Tag Archives: leak

Are these the facts about Matt Hancock’s Covid 19 care homes blunder?

Matt Hancock: Blunderman strikes again.

The cache of 100,000 WhatsApp messages by Matt Hancock about Covid-19, from 2020, in which he discussed delaying or failing to test people going into care homes from the community, got a thorough airing on the BBC’s Politics Live and in Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions.

PMQs focused mostly on the fact that information about the government’s behaviour during the Covid crisis is starting to drip out piecemeal, meaning it is now a matter of urgency that the independent inquiry into the response to the pandemic be concluded and report in good time.

The discussion on the talk show was more about the content of the messages – and did, in fact, touch on the fact that these messages all came long after the big decisions about testing for Covid-19 in care homes had already been made.

Hancock had known since February that year that people from the community, coming into homes, were infecting the people living there, and since March that people there were dying of Covid-19.

He chose to do nothing about it until April – and then, as the messages indicate, he didn’t do enough.

So, is this a storm in a teacup?

Judge for yourself:


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Matt Hancock WhatsApp leak rewrites history – but not the way you’re being told

Matt Hancock: the current WhatsApp controversy makes it seem he only considered testing people in care homes from April 14, 2020 – but existing information shows he had been ruling it out for around two months (since February) despite mounting deaths.

No wonder Isabel Oakeshott was so liverish on Politics Live – she was about to become the centre of a new Covid-19 controversy.

Ms Oakeshott is the person who leaked 100,000 Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages that seem to suggest he has not been altogether truthful about government plans for Covid-19 testing in care homes during 2020. She had access to them while “helping” him write his memoir.

Spokespeople for Hancock have said the messages have been doctored to present a false impression.

But my recollection is that the controversy at the time had little to do with what these messages say. I made my point on Twitter as follows:

You can read the relevant background information in these Vox Political articles from 2020:

Coronavirus deaths: ‘sorry’ is the hardest word for Hancock (April 29, 2020)

Is Johnson guilty of human rights abuses over coronavirus care home deaths? Could be! (May 3, 2020)

Care home deaths cover-up suggests Johnson and Hancock are guilty as sin (May 15, 2020)

If Tories really regret not testing for Covid-19 in care homes – is it because they were caught? (May 20, 2020)

Why didn’t Matt Hancock send vulnerable Covid-19 sufferers to Nightingale hospitals rather than care homes? (May 22, 2020)

Hancock denies claim about Covid-testing care home residents. What DID he mean, then? (June 6, 2020)

Hancock’s excuse for care home deaths changes with the wind – but doesn’t change the fact that HE LIED TO US (June 10, 2020)

Doctor launches court case against Tories over Covid-19 care home death of her dad (June 14, 2020)

Is Matt Hancock denying care homes Covid-19 tests to deliberately harm residents? (August 30, 2020)

So there you have it. Despite advice from SAGE in February 2020 that Covid-19 was already being transmitted between people in the community, Hancock put out official guidance saying there was no such transmission and nobody in a care home was likely to be infected.

Care home staff who moved from one home to another were also not tested, meaning they were able to catch the disease from patients at one home and transmit it to those at any others they visited.

This remained official advice until March 12, 2020, despite the fact that care homes had been recording deaths related to Covid-19 from March 2 onwards – 10 days previously.

The UK only went into lockdown on March 23.

Care homes did not start testing for the disease until April 15 (of people leaving hospital), and regular tests of all staff and residents did not start until July.

Now check this against the current story (I’ll use the BBC version as the Telegraph, which broke this story, is behind a paywall):

WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper suggest Mr Hancock was told in April 2020 there should be “testing of all going into care homes”.

Government guidance later mandated tests only for those leaving hospital.

In one message, dated 14 April, Mr Hancock reportedly told aides that Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medial officer for England, had conducted an “evidence review” and recommended “testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result”.

The message came a day before the publication of Covid-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care, a government document setting out plans to keep the care system functioning during the pandemic.

Mr Hancock said the advice represented a “good positive step” and that “we must put into the doc”, to which an aide responded that he had sent the request “to action”.

But later the same day, Mr Hancock messaged again saying he would rather “leave out” a commitment to test everyone entering care homes from the community and “just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital”.

“I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said this followed an operational meeting, where he was advised it was not possible to test everyone entering care homes.

