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Kamis, 02 Maret 2023

Matt Hancock: Eight government WhatsApp Covid messages revealed - BBC

By Andre Rhoden-Paul & Sean Seddon

BBC News

WhatsApp messages sent by Matt Hancock when he was health secretary during the pandemic have been revealed.

The messages, including conversations with ministers and officials, provide an insight into the inner workings of government at the height of the pandemic.

Here are a few of the private texts published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The BBC has not seen or independently verified the WhatsApp messages nor the context in which they were sent.

1. 'What a bunch of absolute arses'

After congratulating the then education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson on delaying A-level exams for a few weeks - a shorter period than some teaching unions called for - Mr Hancock had some choice words.

On 1 October 2020, Mr Hancock messaged Sir Gavin: "Cracking announcement today. What a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are."

Sir Gavin replied: "I know they really really do just hate work."

In response, Mr Hancock returned two laughing out loud and a bullseye emoji.

2. 'I WANT TO HIT MY TARGET'

Mr Hancock texted his old boss George Osborne, ex-chancellor and then-Evening Standard editor, on 28 April 2020 to "call in a favour" asking for a favourable front page, as he tried to reach his own deadline to reach 100,000 daily Covid tests.

Mr Osborne replied: "Yes - of course - all you need to do tomorrow is give some exclusive words to the Standard and I'll tell the team to splash it."

After replying with a quote, Hancock later writes in capital letters: "I WANT TO HIT MY TARGET!"

The editor answered bluntly: "I gathered."

In another interaction, on 9 November 2020 Mr Hancock asked for an explanation about Mr Osborne calling for Boris Johnson to make testing his number one priority and insisted: "OK but mass testing is going very well."

"No-one thinks testing is going well, Matt," Mr Osborne replied.

3. 'They want an excuse to avoid having to teach'

Sir Gavin, messaging Mr Hancock, on 10 May 2020 ahead of schools reopening, asked for the health secretary's help in getting personal protective equipment (PPE) for schools "as a last resort so they can't use it as a reason not to open".

The education secretary texted: "All of them will [open] but some will just want to say they can't so they have an excuse to avoid having to teach, what joys!!!"

4. 'Dying from Covid is as big as your risk falling down stairs'

Boris Johnson had misgivings about the government's shielding advice in discussions with the chief medical officer Prof Sir Chris Whitty. In August 2020 the then-prime minister suggested that if renewed lockdown restrictions were needed over-65s be offered a choice on shielding.

Mr Johnson, addressing Sir Chris in a WhatsApp group on 9 August, said: "If you are over 65 your risk of dying from Covid is probably as big as your risk of falling down stairs. And we don't stop older people from using stairs. What do you think?"

Sir Chris conceded that he "would think twice before shielding unless it threatened the NHS". Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance replied: "We haven't found shielding easy or very effective first time round."

Only a few days previously, shielding had ended for more than two million clinically vulnerable people in England, Scotland and Wales. Since March 2020 they had been advised to stay at home to avoid contracting Covid. Shielding later returned.

5. Testing is working 'for MOST'

Helen Whately, who was social care minister at the time, travelled 50 miles to a Covid test centre so a relative could be tested in September 2020, according to the Telegraph. There were restricted numbers of home testing kits and the public had to book a slot at a testing centre, where they could swab themselves and it would be sent to a laboratory.

Speaking of the experience on 19 September, she messaged Mr Hancock: "So my mystery shopping shows the system is definitely working, at least for some."

Mr Hancock enthusiastically replied "for MOST!", despite UK labs struggling to keep with demand and people being asked to travel hundreds of miles to get tested.

6. 'Williamson needs a haircut'

Mr Hancock clashed with Sir Gavin over whether to close schools ahead of their return January 2021.

In private WhatsApp messages with a special adviser, he said he had to take "rear guard action" to ensure schools did not open, while the then-education secretary was battling to keep children in school.

During a meeting on Zoom on 28 December 2020 to decide on the fate of students, Mr Hancock and his special adviser Emma Dean appeared to send each other messages commenting on the call, according to the Telegraph.

Ms Dean said: He's [Sir Gavin] freaking out. You can tell he isn't being wholly rational."

Mr Hancock got his way as schools closed days later amid a national lockdown.

In an earlier exchange in September the pairtook aim at Sir Gavin following the education secretary being forced to abandon A-level and GCSE students being given grades by algorithm.

Replying to Ms Dean's suggestion Gavin looked awful and questioning if the education secretary was OK, Mr Hancock said: "He needs a haircut and a holiday somewhere other than Scarborough!"

7. 'Drinks cold in the fridge'

During the May 2020 drive to hit the 100,000 tests per day target, trucks full were bought from Amazon.

Mr Hancock was worried the government could look "flaky" if it was accused of using them to pad the stats.

But there was jubilation when the target was hit - not least from Gina Coladangelo, the aide with whom Mr Hancock had an affair.

She messaged: "Drinks cold in fridge at [Department for Health]. Feel free to open them before we are back [beer emoji]".

But problems continued. Mr Johnson admitted in June he was "going quietly crackers" over capacity, asking "what is wrong with us as a country that we can't fix this?".

