UK Edition
Boris Johnson agrees to hand all his Covid-era WhatsApps to inquiry
Boris Johnson has vowed to send all his Covid-era WhatsApps to the Covid-19 inquiry - including those on an old phone he was told he should not switch on.
The former prime minister’s pledge came just a day after it emerged he had told the Cabinet Office he had been advised not to open the personal phone over security concerns.
The messages on the locked device refer to discussions from before May 2021 and are likely to relate to conversations about the three coronavirus lockdowns ordered in 2020.
It comes as Conservative MPs criticised the upcoming Covid inquiry, chaired by Baroness Hallett, as a “pro-lockdown stitch-up”.
In 150 questions submitted to Mr Johnson as part of the investigation, the economy is only mentioned four times. One question challenges him on whether he struck “the right balance” between easing restrictions and stimulating the economy in July 2020.
Mr Johnson was also asked whether his decision to reduce social distancing requirements from two metres to one metre was influenced by “concerns about economic factors, including the impact on the hospitality sector”.
Elsewhere, there are suggestions that ministers could have acted earlier to avoid lockdowns and proceeded to lift restrictions more slowly.
‘Witch hunt’
Marco Longhi, the Tory MP for Dudley, said Mr Johnson “had to rely heavily on his senior medical advisors”, adding: “Clinicians will always opt for the safest route – so stopping transmission through lockdowns would always be preferred by them.
“Attacks on Boris now will only come across as a witch hunt. Everyone is perfect with the benefit of hindsight.”
Another backbencher added: “This sounds like the same groupthink that was there before. The fact there’s two questions mentioning the economic effect means we have to look at what was done and why, and the effects it had.
“I don’t think our country would have ever gone into lockdown had it not been for other countries doing it first. In some respects it was a sorry position to be in.”
A senior Tory MP claimed the tone of the questions put to Mr Johnson was “terrifying”.
“I thought it obvious now the ‘circuit breaker’ lockdowns failed on their own terms. I despair.”
High-profile legal battle
Ministers are preparing for a high-profile legal battle with the inquiry as the Government seeks to challenge the request for Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks to be submitted.
Mr Johnson told Baroness Hallett, the chairman of the inquiry: “I am sending your inquiry all unredacted WhatsApps I provided to the Cabinet Office.
“I would like to do the same with any material that may be on an old phone which I have previously been told I can no longer access safely.
“In view of the urgency of your request I believe we need to test this advice, which came from the security services.
“I have asked the Cabinet Office for assistance in turning it on securely so that I can search it for all relevant material. I propose to pass all such material directly to you.”
He also told the former senior judge he would ask for his unredacted notebooks back from the Cabinet Office and share them with the panel if the Government refuses to do so.
While serving as Britain’s leader in 2021, Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.
A spokesman for the former prime minister said that, should the messages from the mobile phone be securely accessed once again, Mr Johnson was willing to forward them in unredacted form to the inquiry.
The potential risks of switching on the device are “minimal”, according to a cyber security expert.
Professor Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme that the Cabinet Office has the facilities to “do it securely”, adding: “It really wouldn’t take much to turn the phone on and get those messages off quite safely”.
Union bosses claim victory after Government makes more generous pay offer to civil servants
Union bosses have welcomed the new pay offer for civil servants from the Government (see the post below at 14.13) and said strike action had forced ministers to be more generous.
Prospect union general secretary Mike Clancy said the offer “in principle addresses the three issues at the heart of this dispute” and “for too long” civil servants “have been at the back of the queue when it comes to public sector pay”.
He said strike action had been “critical in getting to this point” and “we will now consult our public service representatives on the substance of the offer and formally respond to the Government in due course”.
The PCS union said the Government had “now listened and responded to the concerns of our members after they have taken what has been the most industrial action in the union’s history in this dispute”.
FDA general secretary Dave Penman said strike action was “intended to send a clear message to the Government that enough was enough” and today’s offer “represents a clear demonstration that this message has now been heard”.
The executives of the FDA and the PCS will meet next week to consider their formal response to the Government’s offer.
Civil servants offered £1,500 one-off payment to resolve pay dispute
Civil servants have been offered a one-off payment of £1,500 by the Government in an attempt to end an industrial dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
The payment is part of a new offer put forward by ministers and comes after a backlash in April after the Government said pay awards would be broadly limited to an increase of 4.5 per cent this year. The one-off payment will apply to workers in non-senior roles.
Union bosses held a meeting with Minister for the Cabinet Office Jeremy Quin today to discuss the offer.
Mr Quin said in a statement: “We are determined that civil servants are rewarded fairly for the vital work they do across the country, in delivering the Government’s agenda and providing services to the general public.
