that graphic sexual content and gender ideology was being widely taught in schools.
The letter, co-ordinated by Miriam Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stockbridge, was signed by Priti Patel, the former home secretary; Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary; and Jonathan Gullis, Andrea Jenkyns, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Kelly Tolhurst, all former Cabinet ministers.
It came after The Telegraph revealed last week that some 13-year-old pupils have been taught there are 100 genders, while in some schools children as young as 12 have been asked how they feel about oral and anal sex.
On Wednesday, Mr Sunak told the Commons that he would now bring forward a review into sex education …
In the Commons, Mrs Cates said: “Graphic lessons on oral sex. How to choke your partner safely, and 72 genders. This is what passes for relationships and sex education in British schools.
“Across the country, children are being subjected to lessons that are age inappropriate, extreme, sexualising and inaccurate, often using resources from unregulated organisations that are actively campaigning to undermine parents.
“This is not a victory for equality. It is a catastrophe for childhood.”
In theory, parents are supposed to be able to see the teachers’ materials for these lessons. However, in reality, some parents have been denied access to them. Others can see only a broad outline of the curriculum, which does not include specific lesson content.
This has been allowed to go on since 2019, with input from sex equality charities and their activists.
One teachers’ union blamed the Government. No surprise there:
James Bowen, the director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said it was hard “ to be anything other than deeply concerned by this announcement”.
“The overwhelming majority of schools are doing nothing more than following the Government’s own statutory guidance when it comes to relationships and sex education,” he said.
“It is worth remembering that the current curriculum was subject to extensive consultation before it was introduced. We have seen no evidence to suggest there is a widespread problem with pupils being presented with age-inappropriate materials and if this were the situation, we would expect it to have been picked up on a case-by-case basis.
“There is a real concern that this is a politically motivated review, rather than one based on the reality of what is happening in the vast majority of schools up and down the country.
“Our appeal to [the] Government is to ensure this review is now handled with the care, sensitivity and impartiality it requires and to listen carefully to the voices of education professionals and pupils.”
Notice that he omits the voice of parents.
Jeremy Hunt’s budget
On Wednesday, March 15, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented his budget. It is rather Blairite in many ways. Most people will find it ‘middle of the road’. Upon closer inspection, there is no plan for growth through tax cuts. Furthermore, corporation tax will rise to 25%. There is much more that one could criticise. Not mentioned in Hunt’s speech is the drastic reduction of capital gains allowance this year and next year.
This is what Hunt had to say about working mothers (see Column 846):
For many women, a career break becomes a career end. Our female participation rate is higher than average for OECD economies, but we trail top performers, such as Denmark and the Netherlands. If we matched Dutch levels of participation, there would be more than 1 million additional women working. And we can do that.
So today I announce a series of reforms that start that journey. I begin with the supply of childcare. We have seen a significant decline in childminders over recent years— down 9% in England in just one year. But childminders are a vital way to deliver affordable and flexible care, and we need more of them. I have listened to representations from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and decided to address this by piloting incentive payments of £600 for childminders who sign up to the profession, rising to £1,200 for those who join through an agency.
I have also heard many concerns about cost pressures facing the sector. We know that is making it hard to hire staff and raising prices for parents, with around two thirds of childcare providers increasing fees last year alone. So we will increase the funding paid to nurseries providing free childcare under the hours offer by £204 million from this September, rising to £288 million next year. That is an average of a 30% increase in the two-year-old rate this year, just as the sector has requested.
I will also offer providers more flexibility in how they operate in line with other parts of the UK. So alongside that additional funding, we will change minimum staff-to-child ratios from 1:4 to 1:5 for two-year-olds in England as happens in Scotland, although the new ratios will remain optional with no obligation on either childminders or parents to adopt them.
I want to help the 700,000 parents on universal credit who, until the reforms I announced today, had limited requirements to look for work. Many remain out of work because they cannot afford the upfront payment necessary to access subsidised childcare. So for any parents who are moving into work or want to increase their hours, we will pay their childcare costs upfront. And we will increase the maximum they can claim to £951 for one child and £1,630 for two children, an increase of almost 50%.
I turn now to parents of school-age children, who often face barriers to working because of the limited availability of wraparound care. One third of primary schools do not offer childcare at both ends of the school day, even though for many people a job requires it to be available before and after school. To address this, we will fund schools and local authorities to increase the supply of wraparound care so that all parents of school-age children can drop their children off between 8 am and 6 pm. Our ambition is that all schools will start to offer a full wraparound offer, either on their own or in partnership with other schools, by September 2026.
Today’s childcare reforms will increase the availability of childcare, reduce costs and increase the number of parents able to use it. Taken together with earlier Conservative reforms, they amount to the most significant improvements to childcare provision in a decade. But if we really want to remove the barriers to work, we need to go further for parents who have a child under 3. For them childcare remains just too expensive.
In 2010, there was barely any free childcare for under-fives. A Conservative-led Government changed that, with free childcare for three and four-year-olds in England. It was a landmark reform, but not a complete one. I do not want any parent with a child under five to be prevented from working if they want to, because it is damaging to our economy and unfair, mainly to women, so today I announce that in eligible households in which all adults are working at least 16 hours, we will introduce 30 hours of free childcare not just for three and four-year-olds, but for every single child over the age of nine months.
The 30 hours offer will now start from the moment maternity or paternity leave ends. It is a package worth on average £6,500 every year for a family with a two-year- old child using 35 hours of childcare every week, and it reduces their childcare costs by nearly 60%. Because it is such a large reform, we will introduce it in stages to ensure that there is enough supply in the market. Working parents of two-year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free care from April 2024, helping about half a million parents. From September 2024, that 15 hours will be extended to all children from nine months up, meaning that a total of nearly 1 million parents will be eligible. From September 2025, every single working parent of under-fives will have access to 30 hours of free childcare per week.
Here, too, Miriam Cates spoke out, saying that Hunt’s plan did not offer parental choice:
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a father of six, had Cates on his show last night:
Guido Fawkes has the story (emphases his):
Miriam Cates has added her name to the list of those criticising the Chancellor’s £4 billion childcare handouts which, as Guido pointed out yesterday, restrict choice. Speaking to an approving Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News, Cates joined a growing list of Conservatives, including Ranil Jayawardena and Kit Malthouse, speaking out against the policy. She got to the heart of the matter:
It doesn’t provide choice… many mothers do want to go back to work, but many mothers don’t. And they want to look after their own children, particularly babies under two and I very much question if this is the right policy for children and families.
At least some in the Conservatives are intent on playing happy families…
I would not have thought that the Centre for Social Justice and a Conservative MP would be natural allies, but the think tank applauded her and showed a video of her testimony at Westminster Hall in a side debate:
Most other European countries lower taxes for parents. I have seen the French advert showing the mother cradling her newborn and advising that she contact her tax office as soon as practicable to let them know she has just had a child. Note that British working class voters would rather provide child care themselves were money not an object:
Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom has spoken several times over the past few years in favour of 1000 Days, a programme that promotes babies’ development in the first three years of life. The CSJ refers to it below and rightly recommends the resurrection of the Marriage Allowance, a Conservative policy that disappeared some years ago:
I fully agree that any tax scheme should discourage abuse from people who are already receiving benefit, but encouraging more mothers to stay at home in those precious early years at least would effectively ward off influences from outside the home:
Guido Fawkes also supports the aforementioned French policy of tax relief:
Guido says that his wife decided to give up work to care for their children:
Other mothers agreed:
Guido has a post on the French policy and on Conservative MPs who support a family-friendly policy for parents:
Guido would suggest borrowing from our esteemed European neighbours. As Madeline Grant points out, in France, parents of two children only hit the top tax bracket when household income reaches €250,000, while the childless hit it at under €100,000. French family taxation is based on the number of adults and children within the household, rather than on the parents individually. Policy Exchange say that “at an annual income of £30,000, a UK household currently pays £3,250 in tax with an actual tax rate (ATR) of 11%. Under the French principle of quotient familial, that same household would pay no tax (an ATR of 0%)”. Making babies tax deductible is a sexy policy.
If a UK household earns £70,000, they currently pay £15,500 in annual tax with an ATR of 22%. Applying the French principle would save the same family £9,000. Even in the US, Obama gave parents a $1,000 tax break per child in 2010. This would also benefit stay-at-home mums (or dads) who choose to look after their own children rather than to farm them out to strangers in order to boost GDP. Childcare policy in the UK is framed in terms of what is good for the economy rather than what is good for children and family life. Tax deductible children would please the squeezed middle-classes during tough economic times… who knows they might even vote for a party that puts it in the manifesto.