When the care plan was published on 15 April, it said the government would “institute a policy of testing all residents prior to admission to care homes”, but that that would “begin with all those being discharged from hospital”.

It said only that it would “move to” a policy of testing everyone entering care homes from the community.

From March 2020 to January 2022, there were 43,256 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England, according to the Office for National Statistics.

There’s a big discrepancy, isn’t there?

The WhatsApp messages have it that Hancock was only advised to start testing everybody going into care homes on April 14.

But in fact, SAGE had warned him in February – two months previously – that Covid-19 was already being transmitted in the community, and it is clear that community transmission was considered likely to cause infections within care homes from the government advice that was published on February 25.

And death figures from care homes clearly showed that Covid-19 had caused deaths there from March 2 onwards, so Hancock had no reason to believe that these homes were unaffected.

But he waited nearly two months before doing anything.

The lack of testing kits in sufficient numbers has been blamed for the failure to test everybody who needed it – but this is not an acceptable response. The government had known of the threat since late 2019 but had not bothered to take timely action, and this is the reason too few testing kits were available.

And more than 43,000 people died.


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Would refugee concentration camp petrol bomber be called a terrorist if he wasn’t white?

Flames: a blaze caused by the petrol bomb attack at Dover were doused and nobody was injured.

A researcher from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, has been looking into the history of the man who petrol-bombed a migrant concentration camp in Dover, then took his own life.

Do you even remember this incident? Rajan Basra reckons you might have forgotten it already. I reported it, briefly, here.

Mr Basra’s Twitter thread is illuminating and I present it unedited and without further comment:

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More allegations emerge about ‘Security risk’ Suella – and MI5

Suella Braverman: does she seem prone to impulsive acts that endanger UK security to you?

More concerns have been raised about Suella Braverman after it was claimed that her relationship with MI5 is not what it should be.

It arises from a Daily Telegraph report that Braverman was seeking an injunction to block a BBC story about a spy working for British intelligence.

The briefing received by the newspaper, allegedly from Braverman, damaged the government’s argument that publishing details of the court case could harm national security.

The High Court later ruled the BBC could publish the story, though an injunction still bars it from identifying the man.

An inquiry was launched to find out who had leaked confidential details of the court case to the Telegraph and the High Court permits publication of the fact there was a leak inquiry, but the government has so far refused to comment.

So it is possible that Rishi Sunak knows who leaked the information to the newspaper but is sitting on that information.

If so, one has to ask why. Is it because it was Braverman, and he doesn’t want to admit that there’s evidence that she is a security risk, or that MI5 doesn’t trust her?

That would be very foolish, because information of this nature always comes out in the end.

Of course, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is absolutely right to have said, “Ignoring warnings about security risks when appointing a home secretary is highly irresponsible and dangerous.”

That’s why we need to know.

And you can be sure Keir Starmer is adding it to his file of evidence against both Braverman and Sunak.

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No prosecutions over Hancock kiss photo leak – because someone wanted him out?

You go for Klimt but you get Munch: Matt Hancock’s social distance-breaking kiss was compared to Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ but apparently the colour makes it more reminiscent of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Many women may understand that sensation.

Isn’t it odd that arrangements can be made to leak images of an embarrassing Cabinet minister in a compromising situation – but it’s impossible to find the culprit(s)?

Someone apparently used a mobile phone to take images of then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock kissing his long-time friend and then-aide Gina Coladangelo, from CCTV camera images taken at the Department of Health on May 6, 2021.

It has been alleged that the camera had to be moved in order to be able to take the image, although it would be beyond This Writer’s powers to secure proof of whether that was true.

The images were handed to The Sun the following month and Hancock resigned as Health Secretary on June 27. He subsequently separated from his wife, with whom he has three children, and moved in with Ms Coladangelo.

It was one of those instances in which the end justified the means; Hancock was a disgrace as Health Secretary, presiding over many tens of thousands of preventable Covid-19 deaths because he was more interested in handing huge contracts to Tory cronies for equipment they were never going to supply. And did the government ever get any of that money back?

But it is also true that someone breached the security of a government department, and it was right that a criminal investigation should have been launched – although I question why the Information Commissioner’s Office carried it out and not the police.

Logically, the location of the security office to which the CCTV cameras feed was sent would have been known. And the names of personnel staffing that office would also have been known. So only a small number of people could have been suspects.

I wonder whether they were employed by a private security firm? If so, that’s another black mark against the privatisation that the Tories love so much.

