What shocks me most about Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages is the flippancy surrounding decisions to scare, manipulate and control the British public. We were told, repeatedly, that government ministers were ‘following the science’. But thanks to Isabel Oakeshott we now know that schools were closed, children masked, families and friends separated, visitors kept out of care homes and quarantine periods prolonged, less because of ‘science’ and more, it seems, for political convenience.
So where is the outrage? People lost lives and livelihoods. Children missed out on education and exercise. Physical and mental health suffered. Lengthy NHS waiting lists and economic problems will be with us for many years to come. Yet, incredibly, the response to this scandal of unimaginable, incalculable scale, from most news outlets, is oddly subdued. Non-existent, even.
Far from leading every major television and radio news bulletin, the Daily Telegraph‘s lockdown files revelations are pushed down to item three or four. They’re an aside to the main events of the day. Deserving only of a brief mention, each new revelation is caveated with the same defensive statement from Hancock himself.
More astonishing still, where journalists do manage to summon up a scintilla of outrage, it is not directed at Matt Hancock, or the advisers who egged him on, but at Isabel Oakeshott. Radio 4’s Nick Robinson led the way, taking Oakeshott to task for breaking a non-disclosure agreement. Then Cathy Newman demanded to know how much Oakeshott was being paid by the Daily Telegraph for contributing to the lockdown files. Others have followed suit, arguing that Oakeshott has breached journalistic ethics by exposing a ‘source’ and is pursuing her own anti-lockdown agenda.
What is wrong with these people? How skewed must your moral compass be to read about the arbitrary imposition of rules that devastated the lives of care home residents, children, small business-owners and many, many more, and conclude that it’s not Matt Hancock, nor any of the senior civil servants, special advisers and government ministers who need to be held to account, but Isabel Oakeshott? In what moral universe is Oakeshott the problem and Hancock the victim? Talk about shooting the messenger.
Various suggestions for this warped judgement have been put forward. One is that journalists are annoyed with Oakeshott for taking her cache of messages to the Daily Telegraph, rather than a News UK outlet. Another is that journalists feel compelled to defend the integrity of the national Covid inquiry. But I think a better explanation is stated boldly within Hancock’s messages. They show that the then health secretary was rarely acting alone in his determination to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’. Those who encouraged him lay far beyond Whitehall.
The then Health Secretary was rarely acting alone in his determination to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’.
Take this exchange between Hancock and Patrick Vallance, the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, from June 2020. Hancock asks Vallance if he has seen the findings from an Imperial College survey of Covid infections in the community, the React programme led by Lord Darzi. At this point in the pandemic, React showed that the prevalence of the virus, and the rate of transmission, were falling:
Vallance: Ok seen it now. Very good and consistent with the ONS study. All pointing in the same positive direction
Hancock: Yep. Just done presser where the media interest is only in the gloomy Cambridge survey [face palm emoji]
Without wanting to read too much into a single emoji, it seems Hancock is expressing frustration with journalists for focusing on the ‘gloomy Cambridge survey’ rather than the more positive news. But not for long. Just seconds later he spots the upside.
Hancock: But, if we want people to behave themselves maybe that’s no bad thing
Vallance: Agree, suck up their miserable interpretation and over deliver
What’s revealed here is that, when presented with three sources of evidence about the spread of Covid – the React programme, the ONS study and a Cambridge survey – two of which show a drop in the prevalence of the virus and one which does not, the press pack focused on the ‘gloomy’ narrative.
This confirms what many of us remember of those awful press conferences. Time and again journalists fought to berate government ministers for not locking down sooner, longer and harder. The only game in town was fear one-upmanship. Positive news was met with cynicism, bad news with glee. To transgress from this narrative was to be an irresponsible fool who denies science.
These useful idiots were so blinded by their own unwavering belief in lockdown they failed to ask the most basic questions about the impact such restrictions were having on children, those most clinically vulnerable, the economy and the very fabric of society. Rather than exercising even minimal intellectual curiosity about the consequences of Hancock’s announcements, they only ever encouraged him to go further.
Journalists are now being confronted by their failure to hold the government to account. So it is hardly surprising that, just like Matt Hancock, they want a scapegoat to cover up their own shortcomings. But the rest of us have good reason to thank Isabel Oakeshott. Without the Daily Telegraph’s coverage, we might have been waiting decades for the truth about lockdown to emerge.
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