In September, Mr Hancock was advised to avoid an interview with Andrew Neil "because he could go hard on testing".

8. 'Eh'

One set of messages shows Boris Johnson getting in a muddle over statistics.

He flagged a Financial Times article stating the global case fatality rate had fallen below 0.04. Mr Johnson wanted to know why the British death rate appeared to be much higher at 4%.

Chief scientific officer Sir Patrick, chief medical officer Sir Chris, aide Dominic Cummings, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and Mr Hancock all chipped in.

When Mr Vallance eventually pointed out the FT figure is a probability, not a percentage, the PM replied "Eh" followed by another message reading simply "?".

He offers "five marks" to whoever can explain the difference and asks them to "show working" - before Mr Cummings assures him it is a "common confusion".

In the same exchange, Mr Johnson says he "knows what I would prefer" if he was 80 and given a choice between exposure to Covid-19 and "destroying the economy".

The WhatsApp leaks

A collection of more than 100,000 messages sent between former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic have been obtained by the Telegraph. Here are our stories on the leaks:

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Rabu, 01 Maret 2023

Matt Hancock disputes claim he rejected care home Covid advice - BBC

FILE PHOTO: British Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock speaks at a memorial tree planting ceremony at Oxford Botanic Gardens, following a G7 health ministers meeting, ahead of the G7 leaders' summit, at Mansfield College, Oxford University in Oxford, Britain June 4, 2021

By Christy Cooney & Becky Morton

BBC News

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has disputed claims he rejected expert advice on Covid tests for people going into care homes in England at the start of the pandemic.

WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper suggest Mr Hancock was told in April 2020 there should be "testing of all going into care homes".

Government guidance later mandated tests only for those leaving hospital.

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said the messages had been "doctored".

"These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing. This is flat wrong," he said in a statement.

The BBC has not seen or independently verified the WhatsApp messages nor the context in which they were sent.

The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 messages sent between Mr Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the pandemic.

The texts were passed to the newspaper by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who has been critical of lockdowns. Ms Oakeshott was given copies of the texts while helping Mr Hancock write his book, Pandemic Diaries.

What do the WhatsApp messages say?

In one message, dated 14 April, Mr Hancock reportedly told aides that Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medial officer for England, had conducted an "evidence review" and recommended "testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result".

The message came a day before the publication of Covid-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care, a government document setting out plans to keep the care system functioning during the pandemic.

Mr Hancock said the advice represented a "good positive step" and that "we must put into the doc", to which an aide responded that he had sent the request "to action".

But later the same day, Mr Hancock messaged again saying he would rather "leave out" a commitment to test everyone entering care homes from the community and "just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital".

"I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said this followed an operational meeting, where he was advised it was not possible to test everyone entering care homes.

When the care plan was published on 15 April, it said the government would "institute a policy of testing all residents prior to admission to care homes", but that that would "begin with all those being discharged from hospital".

It said only that it would "move to" a policy of testing everyone entering care homes from the community.

From March 2020 to January 2022, there were 43,256 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Social Care Minister Helen Whately, who held the same role in 2020, said "the importance of testing was never in doubt" but "tough decisions" on prioritising the tests available had to be made.

Responding to an urgent question from Labour in the Commons, she said "selective snippets of WhatsApp conversations give a limited and at times misleading insight".

She pointed to an email at the time which said the government should "press ahead straight away" with hospitals testing patients being moved to care homes and that the government should "aspire to, as soon as capacity allows" for testing of everyone going into care homes.

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But Labour's shadow social care minister Liz Kendall questioned why care home residents were not prioritised and accused Mr Hancock of "attempting to rewrite history".

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said the then-health secretary "enthusiastically accepted" advice from the chief medical officer on 14 April that testing was needed for people going into care homes.

"Later that day he convened an operational meeting on delivering testing for care homes where he was advised it was not currently possible to test everyone entering care homes, which he also accepted," he said.

"Matt concluded that the testing of people leaving hospital for care homes should be prioritised because of the higher risks of transmission, as it wasn't possible to mandate everyone going into care homes got tested."

Analysis box by Nick Triggle, health correspondent

There is always the temptation to see things as black or white when it comes to Covid. This story is a classic example of a seemingly simple claim that does not have a straightforward answer. As Prof Sir Chris Whitty made clear in his December report on the pandemic, the problem the UK faced was that there was not enough tests available.

By mid-April only around 20,000 tests a day were being done. It meant testing had to be strictly rationed - it was being used to test people with symptoms and only then if they were in vulnerable settings such as hospitals or care homes or they were key workers. A member of the public in the community who had symptoms could not access tests.

The decision to test care home residents whether they had symptoms or not (so including asymptomatic testing) was a break from that.

The judgement was taken that at first the asymptomatic testing would only be done for those admitted directly from hospital as those people were deemed at highest risk. Eventually people admitted to a care home from the community were tested as testing capacity expanded rapidly in May.

But for it to be done any earlier it would have, it seems, meant tests not being made available for another key group.

This does not mean there are no lessons to be learned or questions to answer on this issue.

But what it does show is that when it comes to Covid there are very few issues that are as simple as they seem.