The ICO said checks of mobile phones owned by the suspects revealed no evidence of relevant CCTV footage. Did they contain other footage, then? What are these security people doing with images taken from cameras – and is taking images off camera footage a widespread practice?

This Writer’s experience suggests law enforcement agencies are able to find evidence, even if it has been erased from a mobile phone’s memory, so I wonder whether any of the suspects had a new phone? Wouldn’t that be suspicious? It’s possible the phone used to take the image(s) was left with The Sun, isn’t it?

It seems there were a few avenues of investigation to explore – but it also seems that the political will to find the culprits simply wasn’t there.

Maybe I’m doing the ICO a disservice. Maybe we simply haven’t been told about every stage of the investigation.

Or maybe those responsible for leaking the image(s) served their purpose and that’s why they have been able to disappear without a trace? Nothing would surprise This Writer, as far as Boris Johnson’s government is concerned.

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Who authorised this ‘circumstantial and inferential’ attack on alleged Labour whistleblowers?

Keir Starmer (left) and his general secretary David Evans: was this decision their idea?

After successfully fending off a court bid to name officers believed to have leaked a controversial internal report, Labour has named and accused five ex-staffers as part of its defence against others who are suing the party over the link. Wait – what?

The internal report, The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019, was originally intended to be a submission from the Labour Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which conducted an investigation into Labour anti-Semitism that concluded in October 2020, finding that the party was not institutionally anti-Semitic.

On legal advice, the report was not submitted to the EHRC – but it was instead leaked, in full, to the press and online, leading to court action by people named in the report.

This in turn led to two investigations by Labour – one by an independent external investigator and another by Martin Forde QC. Neither found evidence to prove that any of the five who have now been accused had anything to do with the leak. The Forde report has been delayed indefinitely after the Information Commissioner’s Office launched an investigation into the same leaks.

Labour’s latest move is beyond ridiculous. If This Writer understands the situation properly, Labour has already acknowledged to a court that there was no “smoking gun” evidence to prove who leaked the report, and the party’s solicitor stated that it “does not claim to know definitively and with absolute certainty the identity of the person(s) responsible”.

So why has it named Seumas Milne, Karie Murphy, Georgie Robertson, Harry Hayball and Laura Murray as being responsible for leaking the so-called “LabourLeaks” report?

According to solicitors Carter-Ruck, acting for the group, “To the extent that the Labour Party has explained its proposed action, it is clear that it will be naming the individuals in an attempt to deflect on to them its own liability in claims brought by a group of claimants who are suing the party over the leak as well as the party bringing a related claim direct against the five.”

On one level, this makes sense – because Keir Starmer and his general secretary David Evans have brought Labour to the brink of bankruptcy by losing a string of court cases related to the crusade against left-wing party members they have accused of anti-Semitism. Deflecting blame in the current case might seem a smart plan – right?

Except… if the five are able to employ super-expensive Carter-Ruck, then they’re not short of cash and are likely to get very high-quality advice. Not only will they “vigorously defend” themselves in court and seek full reimbursement of their costs, but according to “well-placed sources

the five individuals are “considering bringing legal claims against the party over its victimisation of them and for breach of their confidentiality”.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the five said:

“The individuals entirely reject these baseless claims. They did not leak the report. They fully cooperated with the party’s investigation by an independent external investigator, and with
the inquiry led by Martin Forde QC. They understand that neither of those investigations concluded that they were responsible.

“The party has already acknowledged in court that it cannot be certain who leaked the report and that its “case” against them is circumstantial. But it is now trying to make them foot the bill for legal action brought against it.

“The party should be focussing on the deeply troubling evidence contained with the leaked report, rather than trying to wrongly scapegoat and victimise former staff who documented it, and who have not been accused by either of the independent investigations.”

The situation is particularly interesting to me because, when I was still a Labour member, an internal party report libellously accusing me of Holocaust denial was leaked to the press. When I took the party to court over its treatment of me, Labour’s representatives repeatedly asserted that they could not identify the officer responsible for the leak. I am agog to learn how the party linked these five to this leak when it couldn’t connect anybody with mine. Expedience?

And if you thought that was the punchline, think again:

Decisions on matters like this are so important that they should properly be submitted to a vote by the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee. But here’s NEC member Mish Rahman:

I think we know who made this unilateral decision. It seems they had no authority to do so.

