Adam Boulton: Politicians are drawn to WhatsApp – it may stop us ever knowing whole truth
Matt Hancock, who resigned as health secretary in the midst of the pandemic, and his memoir’s co-author Isabel Oakeshott, who subsequently handed over confidential information he gave her to The Daily Telegraph, have both come under heavy public criticism.
But they also performed one important public service by revealing the central role played by WhatsApp for communications between ministers and others during the crisis.
The cache of over 100,000 messages – more than two million words’ worth – which Mr Hancock downloaded from his phone and gave to Ms Oakeshott, provided the substance for their self-justifying book Pandemic Diaries and for the revelations in The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files reporting.
Thanks to Ms Oakeshott’s betrayal, the Hancock messages are effectively in the public domain.
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Leaked WhatsApp messages from Matt Hancock
So what about all the other informal communications in 2020, 2021 and 2022 inside government during COVID-19? Surely they should be gathered in the evidence for Baroness Hallet’s official UK COVID-19 Inquiry, which will start hearings in a few weeks’ time?
Lady Hallet has already assured “the bereaved that this inquiry is in the process of obtaining all relevant WhatsApp messages from all relevant groups, not just those from Mr Hancock”.
The government must be regretting giving Heather Hallet, a retired justice of appeal, such a wide-ranging remit for her inquiry. Alongside other vital matters such as how the health services dealt with patients and the pandemic, she is instructed to examine “how decisions were made, communicated, recorded, and implemented” in “the public health response across the UK.”
This puts Boris Johnson, his ministers and their advisers in her sights from the very start of the pandemic.
On Thursday, the government took the remarkable decision to take legal action against the inquiry it set up in an attempt to avoid handing over the unredacted emails of the then prime minister, Mr Johnson.
The bitter tussle over disclosure involves Lady Hallet, Mr Johnson, the courts, the Cabinet Office, and ultimately the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
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Government ‘carefully considering next steps’
Yet the nature of modern communication means whatever is handed over cannot give a full picture. Messaging by WhatsApp is an easy option for hard-pressed ministers and an invitation for ill-judged comments.
It also usually leaves a trail, if that can be accessed. WhatsApp messages can also be lost or deleted, or conducted in other conversations on undetected devices.
Lady Hallett is taking a tough line. She insists it is not up to the Cabinet Office to decide what internal government communications and messages, formal and informal, are relevant to her inquiry.
She wants to see everything: WhatsApp exchanges, emails, minutes, notes and diaries, “including the other (superficially unrelated) political matters they were concerned with at the time” – because it is possible a minister dealt with COVID matters “inadequately because he or she was focussing (perhaps inappropriately) on other issues.”
Before modern digital communications, it was simpler to keep track of how official decisions were reached. Most of the discussions or ideas were written down by those involved or recorded by their aides. Even telephone calls on direct lines were listened into and minuted.
Of course, important off-the-record conversations took place. But there was a generally respected code of honour that politicians would stand by their word, under oath, if required.
Smartphones have changed all that. There is little trust in what those in government say or say they have said. Personal phones and email servers have made it easier to avoid official channels and to express views casually. It is easier to dash off a hasty text message than to write a memo or to have a formal conversation.
Many involved in politics have been attracted to WhatsApp in particular by its promise of confidentiality through “end-to-end encryption”. As a result, WhatsApp records are often at the centre of contemporary demands for evidence, including from the COVID-19 Inquiry.
Even emails are old hat. Only yesterday, one senior official asked me for another’s mobile number, so they could send them a WhatsApp complaining “they never answer my emails”. Do they even read them? Nobody actually answers a telephone call these days. Until 20 years ago, the work of a political reporter was carried out essentially at first hand, through conversations face to face or on the phone. Now most communications take place in text message form on phones, most of it on WhatsApp.
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Johnson refutes ‘COVID rule breaches’
Paradoxically, as the Hancock files demonstrated, there is no privacy if WhatsApp trails can be accessed at either end. If an end-user’s phone can be opened, it is easy to recover an account of what was really said in chains of messages in numerous WhatsApp groups.
Many news stories in recent years have been based on what people have said to each other on WhatsApp. Hence, the contortions by former health minister Lord Bethell explaining why he had deleted or lost messages on his phones and the celebrated case of Rebekah Vardy’s agent’s phone dropping into the North Sea.