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Mark Gordon and Constance Marten: remains found in missing baby search - The Guardian

Police officers searching for a missing baby have discovered the remains of an infant near to where the child’s parents were arrested after weeks of evading authorities.

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were arrested on suspicion of child neglect and later gross negligence manslaughter after refusing to reveal the location of their missing child, who had not received any medical attention since its birth in early January.

Marten, 35, and Gordon, 48, were detained without their child near Stanmer Villas in Brighton on Monday night after a tipoff from a member of the public.

The arrests brought to an end a 53-day nationwide search for the couple and triggered a “painstaking” search for their baby, with hundreds of officers trawling open land across an area of 90 sq miles in Sussex.

On Wednesday evening police officers said the search had reached a “heartbreaking” conclusion and remains had been found near to where the child’s parents had been arrested.

Speaking at Sussex police headquarters, Det Supt Lewis Basford, the senior investigating officer with the Met, said: “It is my very sad duty to update this afternoon, police officers searching a wooded area close to where Constance and Mark Gordon were arrested discovered the remains of a baby. A postmortem examination will be held in due course. A crime scene is in place and work at the location is expected to continue for some time.

“This is an outcome that myself and that many officers who have been part of this search had hoped would not happen. I recognise the impact this news will have on many people who have been following this story closely and can assure them that we will do everything we possibly can to establish what has happened.”

Ch Supt James Collis, of Sussex police, said: “I understand that the conclusion of this search will be heartbreaking for the local community and the wider public who have been impacted by and so supportive of this search and the investigation from the outset.”

Marten and Gordon remain in custody after police officers applied to Brighton magistrates court to extend their detention.

Marten is from a wealthy aristocratic family with connections to the royal family and was a promising drama student before meeting Gordon in 2016. The couple have led an isolated life, cut off from family and friends. From about September last year, they began living on short lets in Airbnbs around the UK and had amassed a significant amount of cash to enable them to live off grid and avoid the attention of the authorities.

They had been travelling around the UK by taxi since their car was found burning on the M61 outside Bolton, Greater Manchester, on 5 January. Evidence was found to suggest Marten had given birth in the car. Taxi drivers used by the couple in the first few days after they went missing said they heard noises coming from a baby. It is not known whether the baby was born full-term or had any health problems.

Authorities previously believed the couple had been sleeping rough in a blue tent and had avoided being traced by the police by moving around frequently and keeping their faces covered from CCTV. They travelled from Bolton to Liverpool, then to Harwich in Essex, to east London and to Newhaven in Sussex, where they were reportedly seen near the ferry port on 8 January.

Just over a week ago, Shereen Nimmo, the director of midwifery at Barts Health NHS trust, had urged the couple to bring their baby in for checks. “You’re putting your baby at risk by not accessing medical care, so it’s really important that you come and see a midwife, doctor or another healthcare professional as soon as possible,” she said. “Babies need a safe, warm environment and all new mums are given information about safe sleeping for their baby to prevent sudden infant death syndrome.”

After the arrests, Marten’s estranged father, the film and music producer Napier Marten, told the Independent: “It is an immense relief to know my beloved daughter Constance has been found, tempered by the very alarming news her baby has yet to be found.”

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Brexit: Lord Frost says government 'overclaiming' NI deal - BBC

By John Campbell

BBC News NI economics and business editor

The UK's former top Brexit negotiator has said the new deal with the EU will make the Northern Ireland Protocol easier to operate but does not change its fundamentals.

The Windsor Framework was agreed on Monday.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Lord Frost said the government had been "overclaiming" some parts of the deal.

As an example he cited the extent to which it removes trade friction between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

However, Lord Frost concludes that does not mean the deal should not go ahead even if it is "a bitter pill to swallow".

In 2019 Lord Frost negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement which included the original protocol.

Central to the trade aspects of the new deal is the concept of green lanes and red lanes.

British goods which are staying in Northern Ireland will use the green lane at Northern Ireland ports, meaning they will not have to be checked and would require minimal paperwork.

Goods which are due to travel into the Republic of Ireland will use the red lane, meaning they would face customs processes and other checks at Northern Ireland ports.

The Stormont official who originally developed that concept said the new deal is is better in "practical, constitutional and presentational terms" than either the backstop or the original protocol.

Andrew McCormick was the official in charge of Brexit issues at Stormont.

Much earlier in the Brexit process, in 2018, he floated the idea of red and green 'channels' but at that time the UK government was not keen on the idea.

Writing for the think tank the UK in a Changing Europe Mr McCormick said the new framework is "a very significant achievement - well beyond expectations on what might have been negotiable in the context set by the previous stances of the UK government and the EU".

Meanwhile the UK's former peace process negotiator, Jonathan Powell, has said the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is right to take its time to assess the deal but "should not get lost in the weeds".

Mr Powell suggests the DUP would be "wise" to ultimately accept the deal even if it does not deliver everything they want.

Writing in the Financial Times Mr Powell said the alternative would be "a dead end with no assembly at Stormont and permanent political instability in Northern Ireland".

Mr Powell was chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland between 1997 and 2007.