With such potential for disastrous consequences for Labour’s finances, isn’t this a good reason for disciplinary – and indeed even expulsion – procedures against the culprit(s)?

Finally, there’s the elephant in the room:

Lots of us – including Jon Trickett, who wrote Labour’s submission to the Forde Report and can see the way the wind is blowing. So he is considering some unilateral action of his own:

Oh, and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell – who was part of the Labour leadership at the time – agrees.

So there’s a fairly clear path forward for Labour:

Withdraw the claims against the “Carter-Ruck Five”, divulge who decided to make them and submit those people to disciplinary action/expulsion. Publish the Forde Report.

But…

I think we all know those are forlorn hopes.

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After Evans won (rigged?) vote to remain Labour GenSec, here’s a recording of him saying he stripped members of their rights

Corrupt: Labour members who voted to keep David Evans as Keir Starmer’s general secretary won’t care that he’s as bent as a nine-bob note, but for those of us who prize honesty and integrity, this recording of him explaining that he deliberately worked to restrict the rights of left-wing, Corbyn-supporting members is reason enough to quit Labour forever and let it sink in its own corruption.

Funny how these things turn up after corrupt creeps like Evans get confirmed in their rotten jobs, isn’t it?

Still, it’s unlikely that it would have changed the result of the vote, which was carried, apparently, by Starmer and Evans’s right-wing robots.

It does show that Evans is corrupt, though – and indicates that Starmer is corrupt, by extension.

By rights, it’s enough evidence to force him to resign, making him the shortest-serving Labour general secretary ever. But these corrupt types never do the decent thing.

But it is more evidence to support a mass exodus from the party of Keir Starmer’s friends.

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14 years in jug for embarrassing the government? Patel is crossing from fascism to Nazism

This is a Nazi-style bid to turn our newspapers into propaganda sheets.

(And let’s be honest – most of them are more than halfway there already.)

The big surprise about the story is that it has been broken by the Daily Heil!

According to that rag, Priti Patel – for it is her again – has been consulting on a plan to change the Official Secrets Act in order to remove protections for reporters who are handed leaked documents that may embarrass the Tory government.

The Act’s provisions are intended to protect the UK against agents of foreign governments. Attacking UK-based journalists is clearly a perversion of such legislation but Patel won’t be worried about that.

The Mail‘s story states:

Under a consultation run by Priti Patel’s Home Office, which closes later this week, reporters who handle leaked documents would not have a defence if charged under new laws designed to clamp down on foreign agents.

There’s been a consultation? And it closes in a matter of days? This must be one of those fake consultations that the Tories do all the time – they claim to have been consulting while deliberately not telling anybody about it.

Human rights organisations and the Law Commission, which drew up the proposals, say there should be a ‘public interest defence’ included to prevent the prosecution of journalists who receive leaked documents.

But in a paper released for the consultation, the Home Office said such a move would ‘undermine our efforts to prevent damaging unauthorised disclosures, which would not be in the public interest’.

Who says what’s in the public interest and what isn’t? Usually it’s the courts, in cases of serious disagreement – but the power of the courts is being curbed in new Tory legislation so Patel is effectively giving the Tories ultimate power over the press.

This Writer won’t be affected, though. I may comment on what it means when the contents of leaked documents are published but I don’t receive those documents so I can’t publish them.

Tough luck, Patel! You might turn your supporters in the mainstream media against you but you won’t get critics like Vox Political.

Source: Journalists could face 14 years in prison for embarrassing the Government under proposed law change | Daily Mail Online

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Labour members: be careful not to be recorded at new anti-Semitism training. They may use it to accuse you!

Don’t go: if the Jewish Labour Movement is organising training on anti-Semitism, the session will probably be an attempt to indoctrinate attendees into the pro-Israel, aggressive Zionist ideology that the JLM supports.

The Labour Party has announced that it is running an online “awareness training session” for members to learn about anti-Semitism.

The session will cover “what anti-Semitic incidents look like in the UK and the world today, identifying different elements of anti-Semitism and how the Labour Party can create a welcoming environment for Jewish members”.

Does that seem good? Well, it isn’t.

Because the session between 6pm and 7pm on June 14 is being run by the Jewish Labour Movement. Anybody attending is likely to have their contribution recorded with a view to releasing it to the press as part of an accusation of anti-Semitism.