Kit Malthouse, a former Cabinet member:
had an article in The Times on same theme this morning:
If we are serious about supporting people to have children and get back into work, a major childcare overhaul is clearly the right place to start. Here is how we start.
We need to begin with the tax system. I have often wondered why we recognise children in the welfare system but not through our taxes. In that sense, they’re treated like a burden that needs offsetting rather than a cause for celebration and an economic bonus. To fix that, we could abolish child benefit and simply gave parents a tax-free income allowance of, say, £15,000 per child up to 11 years old. If you are a couple on £30,000 each with two children, for instance, this would mean that with your existing personal allowance, you could jointly earn £55,140 before you paid a penny to the government …
So rather than collecting money from families in taxation, losing some of it in administration and then returning it to them as childcare, we could simply leave more of it in their pockets to do with as they see fit.
Another Conservative, Ranil Jaywardena, spoke out in favour of a flexible taxation system for families:
He said (see Column 783):
… I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to helping families with the cost of childcare specifically. It is a great starter for 10. Finding ways to keep down the cost of childcare for parents is important, but we must not lose sight of keeping down the cost of childcare for the taxpayer too. It is extraordinary to see some on the Opposition Benches and elsewhere attack the alignment of the system in England with the system in Scotland, increasing the ratio from 1:4 to 1:5, but what is missing is choice. For 25 years, the consensus has been that everyone should go to work, and the state will provide ever more free childcare, except that it is not free—taxes are at a 70-year high—and I contend that choice is missing from the equation.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all system from Whitehall, families should be able to decide what works for them. Instead of the Government dictating how many hours of free childcare and from who in the years ahead, how about moving to a system of tax reliefs, so that parents can pay for the childcare they want, and from whom they want? Indeed—a radical thought—one parent could even choose to stay at home, allowing the other to work extra hours, if that is what they want to do.
I therefore urge the Treasury to consider reigniting the review into family taxation. Things may have changed since 2019, but I recall that in 2019 single people without a family paid 8% less tax than the OECD average, but a single-earner couple, with two children, paid 26% more. There is an injustice in this that I hope the Government will address in the not-too-distant future by commissioning a family tax review.
That tax review should reflect the fact that familial support not only for childcare but for elderly relatives provides about £1 trillion of unpaid care in this country, which people could decide to pass to the state. I do not believe that is desirable, and I believe that the state should in turn provide the environment that allows people to take responsibility for themselves.
On wraparound childcare, this is an excellent step to help working parents and for them not to have to worry about what happens after school time, but I urge the Government to ensure that we give that money directly to schools and academies to do what is right, providing a co-curricular offer that is suitable for their particular community and their children, who they know best, rather than any Government Department, or indeed any local authority.
We cannot pay for any of this without strong British businesses, and I welcome the full expensing of the business investment …
Is there any chance that Jeremy Hunt will listen to these sensible suggestions?
I doubt it. They are not statist enough for him or most Conservative MPs, sadly.
Interestingly, as I close this post on Thursday afternoon, Conservative MP George Eustice, another former Cabinet member, is on the side of his colleagues quoted above. Eustice said in Parliament this afternoon that our society no longer values motherhood and considers the term ‘stay-at-home mother’ to be derogatory.
How right he is.
As for David Cameron, Eustice said in his speech that the former Prime Minister was the greatest supporter of marriage and family ever but that ‘bean counters in the Treasury ground him down’ over tax relief.
There must be some way to discourage more welfare claims for motherhood and a way to encourage two-parent families and marriage tax allowances.
It is an interesting coincidence that family policies are being debated just days before Mothering Sunday, March 19.
Over the past several days, I have been digesting The Telegraph‘s series about the pandemic, The Lockdown Files.
Readers who missed them can catch up on my posts here, here, here, here and here. That last post, from March 8, 2023, discusses then-Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock’s desire to ‘frighten the pants off people’ with the Kent variant at the end of 2020. Top civil servant Simon Case agreed that behavioural change using fear and guilt was paramount. Masks, as many Covid sceptics suggested at the time, were the most visible means of compliance — or submission — to Government diktats.
Top oncologist reacts
On Thursday, March 9, The Telegraph published a post from the UK’s top oncologist, Prof Karl Sikora: ‘Lockdown supporters called me a killer — they should be disgusted with themselves’ (emphases mine below):
Opposing the relentless raft of lockdown policies was a lonely and, at times, extremely unpleasant experience. Those of us who voiced concerns about effectively closing down a country were labelled as far-Right extremists who were happy to see millions perish to the disease. It was a disgrace, legitimised by low-grade politicians such as Matt Hancock who were far too interested in advancing their own public image. Thousands succumbed to the destructive, and often pointless, lockdown measures they pushed at every opportunity.
There will be no apologies from the baying lockdown mob – the damage has been done, the debate has mostly moved on and the inquiry may well become a total whitewash. The Telegraph’s lockdown files have done a great service in partially halting that march.
… Many of those voices are now totally silent on the thousands and thousands of non-Covid excess deaths related to lockdown delays and backlogs. I have no regrets in my opposition to a variety of lockdown policies and the language I used throughout the pandemic – I wonder if they can say the same?
We now know for sure that some decisions taken were based in PR and politics, rather than science and sense. When the Health Secretary is talking about “frightening the pants off everyone” with a new strain, those of us who voiced scepticism at the time about the language used can feel vindicated …
I’m desperate for a Covid inquiry whitewash to be avoided for one simple reason: this cannot be allowed to happen again. If we don’t at least ask the questions, when another pandemic, or the threat of one, comes around, lockdown cannot be the go-to option. The advisers who made the past recommendations cannot be used ever again.
… Routine healthcare for non-Covid conditions was effectively shut down to millions for months on end, and now we have thousands and thousands of non-Covid excess deaths. What did they think would happen, honestly?
My lockdown inbox was overflowing with desperate cancer patients whose treatment had been indefinitely postponed. I remember one case of a mother who had her chemotherapy cancelled, leading to her tragic death leaving behind three young children and a loving husband. And it’s not just cancer: cardiac issues untreated, blood pressure out of control, strokes uncared for, other preventative measures forgotten and of course soaring obesity. The post-lockdown crisis is across all aspects of healthcare, physical and mental. That is for those lucky enough to receive any medical support or diagnosis at all. Others were told to stay home and that’s exactly what they did – dying there without the care they needed and deserved.
To those of you who took a brave stand speaking out against various restrictions and policies – from me, a sincere thank you. We comprehensively lost the argument in the court of public opinion, but hopefully a small difference was made. I suspect the national mood may have significantly shifted over the last week. Sunlight is the best disinfectant after all, and spring is on the way.
That same day, Helia Ebrahimi, who had a mastectomy in 2022, told her story to the paper: ‘They said I’d lose a breast and maybe my life — but the NHS made me wait four months’:
In the UK, more than 5,500 women are diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma every year. But often their diagnoses are late. Sometimes too late. When it became clear how progressed my cancer was, my surgeon wanted to start treatment immediately. I was at The Royal Marsden in London, a standard bearer in cancer care that also benefits from charity funding. But even at the Marsden, the pressures on the NHS are inescapable. Especially last year, when the country was reeling from a Covid backlog and 327,000 people were on the cancer waiting list in England alone, with 34,000 people failing to get treatment within the Government target of 62 days – the worst backlog on record. Almost 10,000 people were still not receiving treatment within 104 days …
Ultimately, my husband and I decided we couldn’t wait, so I used my work health insurance scheme to cover most of the cost. My surgeon from the Marsden still performed the operation but at a private hospital, with theatre space.
An article about the waiting list times also appeared in The Telegraph that day, ‘Nearly half of cancer patients waiting too long for treatment, the worst on record’:
More than 7,000 patients did not receive their first treatment within 62 days following an urgent GP referral, official figures for January show.
Only 54.4 per cent of patients with an urgent referral were seen within the target time, against a benchmark of 85 per cent – the lowest on records dating back to 2009 …
It comes after NHS bosses admitted this week cancer recovery targets are likely to be pushed back another year to March 2024.
The article has more statistics.
It is interesting that there is no mention of the pandemic or the lockdown of the NHS to patients such as these. Equally interesting is Prof Stephen Powis’s response. Powis was also an adviser on pandemic policy:
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said there had been “no let-up” of pressures, with staff facing “significant levels of respiratory illness in hospital, which came at the same time as disruption from industrial action”.
