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Latest posts show former health secretary feared Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme could help spread Covid Matt Hancock told his attendees he wanted to 'scare everyone' about the Kent variant of Covid to ensure lockdown rules are followed, leaked messages revealed. The latest round of WhatsApp exchanges show the then health secretary and others discussing how to use an ad about the variant to scare the public into changing their behavior.
The messages, among 100,000 sent to The Telegraph by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, show Cabinet Secretary Simon Case hinted in January 2021 that the "fear" factor would be "vital".
They also show Mr Hancock's repeated concerns that then-Foreign Minister Rishi Sunak's Eat Out To Help Out initiative was contributing to the spread of Covid.
It has been revealed that Mr Sunak and Mr Hancock have complained about Dominic Cummings' "nightmare" tenure as Boris Johnson's top adviser in issue 10.
The latest messages show that in December 2020 there were fears that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was following the example of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who opposed the government's decision to impose strict lockdown restrictions.
Mr Hancock's adviser said: "Instead of pointing too far ahead, we can get the line rolling with the new strain." The then health secretary responded: "We are scaring everyone with the new strain."
The conversation, on December 13, follows concerns about the rapid spread of the virus in south-east England. On December 14, Hancock announced that a new variant had been identified in the UK.
London and south-east England were due to enter a new alert level of Level 4, it was announced on December 19, when Johnson also canceled a promised Christmas "bubble" policy that allowed families to gather.
The whole of England entered the third national lockdown on January 6, 2021. Messages from January 10 show Mr Hancock and the Cabinet Secretary discussing ways to ensure compliance.
Mr. Hancock told him, after a brief discussion about angling, that "honestly, it wouldn't move on small things unless we moved a lot."
Mr. Case agrees: “I think that's absolutely correct. Little things seem ridiculous. Intensify the messages: the fear/guilt factor is vital. I suspect the London Nightingale set-up is going to look like one big public moment. Especially since I assume it will be full in a few days (based on current data).”
Rishi Sunak places an Eat Out to Help sticker on the window
Meanwhile, Sunak is under pressure to answer questions about whether Treasury officials ignored evidence that his summer 2020 Eat Out to Help Out program helped spread the virus.
On August 24, 2020, Hancock told Case that he had "kept it out of the news" in a post that suggested the economic stimulus package had had a negative impact in terms of infections.
He said, “We've been getting a lot of feedback that [Eat Out to Help Out] is causing trouble… I've kept it out of the news, but this is serious. So please don't let the financial success of the program lead to its expansion.
In December 2020, the then health secretary called the program "eat out to help the virus move."
A University of Warwick study found in October 2020 that the scheme could be responsible for 8-17% of Covid clusters in the previous two months, but the 'back of the envelope' calculations were thrown out by the government.
Professor Jonathan Portes of King's College London said: "It appears that [the Treasury] was deliberately trying to cover up evidence relating to Eat Out to Help Out."
The former health secretary is also said to have become angry with NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens during the pandemic and even said his ouster would be a "massive improvement".
Les messages montrent that M. Hancock's counselor, Allan Nixon, adverti le secrétaire à la Santé that "vous avez l'air de perdre pied devant le n° 10" lorsqu'il était en colère contre M. Stevens lors d' a meeting. Mr. Hancock replied, "Okay, you need to know that you're screwing her up massively."
Cabinet secretary Chris Heaton Harris told the BBC on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the leaked messages reveal a "insight into the psyche" of Hancock in opposition to the workings of government.
“I think viewers would expect politicians, being human beings, to put things in a humane way, and I don't think you would find a politician who wasn't afraid at the start of lockdown,” he said when asked about the idea of tactics. scary.
Ms Oakeshott originally received the material from Mr Hancock while they were collaborating on his memoir about his time in government during the pandemic.
He condemned the leak as a "mass betrayal" designed to support an "anti-blockade agenda", arguing that the selective dissemination of messages only gives a "partial and skewed account".
In a statement this week, Hancock said that all of the materials in his book had been made available for the official investigation of Covid-19. Ms Oakeshott said the disclosures were in the public interest.
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Matt Hancock has condemned the 'biased and biased' account appearing in his leaked WhatApp messages
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