‘THIS WON’T LOOK GOOD FOR US’: DIVIDED TORIES FEAR EXPLOSIVE WHATSAPPS AND ‘NIGHTMARE’ COVID INQUIRY
Anyone who saw an anonymous civil servant pulling a wheeled legal briefcase along a pavement in Westminster on Wednesday morning would have probably missed the significance of what was inside.
The official had just left Boris Johnson’s office at 10.30am, having picked up 25 A4 black and red hardback notebooks. They contain thousands of pages of minutes, handwritten in the former prime minister’s “slightly illegible” longhand at the height of the pandemic, annotated with Post-It notes. This valuable cargo was then transported by car to a secure part of the Cabinet Office.
In the absence of Mr Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from January 2020 to April 2021 – which may or may not be lost on the personal phone he was told by security officials to turn off and never turn on again – these notebooks contain the only first-hand personal record of the then prime minister’s official account of the pandemic. They are crucial to Baroness Hallett’s official Covid inquiry.
The Cabinet Office’s legal team have worked “night and day” going through the notebooks, but due to Mr Johnson’s handwriting, the process of deciphering what may be relevant to the inquiry is taking longer than expected.
Accompanying the notebooks was a letter from Mr Johnson’s office, stating that the material still belonged to the ex-prime minister, and that he may request it back at any time. Now that he has offered to send the notebooks and his WhatsApp messages directly to Lady Hallett – circumventing the Government’s legal action delaying their handover to the inquiry – that may happen sooner rather than later.
Yet while much of the focus has been on Mr Johnson’s records, allies of the former prime minister believe the strenuous efforts the Government is taking to block the full disclosure of all messages – not just those from the ex-PM, but from Rishi Sunak and a host of still-serving ministers and officials – suggests they may contain politically explosive comments from people at the top of the current regime.
The Cabinet Office insists that its decision to take legal action against Lady Hallett’s inquiry, through judicial review, is because to release content it considers “unambiguously irrelevant” to the Government’s pandemic response would set a harmful precedent, inhibit future policymaking and Civil Service advice, and invade the privacy of officials and ministers, past and present.
But allies of Mr Johnson point to the fact that his former senior adviser Dominic Cummings admitted in 2021 to actively plotting against the former prime minister in early 2020, just as the virus was emerging, and that this was discussed with other advisers at the time.
The allies are questioning whether Mr Sunak and other senior figures who are still in government either sent messages linked to this plot, or were in WhatsApp groups where the plot was discussed. “This suggestion is categorically untrue,” a Government source said.
It should be noted that Mr Sunak was only a junior minister in January 2020 and not appointed chancellor until the middle of February of that year – so unlikely to be on any top-level WhatsApp groups. And his allies have pointed out that the leak of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps to the Daily Telegraph earlier this year revealed that Mr Sunak is not someone who sends many messages, and he barely uses the app.
But the mere fact that these suspicions are being voiced shows the huge divisions and levels of distrust at the heart of the parliamentary Conservative Party. One ally of Mr Johnson claimed the focus on the ex-PM’s messages appeared to be a “fig leaf” designed to throw attention away from what might be in Mr Sunak’s messages.
And a Conservative former Cabinet minister said: “I understand the general concern to withhold information so the Civil Service aren’t deterred from giving frank advice to ministers… However, when we have got a major inquiry under way, I do believe everything should be handed over.”
“This is not going to look good for the Tories,” they added. “And undoubtedly one of the other reasons why the Government wouldn’t want to hand everything over is because there will be comments from the PM and existing ministers of the Cabinet which may prove embarrassing or even worse if they are disclosed.”
Government by WhatsApp ‘a mess’
The legal battle over the release of messages is almost certainly a sign that ministers and officials will take more steps to stop “government by WhatsApp”.
The Cabinet Office issued new guidance to civil servants in March, following the leak of Mr Hancock’s messages, but there is a recognition inside Whitehall that it will have to go further, with speculation that all personal phone use could be heavily restricted and people ordered not to use WhatsApp for any government business.
“Back in 2020, there were no restrictions on the use of personal phones,” a Whitehall source said. “This whole row shows what a mess that was, and now the information is going to have to be dragged out of people. The Government won’t want to get out caught again.”
In the meantime, there is also concern in Whitehall about what has already disappeared. The Cabinet Office only started writing to witnesses in the middle of 2022, more than a year after the inquiry was set up, asking them to preserve their electronic data as evidence. This means that many essential messages that could have shed light on the Government’s response are lost for good.
Whether the contents of these WhatsApp messages are embarrassing or not, Tory insiders and polling experts are agreed that the ongoing legal battle with the Covid inquiry is damaging to the Prime Minister and the party.
The Covid bereaved families support group have already criticised Mr Sunak directly for the decision by the government to launch legal action to block full disclosure.
One Tory MP described as a “nightmare” the prospect of Mr Sunak giving evidence for several days to the inquiry, which is likely to be when Lady Hallett starts public hearings on the Government’s pandemic response in October – around the time of Conservative Party conference, where MPs worried about losing seats are already likely to be restless. Other serving ministers such as Michael Gove and Steve Barclay may also have to give evidence.
A party source pointed out that this was likely to be the start of the final 12 months, or less, in the run-up to the next general election, and that having revelations about how current ministers handled the Covid inquiry would be a “gift to Labour”.
It is also unclear whether those who will be questioned have grasped the scale of what is about to come. Mr Johnson told Lady Hallett in a letter on Thursday evening, offering to disclose all of his material directly to her unredacted – including any messages from 2020 that are retrievable from his old phone – that there are “about 40” WhatsApp conversations that he had that will be relevant to her inquiry.
This small number may be wishful thinking on the part of the former prime minister. Lady Hallett, in several letters and orders since the row with the Cabinet Office began, has made clear that she believes the Government – and former members – have misunderstood the breadth of the inquiry she is undertaking.
It is also likely to bring up many painful memories for the public. A poll by Savanta this week found that 44 per cent of people still believe ”Partygate” matters just as much now as it did when Mr Johnson was prime minister. Savanta’s director, Chris Hopkins, said this suggested the scale of the challenge facing the Prime Minister in trying to distance his Government from the Johnson era.
“The inquiry has the potential to bring a whole world of issues for the Conservative Party, and while Partygate has moved on from every day public consciousness, they have not forgiven nor completely forgotten,” he said.
“The inquiry will be like dredging up bad memories for the majority of the public and is likely to reinforce why so many have abandoned the Conservative Party and we’re heading for a change of government.”
2023-06-03T06:16:44Z dg43tfdfdgfd