Blocking WhatsApp messages to the Covid inquiry harms Sunak’s reputation - Andrew Vine

The Government’s attempts to use the courts to block Lady Hallett from accessing ministerial communications – especially via WhatsApp – create the clear impression that it has something to hide.

By pursuing this misguided course of action, Rishi Sunak does immense harm to his reputation for honesty.

Our country deserves and expects to know exactly what went on in the Government during the pandemic, and that means there is a clear duty to reveal everything, no matter how harmful that may prove to individual careers – including that of the Prime Minister.

Of course, Mr Johnson’s willingness to reveal all is anything but purely public-spirited.

He’s making mischief for Mr Sunak – his Chancellor at the time – by publishing private communications which are bound to include frank exchanges between the two men.

We already know that Lady Hallett will be scrutinising specific actions by senior ministers when she opens the inquiry a week from today.

Among her questions to Mr Sunak are certain to include whether his “eat out to help out” scheme to encourage people back into restaurants resulted in a spike in Covid infections, and if he gave sufficient weight to the advice of Government scientific advisers.

It is not cynical to suggest that Mr Johnson knows there is material in his WhatsApp messages to Mr Sunak that will prove highly embarrassing for the man whose resignation as Chancellor he blames for his downfall, and that’s why he is only too happy for it to be made public.

But whatever Mr Johnson’s motives, he is doing a favour to the cause of complete transparency over how the Government handled an unprecedented peacetime emergency.

There can be no fudge or obfuscation. Any blame game and even the risk of political reputations being destroyed cannot be allowed to stand in the way of learning lessons from the pandemic.

If we face another, what comes out of the inquiry will act as our template for how to deal with it.

Mr Sunak should realise that his attempts to effectively censor what Lady Hallett is allowed to see are pointless.

That is because we already know in minute detail what happened and the failings by ministers that contributed to Britain’s tragically high number of Covid deaths.

No event since the Second World War has been so forensically reported and analysed as the pandemic.

Even in the midst of its worst months, the inner workings of the Government were laid bare – the dither and delay in Mr Johnson’s decision-making, the failure to shield residents of care homes and the ineffectiveness of the test-and trace system.

Since then, several books have added further details, most recently an authoritative account by eminent political historian Sir Anthony Seldon.

Attempts to hush up WhatsApp exchanges between ministers are especially ridiculous since a massive cache of them was handed over by former health Secretary Matt Hancock to the co-author of his self-aggrandising book about Covid, who then made them public.

The cat has long been out of the bag about what the Government got wrong – and, in fairness, got right with the rapid development and rollout of vaccines.

Whether or not ministers should be using WhatsApp in the business of running the country – especially in a crisis – is a separate matter from the pandemic inquiry.

Questions need to be asked about the ministerial code covering what constitutes official and secure lines of communication, and if a messaging app that most of us use for swapping pictures and chit-chat with family or friends is the right way for Cabinet members to discuss matters of national importance.

That is for another day. For now, costly legal challenges can only prolong what is already a painfully slow process that will spend the next three years gathering evidence, with no prospect of a final report being published until at least 2027.

That in itself is unsatisfactory, given that other countries have already completed their official inquiries, notably Sweden, which published a comprehensive report last year and is now using it as the basis for planning on dealing with any future pandemic.