“Despite this, staff continued to deliver for patients, bringing down elective waits, treating more cancer patients and delivering more diagnostic tests for people than ever before,” he said.
Instead, he points to possible upcoming strikes by junior doctors:
He added: “The NHS will not stop in its efforts to bring down 18 month waits for elective care and bring down the cancer backlog, but it is inevitable that if the upcoming junior doctors strikes happen they will have a significant impact on cancer care and routine operations that were scheduled to happen.
“As ever, we will do all we can to limit the impact to patients.”
Early 2020: Persuading MPs through messaging
Going back to the start of 2020, chief Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock thought that Boris Johnson’s 2019 campaign director could get ‘hawkish’ Cabinet members on board with the pandemic measures. A full lockdown began on March 23, 2020.
On March 2, 2023, The Telegraph explains how the two did it in ‘Dominic Cummings deployed election mastermind to reassure Cabinet hawks of public support for lockdown’:
they set up a meeting between Cabinet ministers and Isaac Levido in April 2020.
Mr Levido, an Australian political strategist and protegee of the former Tory aide Sir Lynton Crosby, was recruited to Downing Street in March 2020 to improve the Government’s Covid messaging.
He is credited with masterminding Mr Johnson’s 2019 election victory three months earlier and is a close ally of Mr Cummings.
In a conversation between Mr Hancock and Mr Cummings on April 23 exactly one month after the imposition of the first lockdown, the former health secretary said his Cabinet colleagues should be told that more than half of voters either supported lockdown measures or thought they should be strengthened.
At that point, if we look at Boris’s words from March, the two or three weeks ‘to flatten the sombrero’ would have meant that a lifting of lockdown was in sight. Not so. England remained in lockdown until July 4 that year, with a gradual loosening in between for construction workers and, in June, schools.
Not surprisingly, in April, some Cabinet members were ready to lift lockdown, for obvious reasons:
… the conversation took place as some ministers were beginning to make the case, often in anonymous briefings to newspapers, that keeping lockdown measures in place for too long would have serious consequences for the economy and society.
It was unclear what polling Hancock was using. In addition, Isaac Levido stayed on board only for a few months before pursuing his own interests:
It is unclear which polling Mr Hancock was referring to in his messages to Mr Cummings, but research from a Cambridge University team led by Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter in April 2020 showed 87 per cent of the public did believe lockdown should remain in place for at least another three weeks.
Mr Levido left Downing Street in July 2020 and founded Fleetwood Strategy, a public relations firm. He was later brought back into Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) as a strategist during Nadhim Zahawi’s tenure as chairman.
By late April, Mr Hancock had recently announced a testing capacity target of 100,000 swabs a day, and been criticised by Downing Street sources for an “irrational” and “arbitrary” approach to the pandemic.
“Hancock’s not had a good crisis,” one No10 source told The Telegraph at the time.
“The prime minister will say he has confidence in him, but it doesn’t feel like that.”
At this point, Boris was out of hospital recovering from his near-fatal bout of the virus. According to a WhatsApp message from Cummings shown in the article, he allegedly urged harmony:
“FYI Boris called a few people tonight to say — all these attacks [on] Matt, I want us to stick up for him etc,” he said.
Cummings’s approach to policy was similar to Hancock’s:
On June 1, the day schools began to reopen from the first lockdown, he suggested enforcing mask-wearing on trains and buses.
“I think we shd make it legally compulsory to wear mask on public transport (with only eg small child/disabled etc exception). It’s free, buys us some R, no real downside,” he said.
Lee Cain, the Downing Street director of communications, replied: “We need to bottom out enforcement etc – if we are doing it PM can drop it on Wednesday.”
The policy was announced three days later, and came into force on June 15.
How libertarian Boris became lockdown ‘zealot’
On March 4, The Telegraph published ‘How Boris Johnson veered from lockdown sceptic to zealot’.
The article explains how Cummings began to refer to the then-Prime Minister as ‘the trolley’. In other words, like a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel, he careered all over the place with decision-making during the pandemic:
New evidence suggests Mr Cummings was at least partially right. In WhatsApp conversations with ministers and officials, Mr Johnson veered between lockdown sceptic and lockdown zealot, as he reacted to the ever-changing data and advice.
The former prime minister would sometimes introduce an idea, only to abandon his stance even when others agreed with him.
Mr Johnson’s biggest internal conflict came over the three national lockdowns that were controversially imposed in 2020 and 2021.
A libertarian by nature, Mr Johnson repeatedly changed his mind over forcing people to stay at home depending on who he had been talking to …
In July 2020, Mr Johnson described the idea of a second lockdown as the “nuclear option”. In Oct 2020, he described the idea as “the height of absurdity”.
Yet in June 2020, when the country was still in the grip of the first national lockdown, Mr Johnson’s attitude seemed to be different …
He has always denied that his brush with death changed his mind on government policy.
The article includes screenshots of WhatsApp exchanges during that time.
Later in 2020, Matt Hancock began to find Boris’s vacillating exasperating:
At the end of Oct 2020, the then prime minister was wrestling with the decision of whether or not to put the country into lockdown for a second time.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Oct 21, in response to a question from Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, Mr Johnson described a second lockdown as “the height of absurdity”.
And on Oct 30, Mr Hancock was messaging Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, expressing exasperation that Mr Johnson appeared even more reluctant than Rishi Sunak, the then chancellor, to take tough measures.
Less than a week later, Mr Johnson introduced a second lockdown, saying: “Now is the time to take action, as there is no other choice.”
It was claimed at the time that he had been “bounced” into announcing the lockdown after Michael Gove, the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was accused of leaking plans for the lockdown to the media before Mr Johnson had made up his mind.
England entered a third semi-lockdown on Monday, January 4, 2021. Pupils had returned to school that day only to be told by the end of it that schools were closed for the forseeable future.
Hospitality venues, having lost out on Christmas 2020 bookings, were also severely affected during that time. Some never recovered.
Nor, indeed, had a significant number of schoolchildren. Mental health problems exploded during and after lockdown.
Schoolchild kills himself
On March 4, Isabel Oakeshott, to whom Hancock gave 100,000 WhatsApp messages which form the basis of The Lockdown Files, told us about a tragic case of suicide in ‘The dreadful consequences of Matt Hancock’s lockdown scare tactics’:
While Matt Hancock breezily discussed how to “frighten the pants off everyone” with a new strain, a boy called Mark was listening to the drumbeat towards another national lockdown grow louder in deepening despair.
It was December 2020, and the 15-year-old’s life had already been turned upside down by the pandemic.
A few months earlier, his mother Anna Marie had decided that they should move house because they couldn’t even go to the local park during the first lockdown.
She describes how over-zealous council officials had shut the playground, leaving her struggling to cope with Mark’s little brother, a hyperactive five-year-old …
Now, the family was in a better place in the North East, but Anna Marie had been unable to get Mark into a new school.
With “home schooling” now an easy default, education authorities shrugged that he could just study for his GCSEs online.
Unable to play football during the first lockdown, he started putting on weight. When other children returned to school that autumn, he became increasingly isolated – and frightened.
As Mr Hancock and his acolytes plotted to use a new strain of coronavirus to terrify the population, that fear descended into paranoia. Mark became so scared of the virus that he would not even open his bedroom window.
“His nails were bitten to the bone. He was literally frightened of the air. He wore a mask everywhere,” his mother says …
“We tried to keep the TV off, but we were being bombarded,” she says, of the prophecies of doom relentlessly pumped out by an acquiescing media.
“Mark knew we were going into another lockdown. The fear was the thing that affected him most. He was disconnected; distant. I didn’t know what to do.”
In December 2021:
Almost exactly a year later, when most of the population had been vaccinated against Covid but the Omicron variant prompted yet another fear campaign, he told his mother he was popping out to the shops – and never returned.
His body was found by dog walkers three days later, hanging from a tree.
Though he had never talked of taking his own life, his family had been prepared for the worst, after discovering that he had searched the internet for how to tie a noose …
An intelligent child, Mark had hoped to study computer science when he left school. Instead, his education came to a juddering halt …
After the harrowing discovery on Christmas Eve, Mark was cremated. His mother and siblings took his ashes to Seaton Carew Beach near Hartlepool, a place Mark loved. They scattered the ashes over the sand dunes.
“He went off on the wind,” Anna Marie says quietly.
Let not the lessons from this tragedy also blow away on the breeze.
“Frightening the pants off people” had truly dreadful consequences.
Oakeshott expresses thoughts I have had since March 2020 about Britons who had houses with gardens versus those who were trapped in flats along with our notional betters who were at the helm of this tragic decision-making:
Those responsible for “Project Fear” had no idea about the lives of people like Anna Marie and her children.