“I am pleased with the constructive engagement we have had with Civil Service trade unions, and to be announcing that departments will be allowed to make a £1,500 payment to every member of staff at Grade 6 and below.
“This is both fair to the taxpayer and a recognition of the financial pressures civil servants have faced over the last year.”
Liz Truss backs Telegraph campaign to abolish inheritance tax
Liz Truss has backed the Daily Telegraph’s campaign for Rishi Sunak to scrap inheritance tax.
A spokesman for the former prime minister said she would support the abolition of the duty, which she believes penalises those who “work hard to earn money”.
On Thursday, The Telegraph disclosed that the proportion of homes under threat from the levy has more than doubled since the Tories came to power.
You can read the full story here.
Pound heads for strongest rally against dollar in six months
The pound is headed for its biggest one-week rally against the dollar in six months as US interest rates looked increasingly likely to plateau sooner than rates in the UK.
The pound has gained 1.5pc against the dollar this week, the most since early December, and nearly 1.1pc against the euro - which would be its largest weekly increase in nearly four months.
You can follow the latest updates on the economy over on The Telegraph’s business live blog here.
New BBC chairman is a state-educated Welsh speaker
A state-educated Welsh speaker is to be the acting BBC chairman after Richard Sharp’s resignation.
Professor Dame Elan Closs Stephens was appointed to the role on Friday by Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, for twelve months or until a new permanent chairman has been found.
You can read the full story here.
Tax cuts could come before the next general election, says Mel Stride
Mel Stride has refused to be drawn on Tory calls to cut inheritance tax but dropped clear hints that the Prime Minister would be in a position to cut taxes by early next year, saying “sunnier uplands fiscally [are] ahead of us”.
The Work and Pensions Secretary told Chopper’s Politics podcast: “We’ve got to keep the international markets lending us money and we’ve got to do it through being fiscally responsible. And at the moment, that means tax levels need to be broadly at the level they are.
“Now, if we can get everything right and inflation down – and we’re going to halve it by the end of this year, as we are determined to do and we are beginning to do – then we will be able to look at that afresh.
“It’s a matter for the Chancellor or the Prime Minister. But we can if we get through this period, I think have sunnier uplands fiscally ahead of us.”
Boris Johnson tells Covid inquiry he will hand over messages on old mobile phone
Boris Johnson has told the chairwoman of the Covid inquiry that he is willing to hand over “all unredacted WhatsApp” messages, including material from a previous phone discarded due to security reasons.
The former prime minister has written to Baroness Hallett today and said: “I am sending your inquiry all unredacted WhatsApps I provided to the Cabinet Office.
“I would like to do the same with any material that may be on an old phone which I have been previously been told I can no longer access safely.
“In view of the urgency of your request I believe we need to test this advice, which came from the security services.
“I have asked the Cabinet Office for assistance in turning it on securely so that I can search it for all relevant material. I propose to pass all such material directly to you.”
It emerged yesterday that Mr Johnson had not handed over his WhatsApp messages from the first year of the pandemic to the Government.
The Cabinet Office said that Mr Johnson had not handed over a personal phone he used until May 2021. Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile in 2021 after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.
Boris Johnson does not want disclosure of his evidence to be ‘test case for others’
Boris Johnson said he did not want the disclosure of his evidence to the Covid inquiry to be a “test case for others” as he said he had therefore decided to hand the material over directly.
In a letter to Covid inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett, the former prime minister wrote: “The Government yesterday decided to take legal action. It was not my decision to do so.
“While I understand the Government’s position, I am not willing to let my material become a test case for others when I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it.
“I am therefore providing the material directly to your inquiry today in unredacted form.”
Mr Johnson said he was sending the inquiry all of the WhatsApp messages he had previously provided to the Cabinet Office and he intended to also hand over messages on an old phone.
He said that his diaries are currently in the possession of the Cabinet Office and he wanted them to now be handed over. He said that if the Government chose not to hand them over then he would “ask for these to be returned to my office so that I can provide them to you directly”.
Lord Frost: Chasing Remainers is a dead end for the Tories
Lord Frost has argued the Conservative Party must focus its efforts on winning back its disillusioned 2019 voters if it is to overhaul Labour’s poll lead and emerge victorious at the next general election.
Writing for The Telegraph, the former Brexit minister said that a “gloomy fatalism seems to have crept in” to much of the Conservative Party about the result of the next election and if that does not change soon then Labour could win a majority of “a hundred seats or more”.
He said that there is “still time to alter course” and “winning back our 2019 voters makes the difference between victory and defeat”. He argued:
Trying to win back Remain voters when we remain so unpopular among them is surely a losing strategy. Even Rishi Sunak, about as Remainer-friendly a Brexiteer as you can get, is at minus 35 per cent popularity among Remain voters.
