Matt Hancock told Britain’s most senior civil servant they would need to “get heavy with the police” in order to enforce lockdown rules during the Covid pandemic, leaked messages have revealed. WhatsApp correspondence from a Daily Telegraph investigation shows how Hancock and Simon Case feared that officers were not doing enough to stop people from breaking the rules in August 2020. At the time, Case was in his last month as Downing Street permanent secretary. The messages also show how the then health secretary and colleagues gave “the plod” their “marching orders” in the following January, days after another lockdown had begun. The severity of policing the temporary measures was a hotly debated topic throughout the pandemic, with fines being handed out to people taking part in peaceful vigils or going for walks with cups of coffee. In a message sent on 28 August 2020, Case told Hancock: “Blimey! Who actually is delivering enforcement?” The former health secretary replied: “I think we are going to have to get heavy with the police.” Ministers publicly stated the police operated independently of the government in enforcing the rules throughout the pandemic. The Telegraph reported other messages showed Case apparently joking about the quarantine rules that meant travellers had to isolate on returning to the UK.
Case told Hancock on 5 February 2021: “I just want to see some of the faces of people coming out of first class and into a Premier Inn shoe box.” More than a week later, Case sent a message to Hancock saying: “Any idea how many people we locked up in hotels yesterday?” The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said: “This lifts the lid on the contempt that Boris Johnson and his Conservative cronies had for the British public during the pandemic. “They mocked and joked while breaking the rules we were all required to follow. “The Covid inquiry must be able to get to the bottom of this sorry saga in our country’s history as soon as possible. The public deserves the truth and bereaved families deserve justice.” It comes after Matt Hancock said he was “hugely disappointed” by what he described as a “massive betrayal and breach of trust by Isabel Oakeshott”, who gave WhatsApp messages from his time as health secretary to the Daily Telegraph. Oakeshott was given the WhatsApp exchanges by Hancock while they were collaborating on a book about the pandemic. Messages have so far been leaked from the former prime minister Boris Johnson; England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty; Simon Case, who is now the cabinet secretary; Johnson’s former director of communications Lee Cain, and Hancock’s adviser Emma Dean. The former health secretary apologised on Thursday for the impact of the release of the messages on those he had worked with during the pandemic. In a statement, Hancock said: “I am hugely disappointed and sad at the massive betrayal and breach of trust by Isabel Oakeshott. I am also sorry for the impact on the very many people – political colleagues, civil servants and friends – who worked hard with me to get through the pandemic and save lives.” He said there was “absolutely no public interest case for this huge breach” because all the material used for his Pandemic Diaries book was given to the Covid-19 public inquiry. On Thursday, Oakeshott defended her decision to release the messages. She claimed publishing the messages with the Telegraph this week was in the public interest because they shed light on the inner workings of government as it responded to the pandemic. Addressing her decision not to reveal the messages until she had finished working for Hancock, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My responsibilities, having finished that book with him, are now to the public interest.” Case has been approached for comment.