Steerpike

Who watches the watchmen? That's the question Whitehall is asking after chief panjandrum and sleazebuster extraordinaire Sue Gray's was offered the job of Keir Starmer's chief of staff. The revelation that Gray might not necessarily be quite the bastion of perfect probity has sent shock waves through SW1 – not least in the upper ranks of the senior civil service. Susan Acland-Hood, the permanent secretary at the Department of Education, was so concerned by news of Gray's appointment on Thursday that she reportedly raised concerns in an online Zoom call with colleagues.

Will anyone ever text Matt Hancock again? It’s day five of the lockdown files today and it seems there’s still more revelations to come from the former health secretary’s WhatsApp messages, handed over to Isabel Oakeshott because he wanted a ghostwritten book to commemorate his triumph. Talk about the grift that keeps on giving… One of those unlucky politicians who’ve found their messages splashed across the Telegraph is George Osborne. Mr S rather enjoyed reading the former chancellor’s pithy form of texting style, with gems such as ‘no one thinks testing is going well Matt’. Still, Osborne wasn’t always so acerbic, at one stage promising Hancock that he would guarantee him the front page of the Evening Standard if he gave some exclusive quotes on Covid testing.

Last night it seemed as if the Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages released by the Telegraph couldn’t get any worse, after the paper published texts showing Hancock’s realtime reaction to his rule-breaking affair being exposed.  Yet somehow new depths have been plumbed in Hancock’s correspondence today. For the paper has published texts between Matt Hancock and Michael Gove.  Despite some friction between the pair – with Hancock at one point fearing Gove was gunning for his job – the published messages show that the two had a remarkably (some might say pathologically) close relationship. In one exchange from 2021, Hancock texts Gove before a meeting asking what they were trying to achieve.

Another day, another painful set of WhatsApp messages about Matt Hancock. Yet again the Daily Telegraph have released another batch of texts involving the former health secretary, this time about his burgeoning public profile in the wake of the pandemic.  The paper reports that as Covid arrived on Britain’s shores, Hancock shared with his special advisor a memo written by a ‘wise friend’, that suggested that Hancock’s career could be propelled ‘into the next league’ by the Covid pandemic.  Hancock certainly comes across as image conscious in the texts. The Telegraph suggests that over the course of the pandemic, he exchanged more than 22,000 messages with his staff about social media posts.

It's not been a great day for the Civil Service. First it's announced that Partygate prober Sue Gray has been offered the role of Chief of Staff for the Leader of the Opposition. And now the Telegraph has released WhatsApps that show Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, mocking those affected by the government's lockdown policies. Talk about classy, eh? As Britain began a forced quarantine for returning holidaymakers in February 2021, Case messaged Matt Hancock to ask 'Any idea how many people we locked up in hotels yesterday?' After the Health Secretary replied 'None but 149 chose to enter the country and are now in quarantine hotels due to their own free will!' Case responded 'Hilarious.

Ding, ding, ding! It's day two of the revelations from the Telegraph's lockdown files and today's chosen battlefield is the school playground. The paper splashes on claims that Matt Hancock as Health Secretary fought a 'rearguard action' to shut down the nation's schools against the efforts of Sir Gavin Williamson, who held the Education brief from 2019 to 2021. Exchanges reveal the lengths which Hancock went to fight such battles, privately suggesting it was 'mad' that Sir Gavin was trying to re-open them in January 2021. After Johnson initially backed Williamson, his cabinet rival sneered that 'the next u-turn is born', adding: I want to find a way, Gavin having won the day, of actually preventing a policy car crash when the kids spread the disease in January.