Leaked messages raise questions over how WhatsApp is used in government
Good evening,
"I'd resign and move to another country." So said a civil servant asked by Politico how they would respond if their private communications during the pandemic were leaked.
After seeing his own WhatsApp messages splashed across the front pages, Matt Hancock might have considered quitting as an MP had he not already done so in December. But jetting off for another stint in the Australian jungle could appeal to the former health secretary-turned-reality TV star.
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| TODAY'S BIG QUESTION | | Questions are being raised over Westminster's reliance on WhatsApp after a leak of more than 100,000 messages sent to and from the then health secretary Matt Hancock during the coronavirus crisis.
The Telegraph has published a huge cache of messages sent between Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The exchanges were handed to the newspaper by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, the co-author of Hancock's recently published diaries.
Among other revelations, the messages revealed how Hancock allegedly did not follow advice from the chief medical officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, to test all residents going into English care homes during the worst of the pandemic.
They also contained some testy exchanges between Hancock and his former Conservative colleague turned newspaper editor George Osborne. "No one thinks testing is going well, Matt," Osborne reportedly texted Hancock, who was once his chief of staff. And the education secretary at the time, Gavin Williamson, was reported to have moaned that some teaching unions "really do just hate work". |
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TALKING POINT | | Westminster is awash with anger and resentment after it was revealed that Keir Starmer is set to appoint Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who investigated the partygate scandal, as his chief of staff.
A timeline of the Downing Street lockdown party allegations
Gray has left her role as head of the Union and Constitution Directorate at the Cabinet Office and is expected to join the Labour leader's team, as first reported by Sky News.
Her appointment "will be seen as a significant achievement for the opposition leader as his party plots its course to power", wrote Rachel Wearmouth, deputy political editor of The New Statesman. |
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Podcast | | Why are broadband customers facing hefty price hikes? Are Arab nations about to re-engage with Syria? And what's going on with the French women's football team? |
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WHAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING… | | Could a simple fingerprint test be used to screen women for breast cancer? That is the possibility raised by a study of 15 women that found that sweat on the fingers contains proteins that make it possible to detect breast cancer with a high degree of accuracy. Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation/mass spectrometry to analyse fingerprint smears from patients with benign, early or metastatic breast cancer. With machine-learning applied, the technology was able to predict the category of cancer with an accuracy rate of 98%. Current methods of screening and detection, such as biopsy and mammogram, are effective, but they can be uncomfortable and culturally unacceptable. The team said their trial had only provided proof of concept, but that with such promising results they hoped now to take the research to the next stage. |
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PUZZLES AND QUIZZES | | Have you been paying attention to The Week's news? |
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| PICTURE OF THE DAY | | Britain's Lewis Hamilton talks to the media ahead of the Formula One Grand Prix of Bahrain, which kicks off the 2023 F1 season.
Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images |
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Good week for... | Easyjet passengers, after a pilot performed a 360º turn over the North Sea, on a flight from Iceland to Manchester, so that they could enjoy a spectacular view of the Northern Lights from 37,000 feet. Owing to unusual conditions, the Aurora Borealis was also visible from as far south as Cornwall this week. | |
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Bad week for... | Royal Mail, with new figures showing that in the three months to 4 December, it only managed to deliver 54% of first class post on the next working day – far below its 93% target. The company apologised for its poor service, blaming days of strikes. | |
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Puzzles | | Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section |
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instant opinion | | Your digest of analysis from the British and international press from the past seven days
"Emily Eavis knows she needs to do better," says Ellen Peirson-Hagger in The New Statesman, following news that the headliners for this year's Glastonbury will "consist of three acts comprised almost entirely of white men". Eavis has blamed an industry "pipeline" problem, but the "suggestion that there are just not enough women or people of colour who are popular enough to have the headline slot is unfounded", argues Peirson-Hagger. "What about Dua Lipa, Rihanna, SZA, Pink, Madonna, Megan Thee Stallion, Halsey, Rosalía or Frank Ocean?" In past years, the festival "has proven that remarkable headline sets often come from acts who might have been considered left-field bets", she writes. "So why didn't the organisers do that this time?" |
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| The wish list | | Featuring historical country houses, quaint cottages, and a farmhouse with a stone tower |
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DOWN TO BUSINESS | Friday afternoon markets | US and European stocks climbed today as investors considered the latest economic data pointing towards robust economic activity. France's Cac 40 and Germany's Dax made solid gains, while the UK's FTSE 100 was relatively flat.
FTSE 100: 7,946.81, up 0.03%
Dax: 15,571.85, up 1.59%
Dow: 33,140.55, up 0.42%
Dollar: £1 = $1.1974, up 0.28%
Euro: £1 = €1.1295, up 0.27%
Brent crude: $85.16, up 0.48%
Gold: $1,837.30, up 0.21% | |
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WIT & WISDOM | "I'm sorry, but you can't always be experiencing a higher volume of calls than average. That's not how averages work." | Twitter user @Kit_Yates_Maths, quoted in The Times | |
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