In their spacious houses, in leafy parts of London, with access to all the luxuries that made lockdowns quite tolerable for the better off, their own families were doing fine.
Hancock and his advisers were caught up in their own sense of heroism.
Mr Hancock and his advisers did not even try to imagine how the tactics they were gleefully discussing to achieve “proper behaviour change” would affect the most vulnerable in society.
Heady on the unprecedented power they had seized to control all our lives, they were caught up in the excitement of managing the day-to-day crisis and their own sense of heroism at their leading roles in the drama.
They were completely removed from the reality of lockdowns for those at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum.
Judging from the total absence of any discussion about collateral damage in their WhatsApp messages, they had zero interest in hearing about it either …
Is Simon Case pondering his future?
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who is also the head of the Civil Service, has come under criticism for his WhatsApp messages revealed in The Lockdown Files.
Case’s messages show that he that he thought quarantining holidaymakers ‘hilarious’. He also thought that fear and guilt were appropriate tools to get the British public to comply with pandemic policies.
Conservative MPs were unhappy with what they had read in The Telegraph. On Saturday, March 4, the paper published ‘Tories accuse Simon Case of left-wing bias over Covid rules’:
Britain’s top civil servant has been accused of left-wing bias by senior Tories after he dismissed concerns about Covid rules as “pure Conservative ideology”.
Simon Case is facing questions over his political impartiality and conduct during the pandemic, following the emergence of leaked WhatsApp messages obtained by The Telegraph.
On Saturday Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, was forced to declare that Mr Case, who is Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, retained his “confidence”.
Mr Case’s comment that Sir Alok Sharma, the then business secretary, opposed compelling hospitality venues to keep customers’ details because of “pure Conservative ideology”, have led to claims that he overstepped the mark of Civil Service impartiality.
At the time, Mr Case was the Downing Street permanent secretary in charge of the Civil Service response to Covid.
At various points during the pandemic, he appeared to side with Matt Hancock against other Cabinet ministers, including Mr Sunak, the then chancellor, who on one occasion he described as “going bonkers” over a policy that hospitality venues should keep customers’ details for contact-tracing purposes. Mr Case added that Sir Alok would be “mad” to oppose it.
Elsewhere, the leaked messages show that he joked about passengers being “locked up” in “shoe box” rooms in quarantine hotels.
The criticism of Mr Case comes at a time when the Civil Service is facing increased scrutiny over its impartiality, after the decision of top mandarin Sue Gray to quit Whitehall and accept a job as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
Esther McVey, a former Cabinet minister, led the criticism of Mr Case’s conduct, saying: “This is the highest civil servant in the land letting the cat out of the bag by suggesting that one of the most centrist of Conservative MPs was pursuing ‘pure Conservative ideology’ simply for questioning some of the lockdown rules.
“Leaving aside the fact that this is a Conservative government and so what would he expect from its ministers, if Mr Case thinks Alok Sharma was pursuing such a hard-line Conservative ideology it can only mean that he is yet another senior civil servant on the left wing of British politics.”
She was joined by fellow former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg who said the messages revealed that there was a desire from Mr Hancock and Whitehall officials to “lock us down and keep us locked down”.
“They seem to have enjoyed taking control of people’s lives,” he said, adding that the messages between Mr Case and Mr Hancock show that “they criticised the Chancellor and anyone who is not in favour [of stricter measures], then they tried to marginalise them” …
A third former Cabinet minister said Mr Case’s language is “inappropriate”, adding that civil servants are “not there to make judgement on people’s motivations. It just undermines people who are democratically elected. They are meant to be impartial, professional and objective”.
And a fourth said: “Sue Gray is clearly not the only party political civil servant who doesn’t like the Conservatives. She confirmed what many people thought – that the Civil Service is hostile to the Tory party. And this [Simon Case’s messages] just underlines it.”
However, civil servants also objected to what they have read about Case. One spoke to The Telegraph:
Jill Rutter, former Treasury mandarin, said she was surprised by the “casual callousness” of Mr Case’s remarks.
“The interesting thing is who does Case think he is working for?” she said. “Does he think he is there as a neutral broker to get all the ministers to a view they can accept? Or does he know what the PM wants and is helping him to achieve that outcome? Or is he just trying to achieve Matt Hancock’s objectives?” …
Case’s remarks were one of the more surprising revelations from The Lockdown Files:
The Lockdown Files piled further pressure on Mr Case after a string of difficult news stories.
He faced questions over his apparent role in clearing a controversial £800,000 loan facility for Boris Johnson when he was prime minister and he was also criticised over the partygate affair.
In one exchange with Hancock, Case seemed to doubt Boris Johnson’s honesty:
In another, from October 30, 2020, Case intimated that Boris — his boss — was seen to be untrustworthy:
By Monday, March 6, 2023, despite Rishi’s expressed confidence in him, Cabinet ministers were calling for Case’s departure for his ‘level of indiscretion’. The Times had the story:
That day, The Financial Times had a story about Case on its front page, purporting that he was eyeing an ‘early exit’:
“I can’t see how Simon Case survives this, especially if there are more messages of his directly slagging off other ministers,” one senior Conservative backbencher told the Financial Times.
While friends of the cabinet secretary say that he has continued to receive support from his colleagues, he is also said to be “fed up”.
Among Case’s fellow officials, there is particular concern about his handling of “partygate”, which centred on rule-breaking in Downing Street and Whitehall during Covid restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
One senior official said: “Simon didn’t stand up for his own people over partygate,” adding that junior staff were issued with fines for attending events happening on his watch.
Case has also drawn scrutiny for his knowledge of Johnson’s personal financial relationship with the chair of the BBC and for the government’s response to bullying allegations against Dominic Raab, the justice secretary.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesman declined to comment on the WhatsApp messages. Downing Street said: “The cabinet secretary has the confidence of the prime minister and that has not changed.”
An ally of Case said that they contained “casual language being used in a casual setting . . . There are a lot of Conservatives who dislike the civil service, but who can name only one civil servant.” Another ally of Case said that his “original sin was being young and talented and promoted to that job before he was grey”.
Another issue upsetting officials was the removal of Tom Scholar, the former permanent secretary of the Treasury, by Kwasi Kwarteng, who briefly served as chancellor in Liz Truss’s shortlived government. This was regarded as inappropriate over-reach by ministers. Case, however, is known to be wounded by the implication that he failed to support Scholar.
And yet:
A Cabinet Office insider said they considered a departure this year very unlikely.
Another senior official said: “The charge sheet is now so long against him, the only interpretation can be that the PM probably doesn’t want to get rid of him.”
However, The Financial Times had pointed the finger at Case on January 31 this year in ‘Simon Case: can the head of Britain’s civil service survive?’
Although he is a career civil servant, Case took a break to work for Prince William. The Prince highly recommended him to Downing Street when Boris became Prime Minister.
It seems as if Case picked up courtier-type habits:
One serving senior official said: “He operates as a courtier. His writ doesn’t run across Whitehall. He doesn’t seem to be in key meetings with the prime minister.” Another former permanent secretary in a major department said: “I don’t think he has any credibility left and really he should go.”
That said, he has his supporters:
… Case’s supporters insist that he is determined to uphold standards and that he retains the confidence of Rishi Sunak, the prime minister. They also argue that he has given the “best possible advice” and point out his job was not always easy during the chaotic premierships of Johnson and Liz Truss.
In the last days of Truss’s crumbling 44-day administration, he advised her to reverse parts of her disastrous “mini” Budget to stave off economic disaster, according to Downing Street insiders. They say he was also instrumental in coordinating with Buckingham Palace over arrangements for the Queen’s funeral.
Case’s supporters add that he hoped to serve at Sunak’s right hand until at least the next election, expected in late 2024. “Cabinet secretaries tend to change after an election,” said one.
Case became cabinet secretary and head of the civil service in September 2020 when Johnson sacked his predecessor, Sir Mark Sedwill, after only two years in the post.
Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, was instrumental in bringing Case in. At the age of 41 he had held a range of roles in Whitehall and had been Prince William’s private secretary.
A series of scandals engulfed Johnson’s premiership, ranging from the financing of his flat refurbishment and the partygate scandal over Covid-19 lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street, to the appointments of Zahawi and Sharp, which reverberate today. Case, as the prime minister’s most senior adviser, is inevitably in the line of fire.
The article goes on to enumerate the scandals.