Surely it’s better to try to bring back people who actually voted for us very recently, in an election that we won, rather than pretend to be something different in the hope of attracting people who didn’t?
You can read the full piece here.
‘It is a mistake to prolong this process’
The Government’s legal challenge against the Covid inquiry will delay the review of the pandemic further, Lord Barwell said.
The former No10 chief of staff, said people had already “waited too long” for the inquiry to be set up and the judicial review will just “prolong this process”.
He told the BBC: “The other point about this is it just delays the process further. We have already waited too long to set this inquiry up.
“I think people want answers quickly so I think from a timing point of view as well it is a mistake to prolong this process.”
Ex-No10 chief of staff: Legal challenge against Covid inquiry a ‘bad mistake’
Lord Barwell, who was Downing Street chief of staff under Theresa May, said he believed the Government was making a “bad mistake” by launching a legal challenge against the Covid inquiry.
He said people will not have confidence in the inquiry and its conclusions if it is the Government deciding which information should be disclosed for scrutiny.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Lord Barwell said: “Some of the (WhatsApp) messages might be a bit embarrassing but, nonetheless, I think they’re making a bad mistake for two reasons.
“First, as you said, this inquiry isn’t about being embarrassed, it is about getting to the truth for all the people who lost loved ones.
“And secondly, and most importantly, the reason we are having an independent inquiry is to give people confidence that we are getting to that truth and if the Government is controlling what the inquiry can see and what it can’t see then people are not going to have confidence in the outcome and the whole process isn’t going to achieve what we are hoping it is going to achieve so I am afraid they are making a bad mistake.”
Judicial review will delay Covid inquiry’s work, says ex-Cabinet minister
Sir Robert Buckland warned the legal challenge against the Covid inquiry will delay its work and that the review of the pandemic was already “going to take ages”.
He told LBC Radio: “We are now in year one or two of an inquiry that is going to take ages. We are potentially going to lose a bit more time to a judicial review.
“Instead of having a turf war I think everybody needs to agree a position and for independent lawyers to assess what is relevant or not in the name of former judge Heather Hallett and to get on with this, bearing in mind the fact that time is being lost on this issue.”
Government legal challenge against Covid inquiry a ‘fool’s errand’, says ex-justice secretary
A former justice secretary has labelled the Government’s decision to launch a legal challenge against the Covid inquiry a “fool’s errand”.
Sir Robert Buckland, who served as lord chancellor from July 2019 to September 2021, suggested the Government was “wasting time” by taking the inquiry to court.
He told LBC Radio: “Heather Hallett, the judge here, has the power to make a decision as to what she wants to see and what is relevant or not and that is why I think that this judicial review, I’m afraid, is a bit of a fool’s errand.
“I think that it would be far better for everybody to get round the table and agree the position with regard to the use of this material…”
He added: “When it comes to national security there are means of concealing the information in a way that would be consistent with that important imperative and I just think this is wasting time and time is not what the victims and those who are really affected by the events of the Covid crisis will want to see being wasted.”
Government ‘quite likely’ to lose judicial review against Covid inquiry, minister concedes
Science minister George Freeman said he believed it is “quite likely” that the courts will rule against the Government in its legal challenge against the Covid inquiry.
Asked if he believed the Government will lose the judicial review, Mr Freeman told BBC Question Time: “I am saying, I think personally it is quite likely that the courts will rule that Baroness Hallett will decide what evidence, but I think it is a point worth testing.”
Legal challenge against Covid inquiry not ‘cynical waste of time’, minister insists
George Freeman, the science minister, rejected claims that the Government’s legal challenge against the Covid inquiry was a “waste of time”.
He argued that the judicial review will “clear up” the way in which evidence will be treated amid privacy concerns.
He told the BBC’s Question Time programme: “I don’t think it is a cynical waste of time at all. The privacy point is relevant. I think it’ll clear up and give people confidence, even if all this achieves is to make very clear that the inquiry will treat with absolute confidentiality anything private and we can get on with it.
“But I think it is really important that the rules of this are made clear and I absolutely have very little doubt that the courts will find that Baroness Hallett will decide what evidence she deems relevant and then we can get on with it.”
Minister admits Government will ‘probably’ lose legal challenge against Covid inquiry
A minister has suggested the Government will “probably” lose its legal challenge against the official Covid inquiry over the disclosure of Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and diaries.
George Freeman, the science minister, said he believed it was “quite likely that the courts will rule that Baroness Hallett [the Covid inquiry chairwoman] will decide what evidence” she wants and is entitled to see.
He told the BBC’s Question Time programme: “In the end this is a judicial decision, it’ll be taken by the courts and I happen to think the courts will probably take the view that Baroness Hallett who is running the inquiry is perfectly entitled and empowered to decide what evidence she wants.”