Good morning. It is quite a feat, after the leak of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent to and from Matt Hancock during the coronavirus crisis, that he faces serious competition for top billing as the story’s most controversial figure.
At moments over the last couple of days, Hancock – a man who the public made do six consecutive bushtucker trials on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, including one called “tentacles of terror” – has even appeared relatively sympathetic. His nemesis, and the reason for all this: Isabel Oakeshott. Luckily, there is no requirement for you to pick a side.
As you probably know by now, Oakeshott is the anti-lockdown journalist and commentator with a reputation for burning sources (one of them went to prison as a result) who, for reasons that pass human understanding, Hancock selected to ghostwrite his book about what a good job he did during the pandemic. Imagine Coleen Rooney asking Rebekah Vardy to manage her Instagram account and you have the basic idea.
When it was published, Oakeshott said that the book showed Hancock worked “phenomenally hard” without “malign intent”. She then proceeded to break her non-disclosure agreement to provide all 2.3m words of his messages to the Daily Telegraph. She has spent much of the last two days giving broadcast interviews (and to the Guardian) justifying her decision, even going as far as accusing Hancock of threatening her in response.
To make sense of the avalanche of stories coming out of this extraordinary leak, you need a grip on the arguments emanating from its source. Today’s newsletter takes you through them. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | A report into the Manchester Arena bombing has concluded MI5 missed a “significant opportunity” to prevent the attack. Sir John Saunders, the chair of the inquiry into the 2017 bombing, said there was a “realistic possibility” that investigators could have thwarted the plot had they acted more decisively on prior evidence.
UK news | Constance Marten and Mark Gordon have been charged with gross negligence manslaughter, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice after their baby was found dead in woodland. The news follows the discovery of a child’s remains near where the couple were arrested.
Brexit | Rishi Sunak’s hopes of ending Brexit infighting with a revised deal for Northern Ireland have suffered a double blow as Boris Johnson came out against the plan while pressure mounted within the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to reject it. Johnson said he would “find it very difficult to vote for” the deal.
US news | A disgraced US lawyer has been found guilty of murdering his wife and son in order to delay investigation of his serious financial crimes. Alex Murdaugh shot dead wife Maggie and son Paul after stealing millions of dollars from clients. He later admitted a failed attempt to arrange his own killing so that his surviving son could collect an insurance payout.
Music | Steve Mackey, the bass guitarist for Pulp during the band’s most successful years, has died aged 56. A band statement posted following the news called him a “beloved friend” who “made things happen”.
In depth: ‘I could say plenty of things and perhaps I will be pushed so far that I have to’
Whatever else you think of this story, and even if you agree with Devi Sridhar’s scepticism about the anti-lockdown narrative that the Telegraph sees in it, there can be no doubt that the publication of dozens of exchanges from Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp archive gives new insight into the handling of the pandemic.
Among other things, it has already raised questions over the “protective ring” around care homes, Boris Johnson’s fear that he would be attacked for “blinking too soon” by ordering a second lockdown (£), and George Osborne’s peerless ability to be condescending (£) within the confines of a two word text. Last night, new reports said that Hancock said it was necessary to “get heavy with police” to enforce lockdown rules, and that top civil servant Simon Case mocked holidaymakers in quarantine hotels in the UK.
If you assess the material on its own terms, you may conclude that the stories are less a portrait of scandal than a fascinating insight into the chaos – and some phrasing not chosen with public consumption in mind – at the heart of an unprecedented public health crisis. (This timeline helps make sense of the context.) What complicates the picture is the defence provided, at remarkable length, by Isabel Oakeshott.
She has given at least six broadcast interviews since the stories emerged, mostly to TalkTV, perhaps in penance for not taking the material to her employer’s News UK stablemates the Sun or the Times. (Watch this clip for a sense of how that’s gone down.)
Oakeshott says that she took the decision to betray Hancock because “it is a matter of the upmost [sic] importance that we get to the truth of what really happened during the pandemic”. She said a lot of other things, too.
***
Hancock’s ‘threatening’ text message
In Oakeshott’s first interview, with TalkTV’s Piers Morgan, she said that she “received a somewhat menacing message at 1.20 in the morning”. She said she was “not going to repeat what was in the message”, inviting two possible conclusions: either she had a newfound and fairly surprising respect for Hancock’s privacy, or the content was simply too unpleasant to share.
Yesterday, Oakeshott reiterated the claim in a piece published by the Telegraph (£), saying that she had received “a threatening message from Mr Hancock”. On the Today programme, Nick Robinson attempted to draw out: was the threat personal or legal? “Yes,” she said, seeming to imply that it was both.