Apparently, morale among civil servants began declining in 2022:
Case recognised the problem of falling morale last month in a memo to civil servants, saying that results from a staff survey were “heading in the wrong direction and show that you feel things have become worse”.
Returning to March 6, The Telegraph published ‘Simon Case branded “naive” by top civil servants over “embarassing” WhatsApp remarks’:
Simon Case’s WhatsApp messages, exposed by the Lockdown Files, reveal a “naivety” and “inexperience” that has damaged his reputation, current and former senior civil servants have said …
One former permanent secretary told The Telegraph that the messages showed “a certain naivety and to be honest inexperience”, adding: “It will hurt his reputation.”
The source said: “You should be a bit above the fray [as Cabinet Secretary]. I don’t know why he engaged in those sorts of exchanges. He didn’t need to.”
A former civil servant who advised prime ministers during a decades long career in Whitehall is understood to have found the exchanges highly unusual in their political nature.
The concerns also stretch into the senior echelons of the current civil service, with some insiders noting the pronounced difference in tone of Mr Case’s messages to senior scientific advisers such as Prof Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.
A senior Whitehall source told this newspaper of the Case messages: “They are really embarrassing. It is absolutely cringe-worthy. The things he was saying, the way he was saying them, the awful embarrassing chumminess of them all.”
Mr Case and the Cabinet Office have not responded directly to the contents of the leaked messages sent by Mr Case …
Mr Case became the youngest ever Cabinet Secretary when he was appointed to the role in September 2020 under Boris Johnson.
He had never headed up a government department as a permanent secretary before taking up the position, breaking with the experience of many of his predecessors.
Mr Case is onto his third prime minister, having served as Cabinet Secretary to Mr Johnson, Liz Truss and now Mr Sunak.
Fraser Nelson, The Spectator‘s editor who also writes for The Telegraph, made some excellent points in ‘Simon Case must take his share of the blame for chaotic lockdown decision-making’:
When Simon Case was made the youngest-ever Cabinet Secretary, Matt Hancock sent a message congratulating him.
“I think 41 is a good age to be in these very big jobs,” said the 41-year-old health secretary. By this time, both were wielding incredible power, overseeing the biggest suspension of civil liberties in peacetime.
The members of the “top team” WhatsApp group had started to see lockdown as a political campaign – with enemies to be identified, mocked and destabilised. The only person in the group in a position to lower the political temperature and insist upon sound government was Simon Case.
But The Lockdown Files show that, time and time again, he ended up as political as the politicians – in some cases, even more so. Some of the most outrageous comments on the files are his.
Like others, he started off quite moderate. But before too long he was revelling in the power to lock people up (saying he wished he could see “some of the faces of people coming out of first class and into a Premier Inn shoe box”) and being just as gung-ho as the ministers he worked with. The civil servant became indistinguishable from the politicians …
His predecessor, Mark Sedwill, had clashed with Dominic Cummings about reshaping the Civil Service. Case, a former principal private secretary to David Cameron, had by then left the civil service and was working for Prince William.
He was called back to Whitehall to run the Government in a new, more buccaneering way: first in Number 10 and then running the whole show as Cabinet Secretary. There seemed to be an unspoken deal: Case would be given unprecedented power at a young age. In return, he’d be more likely than his predecessor to go with the political flow …
We know what other permanent secretaries might have done because they’ve made it public. Gus O’Donnell, who ran the Civil Service from 2005 to 2011, has pointed out the biggest architectural flaw.
Sage had far too much power, he says, and its reports should have been fed into a higher committee that would have made the decisions – not just on Covid, but factoring in economic and social damage. In other words, there would have been a cost-benefit analysis: a basic tool for public health interventions.
In The Lockdown Files, we see the prime minister appallingly served and briefed. Almost suspiciously so. At one stage, he is so in the dark about Covid’s fatality rate that he misinterprets a figure by a factor of one hundred – thinking it’s 0.04 per cent, not four per cent. It’s easy to mock a Classics graduate for numeracy issues, but it raises another question.
He had Simon Case by his side: so why did Case not make sure the PM had all of these basic facts to hand? Or had Case, like Cummings, come to regard his boss as a “wonky shopping trolley” to be steered, rather than served? And if so, steered at whose direction? …
Simon Case could at least have addressed the abysmal state of Sage reports: opaque, confusing and – as it turned out in the omicron wave – staggeringly wrong. By then, JP Morgan ended up giving its clients far better Covid analysis than ministers were given by the UK Government, and these ministers (including Rishi Sunak) ended up phoning around contacts to find non-government (ergo, trustworthy) advice. Case presided over this shambles …
Prime ministers run the civil service, and they are ultimately responsible for any dysfunction. But Case should not have taken sides during the lockdown wars. He ought to have been on the side of basic government standards, of cost-benefit analyses and informed, properly-communicated decisions.
The Lockdown Files show that Britain ended up with a standard of decision-making far below what could or should have been. And for that, Case deserves his full share of the blame.
I will have a few more articles about Simon Case to share next week. Along with that comes political infighting over pandemic policy.
Fraser Nelson is right. This was an absolute shambles.
Karol Sikora is also right. This must never happen again.
On Wednesday, March 8, I went out for a leisurely lunch.
I thought I could avoid the parliamentary debate, which inevitably becomes party political. As it did … on Thursday afternoon, while I was preparing dinner.
Looking back at Wednesday, Guido Fawkes’s Christian Calgie gallantly wished British women a happy day. Pictured are all the British political parties that, at one time or another, have had an elected female leader. All, that is, except for — wait for it — Labour:
Guido’s post says (emphases his):
On today’s International Women’s Day, Guido thought it was time to celebrate the first female leaders of significant political parties in the UK. The timeline of trailblazers is:
-
- Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, 1975
- Green Party, Jean Lambert, 1992
- Welsh Nationalists, Leanne Wood, 2012
- Scottish Nationalists, Nicola Sturgeon, 2014
- Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, 2015
- UKIP, Diane James, 2016
- Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, 2019
- [Labour Party, NA, NA]
Unless Sir Keir has a big announcement to make, sadly the Labour Party can’t yet properly participate in this list…
Guido and his team reinforced the message about Labour’s lack of elected lady leaders:
A Labour group later tweeted about diversity on this day. Look closely at the photos. What do you see?
A cross-dressing career comedian who hopes to be a Labour candidate in the next election is pictured in the second row from the bottom, second photo from the right. His name is Eddie Izzard. This week, he declared that he would like to be known as Suzy.
Labour make themselves out to be the progressive choice. Yet, one of their MPs, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, did a bit of mansplaining to a doctor on the BBC’s Politics Live about the importance of using gender-neutral language when describing medical conditions that women have. Recently, he tried to intimidate a female Conservative MP during a debate in the Commons:
The Shadow Health Minister, Labour’s Wes Streeting, has form when it comes to names for women:
Perhaps he has since repented. After all, the tweets Guido captured (more here) are well over 10 years old.
Before marking the next general election ballot for Labour, British women might want to imagine themselves in a hospital bed and having Mr Streeting visit their bedside as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in a few years’ time. What would he call them: ‘old bag’, ‘cow’ or ‘tart’?
Elsewhere, a Conservative MP, Theresa Villiers, appeared on GB News and sent Guido a photo of the channel’s gender-neutral loos:
Guido tells us that GB News has nothing to do with the loos. They come with the building:
Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers was on GB News and sent Guido this picture of the gender-neutral toilets at their Paddington studio – she was most disconcerted to find men coming in whilst she was touching-up her make-up. Opining that “This doesn’t seem entirely consistent with their apparent enthusiasm for fighting culture wars” …
The private sector seems to be solving the fellas-in-frocks in the same washroom as teenage girls problem with single cubicle washrooms. It is obviously more expensive to build single-person washrooms, the higher costs are less controversial than the alternative. Expect to see more of these in the future…
Returning to Labour, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves gave the Evening Standard an incredible piece of misinformation on Wednesday:
Ms Reeves began her career at the Bank of England, where the court of directors has 13 men and just three women …
“I want it to change,” Ms Reeves told the Standard.
“I have worked at some of those institutions. The Bank has never had a female governor. There has never been a woman chancellor in 800 years. I want to see change.
“When I started at the Bank of England my graduate intake was 37 and only six of us women.”
Ms Reeves began at the Bank 23 years ago, in the same graduate intake as former Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
She’s right, but she’s also very wrong. An MP should know better.
I read that article on the train home from lunch yesterday and nearly went ballistic.
Here’s why.
Every now and then, a photographer manages to get the part of the door to No. 10 on which there is a brass plate above the doorknob that reads:
FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY
Perhaps Ms Reeves needs to look at more photos of that famous door.
