The hunt is on within government to discover which individual leaked details of a meeting of the National Security Council on allowing Huawei to help build Britain’s new 5G network to the press. With an inquiry under way, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt today announced that he would be happy to hand over his phone as part of the investigation.
Still, should any government ministers or aides currently find themselves less enthusiastic about aiding the inquiry (and sweating it out that the net is closing in), perhaps they can find some relief in a column former No 10 aide Kate Perrior has penned for the Times. Perrior says that during her time working for the Prime Minister, she had to take part in three leak inquiries.
The first investigation related to Hinkley Point getting the go ahead. Perrior was questioned but was unimpressed when they at first didn’t even ask to look at her phone to see if she had been in touch with the said journalist:
‘I was asked if I was aware of the decision before it leaked. I said I was. I was then asked if I knew Chris Ship. I said I did. I was then asked how often I spoke to Chris Ship, the answer being fairly regularly.
The investigators looked at each other, their eyebrows rose and eyes flickered. They were on to something now, they thought. I then asked two questions – firstly, did they know my job meant I had to speak to Chris Ship and secondly, I do hope the investigation is going to be better than these questions as so far, nobody had even bothered to look at my phone.’
Next up was a leak to the BBC regarding Heathrow expansion – which was market sensitive information. Despite some light questioning, the inquiry soon wound up:
‘The only conclusion one can draw for the reasons why someone would do that is because they want to appear powerful, in the know, connected and stroke their own ego with their brilliance, as well as helping a journalist be the first to break the news. The investigation into that was minimal.’
Finally, Perrior took part in an investigation over a Budget leak. It was taken ‘seriously’, she says, with phones ‘bagged up’. However, the inquiry soon hit an obstacle:
‘We never heard a thing from any of the investigations that took place. According to some senior civil servants, the phones revealed such a high number of calls and messages to journalists that it was impossible to pin down a specific leak.’
Perhaps there’s hope for the latest leaker yet…
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