For a while now, I’ve been buried deep in a vault in the Daily Telegraph going through the Matt Hancock files. Like the MPs expenses expose, it is a project that was carried out in secrecy and with astonishing thoroughness and resources. Several journalists, including some of the newspaper’s very best, have been working non-stop on this for weeks, going over some 2.3 million words of messages. That’s four times as large as War & Peace.
The hunt isn’t just for the stories, but for context; every published exchange is carefully monitored to make sure nothing is left out. I’d have loved to have run this story in The Spectator but only a newspaper – and one thoroughly committed to the tradition of investigative journalism – had the resources to throw at this historic disclosure of documents. No memoir, diary or inquiry testimony will come close to the depth of detail that Hancock handed over in his WhatsApp messages and the Daily Telegraph is now making open to the world. The first round of stories is out today. Several more days will follow.
Is there an agenda here? Yes: to tell the public what was said and done behind closed doors
When discussing this on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, I was asked if I was driven by an agenda in proving lockdowns didn’t work. It struck me as an odd accusation and shows how polarised this whole subject still is. Isn’t it journalists’ job to scrutinise and expose government secrets in the public interest?
I’m a columnist as well as an editor and make no pretence at neutrality: I take views all the time. But in lockdown, I took the view that this should be covered from all angles – including those critical of what the government as doing, as well as those supporting them. In an ‘emergency powers’ period where the opposition acts as a rubber stamp to the government, and broadcasters define ‘public service’ as amplifying the government’s message, then it’s more important than ever to question and scrutinise.
The great problem of lockdown was that this ‘emergency powers’ period was extended long after the emergency ceased. ‘This is a pandemic and an emergency, let’s just be responsible and accept what the authorities tell us’ has a certain logic for the first few days. But this can set a mould which sticks for ages: weeks, months, even years. The idea that this Tory government was obviously right to lock the nation down as many times as it did – and that anyone questioning it must be driven by an agenda – is, in my view, an argument against critical journalism.
There is always a question of cognitive bias: publications that backed lockdown would perhaps be less interested in exposing the shoddiness behind those decisions. The Telegraph and The Spectator kept our critical faculties alive throughout the debacle. It’s natural that the investigation came from publications that never stopped believing that untrammelled government power deserved to be scrutinised and debated.
For my part, I supported lockdown when it was introduced and, even knowing what I know now, don’t regret doing so. But as an editor I’m in favour of the arguments being tested and pulled apart by people who know what they’re talking about. Anyone who favours a society where there is scrutiny and transparency over decisions that decide the liberty of millions will completely understand why Oakeshott has made Hancock’s messages public. This is what journalists do. The millions affected by these decisions have the right to know. And only by knowing by this transparency – painful as it may be for those involved – can there be any sensible debate about what went right, what went wrong and how to do better next time.
Never has such a treasure trove of documentation come into possession of a journalist, historian or newspaper. This presents a unique opportunity to share with the public the evidence (or, often, lack thereof) that meant millions of pupils missed school, everyone else was ordered to wear masks and self-isolation was extended beyond the time that scientific tests suggested. Oakeshott will get some stick but putting these conversations on the national record will not only help give answers to those who deserve them, but perhaps make ministers think twice next time a new pathogen is discovered and emergency powers are invoked.
I’m not someone who complains loudly at BBC bias. In asking if this investigation is agenda-driven, Nick Robinson simply put to me the accusation that the unrepresented side (Hancock) would have made had he agreed to go on the show. But I did think to myself: had the BBC come across these 100,000-plus messages would they have put the resources behind it that the Telegraph did? Would they have instantly defined public interest as that of full disclosure and the public’s right to know? And how many other newspapers, in all honesty, would really have put so many of their best journalists on this project for so long – at a time when everyone’s resources are stretched? And taken all of the expensive precautions that allowed this massive project to be a secret right up until publication?
The Daily Telegraph changed history with its investigation into the MPs expenses and I suspect is about to do so again. If you want to talk about political bias, we see a right-of-centre newspaper brutally exposing mass malpractice in a Tory government. Why? Because it’s a newspaper, whose duty to readers is defined by finding out things they’d like to know, whether or not it embarrasses or infuriates a Tory government. Every democracy bar Sweden locked down under emergency powers, but only Britain is able to open a window on to the decision-making process. The Telegraph’s project is one of true global significance. What I have been a small part of in recent days is a full-strength, Fleet St investigatory project, and a reminder of what strong newspapers bring to our democracy.
I can imagine the reaction against the Daily Telegraph’s disclosures will be pretty strong from those who had thought this official inquiry – with its glacial speed – would in effect cover things up by deferring all questions to the 2030s. That plan has today been shattered. The revelations are coming now. Is there an agenda here? Yes: to tell the public what was said and done behind closed doors, to publish information that was never intended to see the light of day. The agenda, in other words, is to commit a pretty big act of journalism. Expect plenty more to come.
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