The First Lord of the Treasury is a title that the Prime Minister holds.
To whom does the Chancellor report? The Prime Minister.
We have had three female First Lords of the Treasury — thanks to the Conservatives. They are Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss. The inscription is just above the letterbox slot:
That’s three more female Party leaders and Prime Ministers than Labour have had.
The UK is doing well as far as women in leadership positions go. Well done, Conservatives.
My post from last Friday (which includes links to previous ones) was about The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files discussed Boris’s sister’s negative memories of lockdown, the quarantining of holidaymakers, harsh policing, the monitoring of Nigel Farage’s (and Piers Morgan’s) social media and how No. 10 ignored the Oxford physician Prof Carl Heneghan, who pointed out that the Government data were three weeks out of date.
The Spectator‘s Chairman, veteran journalist Andrew Neil, who also writes for the Mail and has a programme on Channel 4, was empathetic towards Prof Heneghan, and rightly so. However, it is important to remember that Neil spent much of the pandemic at his home in the south of France. France’s lockdown was worse than the UK’s: for the first few months of lockdown, you had to have an official note downloaded from a government website just to leave the house for a baguette.
Some of that severity must have rubbed off on Neil, because when the vaccines came out, he wrote that the UK’s 5 million ‘vaccine refuseniks’ must be punished by having their freedoms restricted. Therefore, Andrew Neil can support Prof Heneghan all he likes — in hindsight, by the way — but he must remember his own part in the pandemic:
On another topic, the 100,000 WhatsApp messages that The Telegraph has from Isabel Oakeshott via Matt Hancock were making journalists nervous:
Let us not forget top civil servant Simon Case’s role in this, either. How he and Matt Hancock laughed when holidaymakers had to go into quarantine in airport hotels:
Things are looking less ‘hilarious’ for Simon Case as more of his WhatsApp messages emerge. More on that later.
A mediaeval solution: kill 11m cats
On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, The Express reported that, early in the pandemic, the Government looked at the science around cats and coronavirus (emphases mine):
Britain’s 11 million cats were in the firing line at the start of the Covid pandemic, a former health minister has admitted, with the Government considering ordering them all to be “exterminated”. Lord Bethell used the surprising example to illustrate the widespread ignorance about the way in which the disease was spread when it first emerged in the UK at the start of 2020.
He said: “There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease.
“In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain.”
He added: “Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?
“And yet, for a moment there was a bit of evidence around that so that had to be investigated and closed down” …
A survey published by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) last year indicated Britain is currently home to 11.1 million cats, with 24 percent of the UK adult population owning one.
Advice carried on the website of Cats Protection says: “There is limited evidence to suggest the transmission of COVID-19 from people to cats may be possible.”
Here is a clip from Lord Bethell’s interview on Channel 4 News last Wednesday, March 1:
Isabel Oakeshott soldiers on
Matt Hancock gave journalist Isabel Oakeshott the 100,000 WhatsApp messages about the coronavirus crisis as she co-authored his book Pandemic Diaries which appeared in December 2022. The two agreed at the time that there was just too much information for Hancock to put in one book.
Hancock had been a contestant on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … late last year in the Australian jungle. He said it was to raise public awareness of dyslexia, a condition he himself has, but he only mentioned the word once on the programme. Instead, it would seem he went for his own self-gratification, telling another contestant that he was ‘looking for a bit of forgiveness’:
Oakeshott then gave the messages to The Telegraph in the public interest, as there was so much more to explore.
The Guardian spoke to her on Thursday, March 2. I didn’t know that Hancock appeared on television, leaving her to finish the book:
Isabel Oakeshott has said her relationship with Matt Hancock soured after he abandoned her in the middle of writing their book in order to appear on I’m a Celebrity.
As she faced ethical questions over her decision to breach her non-disclosure agreement with Hancock and take his WhatsApp messages to the Daily Telegraph, Oakeshott said she chose the newspaper for ideological reasons, because it “pushed back against lockdown during the pandemic”.
She told the Guardian she had spent last year pouring all her energy into co-writing Hancock’s pandemic diaries, only for him to vanish while arguing with the government over what they could publish.
“I didn’t think about any further pandemic-related project until after publication of Matt’s book in December. That process had been utterly all-consuming, especially since he vanished to the jungle at a critical moment in very difficult dealings with the Cabinet Office. He didn’t tell me he was going,” she said.
Rumours that the Telegraph was working on a top-secret project, with a special team of reporters seconded from the main newsroom, had been circulating in journalism circles for weeks. But the revelation that the story was a leak of Hancock’s private WhatsApp messages took staff at rival newspapers – and especially Hancock – by surprise.
Oakeshott’s primary employment is with News UK, which comprises TalkTV, where she works, as well as Times Radio, The Times and The Sun. Her colleagues were unhappy that she gave the messages to the rival Telegraph:
This was felt especially keenly at Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, where Oakeshott enjoys a generous salary to be international editor and appear as a regular pundit on its talkTV channel. On Wednesday night, the TalkTV presenter Tom Newton Dunn said the Sun’s political editor, Harry Cole, had had a “bit of a dust-up” with Oakeshott outside the studio.
Cole said: “I just think it’s a dubious choice of newspaper, a rival news organisation getting all the glory.”
Newton Dunn asked: “You’d prefer she go to the Sun?”
Cole then listed various News UK-owned publications: “The Sun, Times, Sunday Times, other vessels are available in the building.”
For her part, Oakeshott has made clear she is employed on a freelance basis by News UK’s television channel and is free to work for other newspapers.
She said she took the WhatsApp messages to the Telegraph because of its opposition to lockdowns. “The story simply did not fit with the editorial stance of any News UK paper. None of these brilliant titles pushed back against lockdown during the pandemic.”
Exactly when Oakeshott passed the messages to the Telegraph is less clear, although the prominent lockdown sceptic says she did not decide to ghostwrite a book by the pro-lockdown Hancock with the intention of leaking his private messages.
Even though NewsUK did not break the scoop, TalkTV has given it much airtime:
The lockdown files are catnip to her employers at TalkTV, where presenters and guests have been consistently critical of Hancock and the government’s lockdown policies during the pandemic. As a result, TalkTV has featured Oakeshott heavily for the last 24 hours, including in appearances on the primetime Piers Morgan show, the breakfast show with Julia Hartley-Brewer, and on Mike Graham’s mid-morning slot.
Graham said while introducing Oakeshott: “The world is a different place to where it was a couple of days ago, because in the last two days an incredible story has emerged thanks to Isabel Oakeshott, TalkTV’s international editor. If it wasn’t for her, this wouldn’t be happening. So let’s just remember that.”
Incidentally, Oakeshott has been in a relationship with Richard Tice, leader of the Reform Party, since 2019. One wonders if a by-product of these revelations will be fewer Conservative votes at the next general election in 2024.
On Saturday, March 4, the title of Oakeshott’s Telegraph column read ‘Was I right to leak Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages? Here’s what you told me’.
Of course, she received negative messages and letters. However, she says that those she received from parents, grandparents and people involved with care homes were supportive. A few of them follow:
“Dear Isabel, my son committed suicide after lockdown as he missed school and gained a lot of weight. He died in December 2021 and was an indirect victim of lockdowns. This government is criminal. Good on you, keep going!”
“As the daughter of an ex-care home resident who suffered immeasurably from Hancock’s lockdown policies, I really can’t thank you enough. But I also offer thanks on behalf of thousands of care home residents and their families who equally suffered, including members of my own pressure group Unlock Care Homes.” Amanda Hunter: Chair of Social Care at the Together Association/Co-founder of Unlock Care Homes
“My father died alone of congestive heart failure, unable to be visited by anyone despite neither he nor they testing positive for Covid. A man with family and friends numbering in the dozens had 12 people at his funeral.”
She even received support from an NHS doctor:
“Dear Isabel, As an NHS doctor I would just like to add my support to you in publishing the Hancock messages, which are so overwhelmingly in the public interest.
“I know that I am not alone in my particular department in being opposed to lockdowns and a lot of the policy decisions that were taken around Covid. And those are just the ones who have been brave enough to say so. I imagine there is a strong constituency of doctors, nurses and other health professionals that feel the same in the NHS. Over and above this, as a product of a working class family, I am devastated about the effect this will have on social mobility through education and achievement. These are the only ways to move up in society and we have deprived a whole generation of this opportunity, which is a travesty. Keep doing what you are doing. Best wishes”.