MPs are among those making increased use of the facility which automatically deletes messages after a set time. This is a genuine threat to ever being able to assemble a proper record in an inquiry. A bid to ban the practice of message self-destruction by ministers failed in the UK courts.
Matt Hancock and Isabel Oakeshott. Pic: Parsons Media
The government’s proposal to legislate against encryption in the Online Safety Bill has no bearing on disclosures through end users. It would allow security services to scrutinise messages without the knowledge of those communicating. WhatsApp says it would rather shut down in the UK than hand such power to the authorities. Its parent company Meta has floated extending encryption to Facebook and Instagram.
In its advice on data handling for doctors, the British Medical Association noted that international or US based companies, such as Meta, can never be fully subject to UK law.
A year ago, the Institute for Government blamed WhatsApp for poor decisions based on incomplete information, for making record keeping more difficult and for undermining accountability and transparency. Regulators and watchdog organisations accept however that it is impractical to disinvent, or completely ban the use of, personal phones and email accounts and WhatsApp.
In the wake of Mr Hancock’s resignation, the UK Information Commission Office issued “a reprimand” to the Department of Health (DHSC) for insufficient data protection. Commissioner John Edwards is leading calls for stronger guardrails to be put in place.
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What is in the online safety bill?
Civil servants have been issued with a colour code on the use NCCCs (non-corporate communications channels). It is in the red zone to use personal devices or emails for “secret” or “top secret” information. As so often in this country, rules for civil servants are merely guidelines for elected politicians. Disciplining ministers is subject to the whim of the prime minister.
That explains why Mr Johnson passed his records back to the Cabinet Office rather than directly to the COVID-19 Inquiry, gift-wrapped with the unhelpful suggestion to “urgently disclose” them. In practice, Mr Johnson put that tricky decision, and the controversial legal bid to protect his WhatsApp privacy, back in the hands of his rival Rishi Sunak.
In launching its appeal this week, the Cabinet Office revealed that it had only seen Mr Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from May 2021, 18 months after the pandemic began. Prior to that, he used a different personal phone which he has not made available, raising questions over how frank he intends to be.
Mr Hancock and Ms Oakeshott are not the only ones who think that official information, of interest to the public, is something to be manipulated for their own ends. WhatsApp is a powerful tool, but the trails of information it leaves behind do not tell the whole truth.
In mid-May, the World Health Organisation assessed that there were “nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.
“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” its report concluded.
Warning: This article contains images of an emaciated child which some readers may find distressing
Israel‘s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis.
But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza, and the United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items.
Israel-Gaza latest: Gaza enduring ‘atrocious death and destruction’, UN boss warns
“Strict quotas are being imposed on the goods we distribute, along with unnecessary delay procedures,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday.
“Essentials, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies, are prohibited. Nothing has reached the besieged north.”
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Baby Aya at Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza is dangerously thin
“Today, we receive between 300 to 500 cases daily, with approximately 10% requiring admission. This volume of inpatient cases far exceeds the capacity of Rantisi hospital, as the facility is not equipped to accommodate such large numbers,” Jall al Barawi, a doctor at the hospital, told us.
At least 94% of the hospitals have sustained some damage, some considerable, according to the UN.
Jall al Barawi, a doctor at Rantisi hospital
Paramedic crews are close to running out of fuel to drive ambulances.
The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions.
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Children are the worst affected.
Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin.
Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face. Her nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Aya’s nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Lethal spiral
Her mother Sundush, who is only 19 herself, cannot get enough food to produce breastmilk. Baby formula is scarce.
Aya, like so many other young children, cannot get the vital nutrition she needs to grow and develop.
It’s a lethal spiral.
This is what Aya looked like shortly after she was born
“My daughter was born at a normal weight, 3.5kg,” Sundush tells us.
“But as the war went on, her weight dropped significantly. I would breastfeed her, she’d get diarrhoea. I tried formula – same result. With the borders closed and no food coming in, I can’t eat enough to give her the nutrients she needs.”
“I brought her to the hospital for treatment, but the care she needs isn’t available.
