Isabel Oakeshott has admitted she didn’t tell Matt Hancock she was going to leak 100,000 of his WhatsApp messages before sharing them with the Daily Telegraph.
The Brexiteer journalist and political commentator has passed on more than 2.3 million words from exchanges the former health secretary and his colleagues had about COVID policy at the height of the pandemic.
Her leak broke the non-disclosure agreement she signed that promised she would only use the messages on background to ghost write Mr Hancock’s book, Pandemic Diaries.
She has vehemently defended her decision, which she claims is “overwhelmingly” in the public interest – as she believes the inquiry into the government response to the pandemic will take far too long to achieve genuine justice.
But her reported breach of contract has led to criticism from Conservative MPs and journalists – particularly in light of other controversies she has been involved in.
From King Charles’s school to political journalist
Ms Oakeshott was born in Westminster in the mid-1970s before moving to Scotland.
She attended fee-paying schools St George’s in Edinburgh and Gordonstoun in Moray – where both King Charles and his father the Duke of Edinburgh went.
After graduating with a history degree from the University of Bristol she moved back to Scotland to begin her journalism career in local newspapers.
In the early 2000s she moved to London to be the Evening Standard’s health correspondent.
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Three years later she took her first steps into political journalism and joined the Sunday Times, where in 2010 she was made political editor and in 2011 she was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Press Awards.
A year-long stint as the Daily Mail’s political editor-at-large followed before jobs at GB News presenting her show The Briefing with Isabel Oakeshott in 2021 and as TalkTV’s international editor from mid-2022.
She has three children and was previously married to the American Nigel Rosser. She has since been in a long-term relationship with Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, formerly known as the Brexit Party.
Matt Hancock’s book is the 10th she has worked on.
MP imprisoned and ambassador forced to resign
Following the publication of The Lockdown Files in The Telegraph, Mr Hancock accused Ms Oakeshott of a “massive betrayal and breach of trust”.
But many of his former Tory colleagues have questioned his decision to entrust her with the archive – even with legal protection.
In 2011 when she was working at The Sunday Times she agreed to write a story about Vicky Pryce – the ex-wife of former Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne, who Ms Pryce had separated from following an affair.
Ms Pryce told Ms Oakeshott she had taken points on her driving licence for a speeding offence Mr Huhne committed.
She discussed with Ms Oakeshott over email how they might report the story to discredit Mr Huhne.
But the front-page article that materialised led to the Crown Prosecution Service revisiting the incident, requesting the email exchanges, and ultimately both Ms Pryce and Mr Huhne being sentenced to eight months in prison for perverting the course of justice.
Isabel Oakeshott arrives at Southwark Crown Court for R v Huhne
In 2015 she co-authored a biography of then-prime minister David Cameron with the Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft.
He had felt let down by Mr Cameron, having donated millions to the 2015 election campaign only to be denied a top job in his coalition government.
The book, Call Me Dave, failed to have major success and was largely remembered for the claim Mr Cameron engaged in a sex act with a dead pig while at Oxford University.
He fiercely denied it and Ms Oakeshott later admitted she only had one source to back the allegation up.
“It’s my judgment that the MP was not making it up, although I accept there was a possibility he could have been slightly deranged,” she told a book festival audience.
As an ardent Brexiteer, in 2016 she helped write Arron Banks’s book The Bad Boys of Brexit on his account of the EU referendum.
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Hancock rejects COVID test claims
The Leave.EU founder gave her his texts and emails from the time, which Ms Oakeshott later published in the Sunday Times, revealing he had far more dealings with Russian officials than he had previously admitted.
Three years later in 2019 she wrote a series of articles in the Mail on Sunday that revealed the UK ambassador to the United States Sir Kim Darroch had described Donald Trump’s presidency as “inept” and “utterly dysfunctional”.
He was forced to resign, conceding his position had become untenable.
But following the saga there were claims the story had not been hers – and instead the work of a teenage freelance journalist called Steven Edginton – who was involved with the Brexit Party and had wanted to stay anonymous to avoid any repercussions.
Hancock and Oakeshott have ‘absolutely nothing in common’
During the pandemic, she quickly declared herself a lockdown-sceptic, claiming that outside of clinical environments face masks are merely “political” and “nothing to do with genuine infection control”.
After Mr Hancock’s lockdown-breaking affair with aide Gina Coladangelo forced him to resign, Ms Oakeshott worked with him on his memoir for a year.
She has claimed she wasn’t paid for her work, saying it was “richly rewarding in other ways”.
Matt Hancock and Isabel Oakeshott. Pic: Parsons Media
But soon after its publication in December last year, Ms Oakeshott wrote a piece for The Spectator alluding to her motives in co-authoring the book.
In it she admitted the pair have “almost nothing in common” and that they “fundamentally disagree” over how COVID should have been dealt with.
‘I broke NDA, but it wasn’t personal’
She hinted: “Journalists don’t only interrogate people they disagree with. Quite the reverse.
“What better way to find out what really happened… than to align myself with the key player?”
Mr Hancock says his leaked messages have been “spun to fit an anti-lockdown agenda” and denies he “ignored” advice to test all people entering care homes in England.
When asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if Ms Oakeshott warned the former minister about her plans to leak the messages, she said: “I didn’t tell him.”
She added in a statement: “Hard though it may be for him to believe, this isn’t about Matt Hancock, or indeed any other individual politician. Nor is it about me.
“We were all let down by the response to the pandemic and repeated unnecessary lockdowns.
“I make no apology whatsoever for acting in the national interest: the worst betrayal of all would be to cover up these truths.”
The Pope has appeared before cheering crowds at the Vatican.
It was the pontiff’s first official public appearance since he was released from hospital a fortnight ago.
Pope Francis, 88, had spent five weeks in Rome’s Gemelli hospital as he was treated by doctors for a life-threatening bout of double pneumonia.
The Pope, in what was a previously unannounced move, entered St Peter’s Square in a wheelchair shortly before noon local time at the end of the celebration of a mass for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee year.
The pontiff arrives at the end of a mass. Pic: AP
In front of the main altar for the service, Francis waved to applauding crowds, before briefly talking.
Speaking in a frail voice while receiving oxygen via a small hose under his nose, he said: “Happy Sunday to everyone. Thank you so much.”
A message prepared by the Pope and released by the Vatican said he felt the “caring touch” of God.
“On the day of the jubilee of the sick and the world of healthcare, I ask the Lord that this touch of his love may reach those who suffer and encourage those who care for them,” said the message.
“And I pray for doctors, nurses and health workers, who are not always helped to work in adequate conditions and are sometimes even victims of aggression.”
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Pope Francis is cheered by crowds on Sunday. Pic: AP
Francis had been out of public view since 23 March, when he had given a short greeting before being discharged from hospital.
The pontiff’s voice sounded stronger this time than when he addressed well-wishers outside Gemelli and struggled to speak.
Francis usually offers a weekly noon-time prayer in St Peter’s Square on Sundays.
But he has not been able to do this since 9 February, before going to hospital.
He was admitted to Gemelli on 14 February for a bout of bronchitis that developed into double pneumonia.
This is a particularly serious condition for him as he had pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
World
IDF says it mistakenly identified Gaza aid workers as threat – after video of deadly attack emerges
The IDF says it mistakenly identified a convoy of aid workers as a threat – following the emergence of a video which proved their ambulances were clearly marked when Israeli troops opened fire on them.
The bodies of 15 aid workers – including eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.
The Israeli military originally claimed an investigation found the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.
But video footage obtained by the PRCS, and verified by Sky News, showed the ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.
In a briefing from the IDF, it said the ambulances arrived in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah shortly after a Hamas police vehicle drove through.
Palestinians mourning the medics after their bodies were recovered. Pic: Reuters
An IDF surveillance aircraft was watching the movement of the ambulances and notified troops on the ground. The IDF said it will not be releasing that footage.
When the ambulances arrived, the soldiers opened fire, thinking the medics were a threat, according to the IDF.
The soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road and several people getting out quickly and running, the IDF claimed, adding the soldiers were unaware the suspects were in fact unarmed medics.
An Israeli military official would not say how far away troops were when they fired on the vehicles.
The IDF acknowledged that its statement claiming that the ambulances had their lights off was incorrect, and was based on the testimony from the soldiers in the incident.
The newly emerged video footage showed that the ambulances were clearly identifiable and had their lights on, the IDF said.
The IDF added that there will be a re-investigation to look into this discrepancy.
Analysis: Video undermines Israel’s account of aid worker deaths
The clip is filmed through a vehicle windscreen – with three red light vehicles visible in front
Addressing the fact the aid workers’ bodies were buried in a mass grave, the IDF said in its briefing this is an approved and regular practice to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.
The IDF could not explain why the ambulances were also buried.
The IDF said six of the 15 people killed were linked to Hamas, but revealed no detail to support the claim.
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Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
The newly emerged footage of the incident was discovered on a phone belonging to one of the workers who was killed, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said.
“His phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event,” he said. “His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”
Sky News used an aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the newly emerged footage of the incident.
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It was filmed on 23 March north of Rafah and shows a convoy of marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle travelling south along a road towards the city centre. All the vehicles visible in the convoy have their flashing lights on.
The footage was filmed early in the morning, with a satellite image seen by Sky News taken at 9.48am local time on the same day showing a group of vehicles bunched together off the road.
World
France needs to sort its political mess – or populist winds blowing from the US will strengthen
Contemplating the turmoil sown by the return of President Trump, nobody could deny that the results of leadership elections in major nations matter to the rest of the world.
Take just the members of the G7 – so-called rich, industrialised democracies. Italy elected Giorgia Meloni in 2022, confirming the rise of the far-right. She was not only Italy’s first female leader, she was also the first from a neo-fascist party since Mussolini.
The arrival of Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer changed the complexion of politics in the US and the UK last year. Germany elected a more hawkish chancellor in waiting this spring.
Barring accidents, the next potentially transformative election in what used to be called the “Western alliance” will not be for two years.