That day, Oakeshott’s TalkTV colleague and fellow Covid sceptic Julia Hartley-Brewer wrote an editorial for The Telegraph, ‘The journalists condemning Isabel Oakeshott for doing her job didn’t do theirs properly’:
The Lockdown Files have been full of extraordinary revelations, but perhaps the most extraordinary of all has been the news that some journalists believe that we should never be allowed to know the real truth about how lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine passports were imposed on our nation …
No journalist worth their salt could possibly question the validity of the public interest defence for Isabel Oakeshott to reveal the truth behind the most extraordinary, damaging and costly government policies in living memory.
Unless, of course, that truth collided head-on with their own deeply held conviction that lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates and vaccine passports were all sound policies based on incontrovertible scientific fact and vital to save hundreds of thousands of lives during a deadly pandemic.
How could they – the guardians of the truth – ever bring themselves to admit that they were wrong about lockdown? …
Remember, these are the same journalists who spent day after day at the No 10 Covid press conferences battling with each other to be the first to demand more and more stringent lockdown measures from Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock et al.
They are the same journalists who never once asked what the actual evidence was to support the measures pushed by Prof Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, while happily smearing the scientists and medics who dared to point out that our pre-pandemic planning existed for a reason and perhaps we should follow that rather than co-opting the totalitarian response seen in China.
And these are the same journalists who asked more questions about Scotch eggs in one week than they asked about the Government’s cost-benefit analysis for shutting schools during the entire pandemic …
Maybe if those journalists had bothered to ask the right questions in 2020 and in 2021, then we wouldn’t have to search for the answers in the morass of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages in the here and now.
Perhaps if, instead of sitting smugly at home for months on end enjoying their freshly baked sourdough while the country’s finances, physical and mental health were all systematically destroyed, those journalists had done their job properly, then Isabel Oakeshott wouldn’t have to do it for them now.
Here is one such journalist, Cathy Newman of Times Radio — one of Oakeshott’s News UK colleagues — who took so many potshots at her, including revealing her salary — that she terminated the interview. This took place on Friday, March 3:
The Guardian tells us:
Oakeshott clashed with Cathy Newman on Friday during a Times Radio interview, in which Newman questioned Oakeshott on her decision to work with the Telegraph on the story, rather than her colleagues at TalkTV or affiliated papers the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun.
Newman had asked whether it was fair that “producers and reporters on a fraction of your salary were having to kind of put up with your sloppy seconds, and follow up on the story in a rival newspaper”, making reference to her £250,000 salary.
Oakeshott replied: “I’m just not going to go down this route, Cathy,” adding: “I think people are much more interested in what the investigation reveals.”
“Most of our listeners won’t know the individuals that you’re referring to,” said Oakeshott. “I think that it’s kind of absurd that you should be quoting wild figures about my contract with any news organisation. That’s my business, it’s not yours.”
Newman continued with the line of questioning, with Oakeshott repeatedly threatening to hang up. “I’m going to terminate the interview. This is my last warning, OK,” she said.
She then accused Newman of being “unprofessional”, and in turn asked her how much she was paid by Times Radio.
“I haven’t hit the headlines. You’ve hit the headlines, Isabel,” Newman said. “Well, maybe if you broke some stories you would,” Oakeshott replied.
The interview ended when Oakeshott hung up halfway through a question about her protection of her sources.
However, Oakeshott had a happier experience with two of her Telegraph colleagues, Christopher ‘Chopper’ Hope and Investigations Editor Claire Newell, who came back from Christmas break to find that she was part of The Lockdown Files team:
Newell said that the journalists on the team, starting with seven and rising to ten, were allocated with separate batches of messages to co-ordinate and discuss. For security reasons, none of their PCs had internet connectivity, something they learned from the paper’s 2009 expenses scandal investigation.
Oakeshott says that investigating the messages was ‘100% worth it’, despite the fierce opposition she has encountered. She hopes that The Lockdown Files will accelerate the public inquiry, which is supposed to begin this month. As for lockdown and the other measures, she says that the cure was worse than the virus.
Those wishing to hear about how Boris was likely manipulated can fast-forward to the 15:20 mark. Oakeshott thinks that his being so seriously ill in hospital with the virus had an impact on his outlook. She adds that Boris was one of the few people to ask questions about relative risk, e.g. more people are likely to die from falling down the stairs, yet we don’t ban staircases. Alas, it was to no avail.
Guido Fawkes supports Oakeshott’s release of the WhatsApp messages:
I fully agree.
Guido received two types of reaction. Many applauded Oakeshott, then there were the negative people who said there was nothing new.
Allow me add my own impressions at this point. Having followed this pandemic closely since February 2020 and having heard every coronavirus briefing, I thought that the clinicians and other ‘experts’ on SAGE were directing Hancock. However, having read The Lockdown Files through to what appeared in The Telegraph on the morning of Tuesday, March 7, it looks more like Hancock took every worst case scenario that SAGE presented and ran with it to boost his own standing with his Conservative colleagues, the civil service and the British public. How wrong he was!
And how mistaken I was for getting the wrong end of the stick. I mention this because those who say they learned nothing new from The Lockdown Files clearly have not read them.
Hancock’s shock about his affair — and that photo
As we recall, Hancock’s downfall came in June 2021 when The Sun splashed the photo of him in a tight clinch with his girlfriend, an adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care. He resigned as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care a few days later.
This was Saturday’s story in The Lockdown Files.
Some of the language is spicy, so be warned.
The Guardian has an excellent summary:
The messages, published by the Telegraph, show Hancock discussing the guidance in place at the time and deciding what his initial response to media questions should be.
As he awaited publication, Hancock asked his special adviser, Damon Poole: “How bad are the pics?” Told it was a “snog and heavy petting”, he replied: “How the fuck did anyone photograph that?”
The messages also show the reaction of Hancock and [Gina] Coladangelo to a video obtained by the Sun.
“OMFG,” Coladangelo said.
Hancock said: “Crikey. Not sure there’s much news value in that and I can’t say it’s very enjoyable viewing.”
There was a shedload of ‘news value in that’, thanks to Harry Cole and his editors who published the photo and later posted the video, both from an anonymous source. We were under visiting and social distancing restrictions at the time.
The article continues:
Hancock set up a WhatsApp group called “Crisis Management” with Poole and Coladangelo. They talked about the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, going out to support Hancock in broadcast interviews, saying he was “probably the best person you could hope would be out this morning” other than the prime minister.
Poole asked Hancock and Coladangelo to think “really hard” about whether they could have broken any Covid rules.
Referring to the social distancing rule to keep 1 metre apart from others when 2 metres was not possible, Hancock said: “Other than obviously the 1m+ I honestly can’t think of any.” He then said that the worst thing he and Coladangelo could be accused of was that they had “kissed before they legalised hugs”.
At the time, the UK was in step 2 of the coronavirus regulations, which criminalised indoor gatherings “of two or more people”.
Separate government guidance in place at the time stated that people should maintain social distancing of 1 metre-plus.
The messages also show that Hancock asked Poole to “keep the focus” on whether Coladangelo’s appointment as a paid adviser had broken any rules, rather than whether their embrace had broken social distancing restrictions.
See? The wrong focus. Clearly, Hancock does not want people knowing the background to this:
A spokesperson for Hancock said: “There’s nothing new in these messages, and absolutely no public interest in publishing them given the independent inquiry has them all. It’s highly intrusive, completely inappropriate and has all been discussed endlessly before.”
Now let’s go to the full version in The Telegraph :
It was 1am when the pictures were published online of Matt Hancock and his aide Gina Coladangelo in an intimate embrace in his ministerial office.
Just three minutes later the health secretary and aides began a frantic scramble to save his political career.
In the 41 hours that followed, Mr Hancock tried desperately to find exceptions to the rules to justify his behaviour.
His WhatsApp messages reveal the forever changing statements he planned to give to the public, from claims that no rules were broken, to apologising for breaking the guidance to eventually tendering his resignation.
He desperately looked for MPs and former MPs to support him:
As his Cabinet position looked increasingly threatened by the weight of public outrage, the health secretary and his aides tried to recruit more than 25 Tory MPs to publicly defend him, including eight former and current Cabinet ministers.
As his pleas for public support appeared to fall on deaf ears, Mr Hancock celebrated the public support from former foreign secretary Lord Hague as “gold dust”.
Dear, oh dear. Hancock really must have been desperate.
The Telegraph has screenshots of the WhatsApp messages, which readers may find entertaining. I certainly did.
The messages reveal that Hancock and his friend’s ‘first encounter’ was on May 4, 2021, definitely when physical contact was, for all intents and purposes, banned.