“The doctor said her condition is very serious. I really don’t want to lose her, because I lost my husband and she’s all I have left of him. I don’t want to lose her.”
Read more:
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Aya and her mother Sundush
Some of the aid entering Gaza now is being looted. It is hard to know whether that is by Hamas or desperate civilians. Maybe a combination of the two.
The lack of aid creates an atmosphere of desperation, which eventually leads to a breakdown in security as everyone fights to secure food for themselves and their families.
Only by alleviating the desperation can the security situation improve, and the risk of famine abate.
World
Police launch ‘major operation’ after 12 people injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station
Twelve people are reported to have been injured after a knife attack at Hamburg’s central train station.
A “major operation” has been launched and a suspect was arrested, police said in a post on X.
The identity of the suspect has not been revealed.
Reports in Germany said the suspected attacker was a woman.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
Bild newspaper said the motive for the attack was so far unknown.
Hamburg is Germany’s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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The man suspected of shooting dead two Israeli embassy workers in Washington DC leaned over and fired at them repeatedly after they fell to the ground, the FBI has said.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, has been charged with murdering Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky, after they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night.
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Footage has showed Rodriguez, from Chicago, chanting “free, free Palestine” as he was arrested.
It later emerged Mr Lischinsky had bought a ring and planned to propose to Ms Milgrim.
Authorities are investigating the killings as both a hate crime against the Jewish community and terrorism.
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Shootings suspect shouts ‘free Palestine!’
‘I did it for Gaza’
It comes as the FBI has said in a charging document on Thursday that surveillance footage shows how Ms Milgrim and Mr Lischinsky died.
Rodriguez is allegedly seen passing the couple after they left the museum before shooting them in the back.
The FBI says the footage then shows him leaning over the couple and firing at them several more times after they fell to the ground.
The video then shows Ms Milgrim attempting to crawl away before “(Rodriguez) followed behind her and fired again”, the charging document says.
The suspected gunman is then accused of reloading his weapon and firing at Ms Milgrim as she sat up.
According to the charging document, Rodriguez then jogged to the museum and once inside asked to speak to a police officer before stating that he “did it” and that he was unarmed.
He is then said to have told police: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza, I am unarmed.”
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DC shooting: Father pays tribute to ‘perfect’ daughter
Suspect ‘expressed admiration’ for fatal protest
The court document also states that 21 expended 9mm bullet cases were found at the scene and the gun was slide-locked – meaning it was empty of ammunition.
An empty gun magazine was also recovered from the scene.
The FBI says it has obtained travel records which show Rodriguez flew from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to the Reagan National in Washington DC on Tuesday with the gun in his checked baggage.
Rodriguez had bought the weapon in the state of Illinois on 6 March 2020, according to the charging document.
The FBI has said that while Rodriguez was in custody he “expressed admiration” for a US Air Force member who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC on 25 February 2024.
Aaron Bushnell died in the apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza.
Rodriguez also told police he bought a ticket to the museum around three hours before the event that was attended by Ms Milgrim and Mr Lischinsky.
Read more:
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During a brief court appearance at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington DC today, Rodriguez was charged with two counts of first degree murder and with the murder of foreign officials.
He has also been charged with causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Rodriguez was told he could face life in prison or the death penalty if he is found guilty.
He remained calm throughout the hearing, paying attention to the proceedings throughout and confirmed that he is asking the court to appoint an attorney on his behalf.
He will next appear at a federal court in Washington DC on 18 June.
Murdered couple ‘were perfect for each other’
Meanwhile, Ms Milgrim’s father, Robert, says he feared his daughter might be in danger when he saw news alerts of a fatal shooting in Washington DC.
Ms Milgrim’s mother Nancy opened a phone locator app and saw Ms Milgrim was at the Capital Jewish Museum.
“Shortly after that, the Israeli ambassador called us on my wife’s phone,” Mr Milgrim told Sky News’ partner network NBC News, fighting back tears.
He added that it was the ambassador who told them Mr Lischinksy had bought a ring and was planning to propose to Ms Milgrim.
“They were perfect for each other, he said.
Mr Milgrim continued: “They just brought us joy, and her memory, which is a blessing, will continue to bring us joy – but it’s not the same as her not being here.”
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