Covid Inquiry: the wrong people were at the wrong meetings taking the wrong decisions

There are some issues in world affairs which appear to be insoluble. Some are ages old, such as the continuing bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians. Others are new – thrown up by technological developments.

This week at Bletchley Park, the Prime Minister has called a conference to confront the threats from the future created by AI. Meanwhile in Bayswater, four days of hearings at the Covid Inquiry are set to expose present dangers which have already rendered ministers and officials unable to govern responsibly as they seek to juggle the overwhelming profusion of channels of communication both official and informal, which have been made possible by digital technology.

This week’s hearings are on so-called “Module 2” looking at “Core Decision-making and Political Governance”. The roster of witnesses is made up of key players both in decision-making about dealing with the pandemic and, it so happens, in the Partygate rule-breaking across Downing Street and Whitehall. 

First up on Monday morning was Martin Reynolds, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s principle private secretary until March 2022. “Party Marty” sent out over a hundred invitations to a “bring your own booze” party which took place in May 2020, later commenting privately “we seem to have got away with it.” He is named 24 times in Sue Gray’s report into the affair.

Helen MacNamara is giving evidence this week. She was Johnson’s head of ethics and was fined over a leaving party during lockdown, at which she is alleged to have provided a karaoke machine. Also appearing is Lee Cain, the Prime Minister’s former communications chief and a close ally of Dominic Cummings.

Cummings is due to give evidence on Tuesday. He was Johnson’s closest and most powerful advisor throughout 2020, when the Covid outbreak began, until he and Cain quit acrimoniously in November that year. Cummings was famously allowed to make excuses for his own violation of Covid rules in May 2020 at a news conference in the Downing Street garden.

Both Cummings and Cain are expected to expand on their previous comments that Johnson delayed too long making up his mind and was constitutionally incapable of acting decisively. Cummings also maintains that there were systemic faults which made the government machine inefficient and function badly handling the crisis.

Cummings has already attacked the inquiry as well for its slowness, comparing it to Singapore on his substack, adding “little will change except, probably, Whitehall will create hundreds of new “processes”, more non-jobs and friction will be even higher when the next crisis hits.”(His italics).

In-person testimony by the cabinet secretary Simon Case due this week has been postponed because he has been taken sick. His private Whatsapp messages disclosed to the Inquiry have already proved embarrassing. In one message to Cain and Cummings, Case said: “The government doesn’t have the credibility needed to be imposing stuff within only days of deciding not to [sic]. We look like a terrible, tragic joke. If we were going hard, that decision was needed weeks ago. I cannot cope with this.” He also commented: “the real person in charge is Carrie”, Johnson’s wife, and texted that he was “going to scream” about the latest plan from then Health Secretary Matt Hancock. 

Matt Hancock’s own Whatsapp messages, first partially revealed in his published “Diaries” and then further disclosed by his ghost writer Isabel Oakeshott, have already done reputational damage to him and the government. 

George Osborne, the podcaster and former Tory chancellor, claims that some of the exchanges between Johnson and Cummings to be revealed by the Inquiry this week include “pretty disgusting language and misogynistic language.” 

Earlier this month, WhatsApp messages disclosed in evidence revealed that Dame Angela McLean has described Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death the chancellor” following his “Eat out to Help out” inducements to the public. 

None of these informal exchanges reflect well on those involved. Evidence at the hearings has suggested that the wrong people were at the wrong meetings taking the wrong decisions about Covid. There was no clear line of deliberation because discussions took place ad hoc across a patchwork of email and text messages.

This sorry state of affairs explains why the opening this week of cross examination of high-profile witnesses began with a discussion of process. The inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, has successfully gone to court to demand full disclosure of smart phone messages but she warned against leaks of evidence insisting, “it is for me to decide what is disclosed…fully, fairly and independently”. She insisted confidentiality was essential so she could act “without gloss” and “with impartiality” while there are “those who have an agenda”. 

Lady Hallett’s approach is commendable but unrealistic. Just like the insiders in government then, she is now faced with the reality that digital technology makes it almost impossible to control information – if there is an electronic recording of it. 

Counsel’s cross-examination of Martin Reynolds also dwelt on the absence of a chain of record due to the mixed use of emails, hard copies, and text messages. Print outs of Reynolds’ WhatsApps run to some 115 pages. 

On the record on Monday, Reynolds conceded that “the Prime Minister blew hot and cold” on key decisions during the pandemic. But in a heated exchange he claimed he was “not sufficiently expert” to contradict counsel’s assertion that at the start of the outbreak “There was no plan for coronavirus”. Reynolds was also asked, “Why did you turn on the disappearing message function around the time the Prime Minister announced [there would be] a public inquiry.” He was unable to give a clear explanation of his action in April 2021.

Officials in Scotland appear to have been rather more effective in ensuring that there is not a clear record of their spontaneous communications during the pandemic. There are Inquiries underway in both Edinburgh and London. On behalf of the UK investigation, the barrister, James Dawson KC, commented: “A clear theme of the overall response received from and via the Scottish government is that although such messaging systems were used in the pandemic response, including by some key decision makers and others, generally very few messages appear to have been retained. This is surprising, in particular, in light of the apparent availability of such messages in high volumes within the UK government.” 

The Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf replied that this was “a serious matter” and re-iterated that his government would provide what information it has to the inquiries. 

The Covid Inquiry is expected to last into 2026, at a cost of over £200 million, breaking the record set by the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Hearings on this governance module are expected to last into early next year. Then they will move on to such matters as vaccines, PPE procurement and the restrictions imposed on the public during the crisis. Lady Hallett plans to publish interim reports as soon as she can along the way. 

Our memories of the pandemic are receding. Mask-wearing, stay at home, social distancing, shut schools all seem to belong to another era. It seems unlikely that they would be repeated in another crisis. But the sad fact remains that well over two hundred thousand UK citizens died as a result of the crisis and that the UK government did not excel in dealing with it. It is important that lessons be learnt. 

It is already clear that the UK government needs to systemise its decision-making and record-taking given the numerous opportunities and temptations unavoidably on offer in this age of digital communication. WhatsApp, texting and message deletion are not making it any easier for Lady Hallett’s investigation to reach just conclusions either. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life