Media reaction either focused on that or on Hancock’s preferred target, Coladangelo’s appointment:
Mr Poole notes that the “trickiest” reaction “so far” was a message from Paul Waugh, the chief political commentator at the Huffington Post. Mr Waugh said: “Imagine if you’ve been literally banned by a govt from hugging your own grandchildren cos they are in ‘a different household’ and the health secretary has been hugging his lover from ‘a different household’.”
At 9.13am, Beth Rigby, Sky’s political editor, tweeted that Labour’s response was “everyone entitled to a private life” but that Ms Codangelo’s appointment which involved taxpayers’ money “needs to be looked into”. Mr Hancock responded: “Great – going on that not the proximity”.
Ms Rigby then messages Mr Poole with further questions about social distancing rules, which Mr Hancock says he doesn’t want to acknowledge breaking. Mr Poole sends over a link about the law at the time, when Britain was Step 2, and Mr Hancock says that their affair was “arguably charitable”, which was one of the exemptions.
How could it have been ‘arguably charitable’? This was so typical of Hancock: rules for the plebs and none for himself.
According to the messages, two of Boris’s advisers wanted Hancock to admit breaking social distancing rules.
Hancock and his team began looking back at his media interviews during May 2021:
Mr Hancock was talking about personal choice at around the same time that he began his affair with Ms Coladangelo, on May 4. However, he had said that people would only have a personal choice from May 17, when the law changed and England moved into Step 3 of coronavirus regulations. On May 11 when asked by Sky News whether people could hug when the restrictions eased to allow groups of six people to meet indoors and 30 to meet outdoors the following week, he said that the Government would be “trusting people’s personal responsibility”. Mr Hancock appears to realise that there is a discrepancy in dates.
Just after 11am Mr Hancock seems to have realised that he has to apologise, saying that he is “emotionally” up for it but that before he commits he wants to know the strength of support No 10 will publicly give him.
They go through 14 iterations of his statement over the course of the hour, with Ms Coladangelo commenting that they need to make it more “real”. Mr Poole sends it out at 12.16pm. However, the request for privacy did not stop the deluge of questions. They try to decide what guidance they will give to journalists on background to shut down questions of law breaking. Mr Hancock eventually clears the release of a statement which says that they did not break the rules as “various” exemptions were in place …
Really?
Then questions about possible violations of the Ministerial Code arose: whether Hancock’s and Coladangelo’s relationship was a ‘proper and appropriate’ one.
Meanwhile, public outrage was building. Hancock needed support from his fellow Conservative MPs:
As the public backlash grew, Mr Hancock and Allan Nixon, his parliamentary special adviser, separately tried to drum up support in the House of Commons. The first message of the day that Mr Hancock sends to his aide is a list of names including some of the Tory Party’s biggest hitters.
The ‘biggest hitters’ were Cabinet members, present and past.
Hancock was relieved that Lord Hague went public with his support, however, The Sun‘s Harry Cole, who broke the story was receiving more information:
… it appears that Lord Hague’s intervention is not enough to stem the tide of criticism, and Mr Cole gets in touch with more information from a source inside Mr Hancock’s ministerial office, leading to the admission that the office kiss was not “exactly a one off” …
A screenshot of the messages shows Damon Poole asking Hancock and Coladangelo whether that was true. They both reply in the affirmative, with Coladangelo typing:
FFS
Yes
Another set of messages shows Coladangelo’s offering to resign and making it public in the newspapers the next day. Both Poole and Hancock say no. Hancock gives his reason why not:
It adds pressure on me to go
Later that evening, news breaks that The Sun has the accompanying compromising video.
The next morning, the messages were turned on to ‘disappearing’ mode so that they cannot be retrieved. The Telegraph says these were about Hancock’s imminent resignation.
Hancock enlisted the help of his mentor, former Chancellor George Osborne, who had left politics and was editor of London’s Evening Standard at the time:
it appears that most of his guidance was given offline.
Hancock publicly issued a copy of his resignation letter and a video, which was cringe worthy.
Before those went out, Osborne:
reminds him that he should probably apologise to his family and cautions him against revealing that he has fallen in love with Ms Coladangelo, who by his own account he has been in a relationship with for seven weeks.
Osborne’s message reads, in part:
We’ll leave out the last two seconds!! I like the ‘only human’ The key question is whether you want to use the word ‘love’ – it feels a little awkward and premature.
Forty-one hours after The Sun‘s exclusive broke, Hancock found himself returning to the backbenches.
A nation rejoiced.
More to follow tomorrow.
At the weekend, I read three enlightening comments from a former civil servant who told Guido Fawkes’s readers why, with a great majority of MPs, the Conservatives cannot truly enact an agenda of reform.
His first comment is in response to this:
When they got an 80 seat majority the first things they should have done were strip down the House of Lords, streamlined the implementation of new laws and culled many of the civil service jobs.
Unfortunately, the government did nothing to take on these vested interests and Labour Party will only further reinforce the status quo and tie the hands of future governments.
The former civil servant says (emphases mine):
As I say repeatedly – HOW?
The MPs don’t get super powers to bulldoze over obstructions based on the will of the population. You go to White Paper to review (possibly [a] Royal [Commission] for this), multiple boards of review after this for the stakeholders impacted (guaranteed rights under law).
What you are proposing would have been a 3/4 year process MINIMUM. Boundary reform has taken a decade and has been watered down.
Then when you’ve done the relevant reviews etc. you have to hope that the High Court or Supreme Court don’t strike down the legislation (which they would).
The next commenter suggested that only direct action in the streets would resolve the most tenacious issues.
The former civil servant replied:
I think we will see direct action against activist judges and those who have been seen to have stopped ‘the will of the people’ the next time the Tories are in. I can see them shifting blame from the chamber onto the legislative stack, and it’s not going to go down well with some sections of society that their democracy is trampled upon by the judiciary in particular.
I expect a more populist anti-1mm1gr4tion Tory party will win a majority after a single Labour term, given trends we have seen in Europe as we cross crime and civic cohesion thresholds.
A third reader persisted with the Government’s notional ability to effect change:
Parliament sets the law, so the first thing you do is repeal all the delaying legislation, then you set the new law for civil servants.
It doesn’t take long if there is the political will to do it – as we saw with the Coronavirus legislation.
The courts have no power to strike down legislation if Parliament has passed that legislation saying they can’t.
This was the response. SC refers to the Supreme Court, HC the High Court, CS the Civil Service and WP the White Paper:
No, you keep saying this, it’s not true. You always make these statements and you are always wrong.
There is an established process, you cannot undermine this process with your own process, until your process has gone through that process.
In short, you cannot change how parliament functions without going through the way it currently functions. You cannot establish law that cancels out other law without it going through constitutional review if a point of order is flagged up. Critically, and Blair constructed it this way, you can’t legislate the SC out of existence without the HC then SC agreeing to it being legislated out of existence. The SC sits above HoC in terms of supreme constitutional power (even just as an arbiter).
The coronovirus legislation was ARGUED for and SUPPORTED by UK CS and all parties – it wasn’t just about the will of the Commons, the entire legistlative stack pushed in one direction and things went quickly.
So even with a majority in the Commons you still have all the other opposition parties briefed by UKCS to make points of order; the courts will step in before first reading after the WP is published.
There is no institutional will for major constitutional reform benefiting the UK public at a government framework level, as in all the supporting civic arms of government are anti-democratic in their function, and they act as a ‘check and balance’ for the democratic government in the rare case of an outbreak of populism. All the lessons that needed to be learned from Thatcherism have been brought on board and enacted. It is not happening again.
It is antithetical to any centralised bureaucratic structure to ease the passage of legislation that would undo the centralisation is has spent hundreds of years undertaking. There’s a gravity to it. You could replace the entire elected parliamentary Tory Party with radical libertarian de-centralisers but it doesn’t change the broad WILL (as you put it) of everything else. It just leads to a pro-democracy bias in ONE element of the process.
That is so depressing.
Tony Blair pulled a blinder. Even after he dies, any future Conservative government will remain trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
Would the British people — the salt of the earth types — take to the streets? These days, it seems unlikely, especially as police are in place to ensure it doesn’t happen. We saw that during the anti-lockdown demonstrations. The police don’t have time for burglaries, but they’ll have time for Joe Bloggs with a placard. We already know they prefer to investigate tweets rather than crime.
There must be, to borrow a Blairism, a third way. What that is I have no idea. Answers on a postcard, please.
Churchmouse Campanologist 