To TalkTV’s Mike Graham, she was more precise – perhaps prompted by the fact that Hancock had issued a statement saying he had told her that she had made “a big mistake”. Was that it? “Yeah, and look, I’m not frightened by Matt Hancock,” she said. “I think it’s a little irregular to say the least to send messages at 1.20 in the morning saying ‘you have made a big mistake’ … there is no other way of framing it other than a threat.”
You needn’t be a Hancock partisan to ask if her initial account was really justified by the words “you have made a big mistake”, nor to conclude that sending a message at 1.20am isn’t that extreme a response to learning two and a half hours earlier that your NDA-d ghostwriter has leaked your entire message history by reading about it in the Daily Telegraph.
In any case, Hancock had an evasion of his own, saying that he would not be commenting further on “false allegations that Isabel will make” – neatly implying that further stories might be untrue without having to say so on the record.
Oakeshott, opposed as she is to threatening behaviour, said she did not want to get into a “slanging match”. Still, she had a message of her own. “I could say plenty of things and perhaps I will be pushed so far that I have to,” she said. What she wanted, she explained to Times Radio, was to “maintain the moral high ground”.
***
Why she broke the NDA
In an interview with TalkTV’s Tom Newton Dunn, Oakeshott said that she “volunteered” to sign an NDA. But while she said that she took it “very seriously”, she said that she had been left with “an enormous amount of very important information” and had “taken a judgment that it was more in the public interest to release that stuff than protect myself”.
Wouldn’t that imply that she was leaving out important details when she promoted the book? No, she told Newton Dunn: “The evidence I’d seen during the period of the project I worked on was, as I said, broadly in his favour.”
Oakeshott hasn’t been precise in any of her interviews about when she decided to breach Hancock’s trust, but she did tell Guardian media editor Jim Waterson that their relationship soured after “he vanished to the jungle at a critical moment”. She also told the BBC that it would be “insane” to think she was motivated by money. When asked whether she offered the files in exchange for payment, she told Times Radio: “I am absolutely not going to get into any arrangement I have with any outlet I work for.”
As for critics who view her behaviour as a breach of basic journalistic ethics – to promise discretion in exchange for the sight of material, only to renege on it – she was dismissive: “There’s so much complaining about journalistic ethics which always seems to come from people who’ve never had a story big enough to present them with any kind of journalistic ethical dilemma,” she told TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer.
***
The public inquiry
Central to Oakeshott’s justification is her view that the public inquiry is deliberately too big, too slow, and too discreet to be useful. “The judge in charge of the inquiry is an extraordinarily well-respected figure,” she told the BBC. “I in no way mean to disparage her … The issue is the remit.”
By the remit, she means the terms of reference, which do not specify a deadline. On Wednesday, inquiry chair Baroness Hallet said that it would reach its “conclusions as soon as possible”, as well as issuing interim reports.
Still, it is not a view confined to lockdown sceptics that the work is likely to take a long time – although others may suggest that this is a longstanding problem with public inquiries, rather than a cynical step specific to this one.
In any case, and whatever the claims being made on their behalf, the stories published about Hancock’s messages do provide an interim view of what was happening inside Downing Street.
We might still ask whether Oakeshott’s conduct, and claims about Hancock’s agenda and her own, serve that purpose or detract from it. As she said to Nick Robinson: “Warm words, whether from politicians or anyone else, don’t ever provide what the public actually needs – which is answers.”
What else we’ve been reading
Hard-nosed east London copper Loofer – sorry, Luther – is back, this time on the big screen. Steve Rose interviews the man himself, Idris Elba (above), about his career as one of culture’s busiest multi-hyphenates – and the truth behind those Bond rumours. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Rishi Sunak may be trailing Keir Starmer by more than 20 points in the polls, writes Martin Kettle, but his handling of the NI protocol suggests he is “rebuilding at least some of the reputation for Conservative competence” – and it is too soon to write him off. Archie
Ahead of her new album, Alexis Petridis counts down Miley Cyrus’s 20 best songs, from recent breakup anthem Flowers to the indefatigable Wrecking Ball. Hannah
This extract from David Grann’s new book in the New Yorker is a riveting, and beautifully written, tale of the start of an eighteenth-century naval expedition that ended in shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism. It’s so evocative that you feel as if he’s interviewed the survivors. Archie
Spicy seafood stew with tomato and lemongrass is just one of many delightful-sounding delicacies in this extract from a new book by Indonesian chef Petty Pandean-Elliott. Hannah
Sport
Cricket | Azeem Rafiq (above) has told a hearing into racism in Yorkshire cricket that claims he blackmailed the England player Adil Rashid to support his case against Michael Vaughan are “categorically untrue”. On the second day of the hearing, Rashid also denied the claims that he came under pressure to back his former teammate’s allegations against Vaughan.