Ask Jackie Walker about it, because that’s what happened to her. JLM members recorded her, twisted the meaning of her words, and had her expelled from the Labour Party.

The organiser and chair of the meeting at which Ms Walker was framed was Mike Katz. He’s now chair of the Jewish Labour Movement and will be introducing the “training session” on June 14.

I’m not saying this means the event is definitely an attempt at entrapment, but historical evidence certainly suggests it may be.

You can check it yourself, in these articles:

Another anti-Semitism row that completely misses the point

‘Anti-Semitism’ accusation against Momentum vice-chair was ‘outrage’, say witnesses

Black and Minority Ethnic representatives line up to support Jackie Walker

Jackie Walker ruling betrays Momentum members | Letters | The Guardian

Jackie Walker’s crowdfunded action means Labour’s general secretary is facing TWO legal cases against him

As Ms Walker herself puts it: “Undertaking AS training led by the JLM? Ask for assurance you won’t be filmed, reported to the Party or the media.”

The reference to a “discredited definition of anti-Semitism that deliberately confused it with anti-Zionism” is important because the Jewish Labour Movement supports to the hilt the aggressive Zionism currently being practised in Israel, where Palestinians living on land that has been theirs for centuries are being forcibly removed by Israeli troops following a programme to restore the ancient borders of Israel (in defiance of the UN resolution that created the modern country in the first place).

Look on the organisation’s website. Last time I checked, its own mission statement read: “The Jewish Labour Movement is also affiliated to the Board of Deputies of British Jews*, the Zionist Federation of the UK, and organise within the World Zionist Organisation… Our objects: To maintain and promote Labour or Socialist Zionism as the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people within the state of Israel.”

“Zionist”… “Zionist”… “Zionism”… “within the state of Israel”.

As I wrote, several years ago: “It seems clear that “Jewish Labour Movement” is a misnomer. It should be “Zionist Labour Movement”.”

And – I reiterate – it is the poisonous, aggressive Zionism that (apparently) shoots Palestinians’ legs off just because they exist.

This is what Mr Katz is likely to be peddling at his training session on June 14 – and woe betide anybody attending it who does not agree with him!

So tell me, Labour Party members who have been invited to attend: Are you still keen to go, now that you know what might happen to you?

*Why is the Jewish Labour Movement associating itself with the Board of Deputies, an organisation dominated by Conservatives? Good question. But then, the JLM is open to people who aren’t members of the Labour Party. I wonder how many of them are dyed-in-the-wool Tories too.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Red faces over ‘RedThroat’ as reporters line up to say Greensill leaks were NOT from Labour mole

David Cameron: there are genuine concerns about his conduct on behalf of Greensill – so why is a columnist for a Tory rag trying to make trouble for the whistleblowers?

The trouble with Dan Hodges’ assertion that a Labour Party mole leaked embarrassing information about the Greensill scandal is that a falsehood can go around the world before the facts have got their boots on.

In this case, the refutations have come fast – and there have been a lot of them – but the implication that this huge scandal has been fabricated by Labour will undoubtedly be taken up by the Tory-supporting trolls for use in the future.

Here’s Hodges:

In the article, he writes:

‘It’s pretty clear we’ve got a Labour mole inside Government,’ a Minister tells me. ‘There were suspicions before the Greensill affair, but this has basically confirmed it. It’s the only explanation for where all this stuff is coming from.’

Alternatively…

Tim Fenton, over on Zelo Street, has described the Tory frenzy to find Labour moles as “Amateur hour at the paranoia bar” and his article is well worth reading.

Even Gabriel Pogrund over at The Sunday Times, who seems to hate Labour so much that he published lies about This Writer (for which the paper later had to publish a humiliatingly-lengthy retraction), had to agree that Hodges is wrong here:

I wonder whether this is a thinly-veiled attempt to unmask the alleged moles, so the Tories can root them out of Whitehall.

If so, it is to be resisted.

Tory corruption is rampant and they are hardly likely to broadcast their misdeeds willingly.

We need whistleblowers in Whitehall to tell us what these people are really doing with our money.

We should not sit back and allow them to be punished for their honesty.

Of course, Hodges won’t take any punishment for publishing a falsehood.

Undoubtedly his article has boosted sales/reads of his rag, the Mail on Sunday.

As an ex-newspaper hack, This Writer can assure you that such a boost was all that its bosses wanted.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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If you want to support this site
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3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

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