France is due to elect a new president to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2027. The contest is already plagued by undercurrents of disruption, conflict between politicians and the law, and populism – similar to the fires burning elsewhere in the US and Europe.
This week French judges banned the frontrunner to win the presidency from running for office for the next five years. It looked as though they have knocked Marine Le Pen out of the race.
Nobody, least of all her, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), knows what is going to happen next in French politics.
In opinion polls just over half of the French population, between 54% and 57%, agreed that justice had run its course. “The law is the same for everyone,” President Macron declared.
After lengthy consideration by a tribunal of three judges, Le Pen and nine other former RN MEPs were found guilty of illegally siphoning off some €4.4m (£3.7m) of funds from the European Parliament for political operations in France, not for personal gain.
Le Pen was sentenced to a five-year ban and four years in prison, not to begin before the appeals process had been concluded. Even then that sentence in France would normally amount to two years’ house arrest wearing an ankle alarm.
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Marine Le Pen hits out at ban
French presidents, such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been convicted before. Controversy is flaring because Le Pen was given an extra punishment: the immediate ban on running for political office, starting this week.
Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, her second in command at RN, likened the ban to a “nuclear bomb” and a “political death penalty”. Speaking in L’Assemblee Nationale, of which she is still a member, Le Pen identified herself with Alexei Navalny, the dissident leader murdered in Russia, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the recently imprisoned Turkish opposition leader and mayor of Istanbul.
The ban was imposed at the discretion of the chief judge Benedicte de Perthuis, a former business consultant, Francois Bayrou, France’s Macronist prime minister admitted he was “troubled” by the verdict. Not surprisingly perhaps from him, since the prosecution is appealing against verdicts in a similar case of political embezzlement, in which Bayrou’s party was found guilty but he was acquitted, escaping any possibility of a ban.
Bayrou is expected to be a candidate for the presidency. Meanwhile, RN has the power to bring down his government since it is the largest party in the Assembly, with 37%, but was kept out of power by a coalition.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. File pic: AP
Populist forces on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to support Marine Le Pen. Matteo Salvini in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Vladimir Putin‘s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov all denounced what they saw as a “violation of democratic norms”. Hungary’s Viktor Orban said on X “Je suis Marine Le Pen”. Orban’s post came on the same platform Donald Trump Jr posted that “JD Vance was right about everything”, a reference to the US vice president’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he claimed Europe was silencing populist opposition.
President Trump weighed in: “The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech… it is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me.”
Le Pen has called for bans and tough sentences for corrupt politicians from other parties. In France, mainstream commentators are accusing her of hypocrisy and “Trumpisme” for attacking the courts now.
They also allege, or rather hope, that RN’s anger is endangering Marine Le Pen’s drive to make her party respectable with her so-called “wear a neck-tie strategy”, designed to dispel the loutish, racist image of her father’s Front National.
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Le Pen leaves court after guilty verdict
For all the protests, justice and politics are now inextricably mixed in France. A ban from political campaigning would be pointless for most convicts, who have no political ambitions.
Any suggestion that Le Pen was just being treated like any other citizen was dispelled when it was announced that her appeal would be speeded up to take place next summer. The president of the court de cassation conceded: “Justice knows how to adjust to circumstances… an election deadline in this case.”
The ban could be lifted in time to give Le Pen a year to stand for the presidency. At this stage, a full acquittal seems unlikely, given the weight of evidence against RN. That is awkward for her and her party because, presumably, she would be campaigning while under house arrest.
The best course of action for 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s apparent successor, or “Dauphin”, would be to stick with her now. He would gain little if he split RN by insisting she is fatally wounded.
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If she loses her appeal in a year’s time, his loyalty and indignation would be likely to boost his candidacy. Conventional wisdom is that without a lift he may be slick, but is too callow and too square to stand a chance of becoming president in 2027.
The far right in France is no different from the far right elsewhere – prone to internal rivalries and in-fighting.
The craggy intellectual Eric Zemmour came fourth in the first round in the last presidential contest in 2022. Back then he had the support of Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s flighty niece. The two have since fallen out and may separately bid to carry the far-right torch.
Macron is riding high as an international statesman but he is unpopular at home. Even if he wanted to, he cannot stand again because of term limits.
His attempts to spawn an heir apparent have failed. The 34-year-old prime minister Gabriel Attal led Ensemble to crushing defeat in last year’s parliamentary elections.
Current prime minister Bayrou, and former prime minister Edouard Philippe, will probably make a bid for the centre-right vote. Bruno Retailleau, the trenchantly hardline interior minister, looks a stronger candidate for the Gaullist Les Republicains.
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In the last presidential contest, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the hard-left La France Insoumise came third. He may fancy his chances of getting into the final two in 2027 against a right-wing candidate, unless the Socialists get it together. Or perhaps he may let through two finalists from the right and the extreme right.
It is a mess.
France and Europe need effective leadership from a French president. The unnecessary judicial suspension of Marine Le Pen’s candidacy has simply generated uncertainty. Her supporters are outraged and her foes no longer know who they are fighting against.
The French establishment thinks it will all blow over. Just as likely the controversy in France will strengthen the populist winds blowing across the continent and the US.
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