Football | The Football Association gave official support for Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin to be re-elected just three weeks after Uefa’s catastrophic organisation of the Champions League final last year, it has emerged. Liverpool fans expressed their disgust at the news of the FA’s endorsement despite controversy over false claims that they were responsible for a crowd crush at the game.
Snowboarding | Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale have made history by becoming Great Britain’s first ever mixed team snowboard cross world champions. The victory is the nation’s first-ever title in the mixed team discipline that debuted at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The front pages
“Families’ fury at ‘devastating’ MI5 failings in Manchester bombing” is our Guardian print edition lead this Friday morning. “FAILED”, says the Mirror, in capitals – it has small portraits of the victims, in two rows of 11. The Sun says they are “22 who should be alive”. The i headlines the story “MI5’s missed chance to stop Manchester Arena bomber”.
“The great betrayal” – that’s the Metro on Matt Hancock’s “fury” about the leak of his WhatsApp messages. “‘We are going to have to get heavy with the police’” – the Telegraph quotes from one of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps. “Is this proof the Partygate probe was a Labour plot?” asks the Daily Mail after Keir Starmer recruited the civil servant who investigated the case, Sue Gray. “PM urged to block new job for parties inquisitor” says the Times on the same topic. “Boris: Rishi’s deal will NOT take back control” says the Daily Express – just as it seemed everyone was moving on. The top story in the Financial Times is “Fears for City’s status after Arm and building giant opt to list in New York”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now
Film
Close
Belgian film-maker Lukas Dhont’s new film, about the unselfconscious love and friendship between two 13-year-old boys, goes straight for the deafening minor chords of anguish. There are two excellent performances from newcomers Gustav De Waele and Eden Dambrine as Rémi and Léo. When the boys at school make mean remarks, Léo withdraws from Rémi. The story is disturbing because the breakup of an intense friendship is shocking. There is still none of the adult life experience to explain it away. There’s no doubting the force of this drenchingly sad story. Peter Bradshaw
Music
Slowthai – Ugly
On Ugly, Slowthai (above) has succeeded in minting a sound that’s entirely his own: severe, noisy, occasionally punishing, it shifts away from his darkly ascetic hip-hop to something that expands dramatically on the punky yowl of his 2018 single Doorman. His stories of life on society’s margins are big on desperate scuffling, horror and disgust. The pat summary would be to call Ugly Slowthai’s alt-rock album, but what alt-rock band sounds like this? And indeed, would indie music not currently be in better shape if it sounded this odd, visceral, cathartic and appealing? Alexis Petridis
Podcast
Made With Love
Widely available, episodes weekly
Tom Daley, knitting and Shania Twain: you would have to be pretty hard-hearted not to warm to this new podcast. Daley is a gentle and attentive interviewer, inviting inspirational people to discuss their highs and lows. Twain really delivers, talking about problems with her voice, music as therapy and losing her parents. Hannah Verdier
TV
Stephen Fry: Willem and Frieda – Defying the Nazis
If the gay painter Willem Arondeus and the lesbian cellist Frieda Belinfante seem unlikely heroes of the Dutch resistance, that is only because official histories have taught us so little about the true nature of courage. Their incredible wartime adventures, which saved thousands of Jewish lives, are related here by Stephen Fry. When no illustrative archive material exists – the night of the daring arson attack on the Nazi records office, for instance – Fry uses dramatic skills honed on a thousand audiobooks to conjure up the necessary thriller-like atmosphere. Ellen E Jones
Today in Focus
Israel and the West Bank: a week of rage and rampage
Escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories is happening amid unprecedented anti-government protests. It’s no coincidence, reports Bethan McKernan
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
When a team of scientific volunteers were working on a project to restore the marshland in the crater of Easter Island’s Rano Raraku volcano, they made an unexpected discovery – a new example of moai, the island’s iconic, monolithic statues. Moai are distinctive monolithic carved stone figures with elongated faces and no legs that were mostly quarried from tuff, a kind of volcanic ash, at the Rano Raraku volcano.
At 1.6m tall, found lying down on its side looking at the sky, the moai is “full-bodied with recognisable features but no clear definition”, said the Ma’u Henua Indigenous community, who administer the site. “It’s a really unique discovery as it’s the first time that that a moai has been discovered inside a laguna in a Rano Raraku crater. The interesting thing is that, for at least the last 200 or 300 years, the laguna was three metres deep, meaning no human being could have left the moai there in that time.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.
