When then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans in 2021 for a public inquiry into how the British government handled the pandemic, he said the state had “an obligation to examine its actions as rigorously and candidly as possible.”
“The fact that this row has happened partly because of a request for Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp conversations shows just how important the messaging app is to the way government works nowadays,” said Emma Norris, deputy director of the Institute for Government, a London-based think tank. “Given its importance, information held in WhatsApp messages must be treated in the same way as any other government information.
The Cabinet Office balked and argued that Lady Hallett’s request was too broad and that the WhatsApp messages had to be vetted to weed out irrelevant material. For example, officials said, many of the messages related to family issues, “including illness and disciplinary matters,” and dealt with comments “of a personal nature” about people who were not involved in the pandemic response.
In a not-so-veiled swipe at Mr. Sunak, Mr. Johnson said Friday that he will bypass the Cabinet Office and directly send the inquiry all the WhatsApp messages he has from that period. “You have quite properly decided to leave no stone unturned in your search for the truth about government decision-making during the pandemic,” Mr. Johnson said in a letter to Lady Hallett. “I am not willing to let my material become a test case for others when I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it.”Mr.