By Sheila Mckenzie-
Isabelle Oaksshoot should be congratulated for whistleblowing against Matt Hancock has said he is “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 is the what you call a positively influential woman of character, who acted as any quality journalist would in the circumstances. She deserves much praise for her strength of character and quality journalism.
Hancock expected her to be ‘loyal” to him against the public interest, despite his obvious weaknesses.
The former Health Secretary, who has a catalogue of vices, after breaching covid rules when he snogged Gina Coladangelo during the height of the pandemic is losing credibility by the day. Not only did he throw away years of marriage with his wife at the time, he ruined another marriage in the process. Now, he wanted to be allowed to ruin the public interest, and potentially the education of our children with impunity. Tat’s unacceptable beyond words can say.
So far, messages have been leaked so far from the former prime minister Boris Johnson, England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, Johnson’s former director of communications Lee Cain and Hancock’s adviser Emma Dean.
Among the string of revelations from the whassap messages, are texts from Hancock and Gavin Williamson , which reveal the former education secretary alleging that teachers complained about a lack of PPE in order “to have an excuse not to teach”, commenting later that some teaching unions “really do just hate work”.
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, but expressed disappointment at the Telegraph journalist, who prioritised the public interest over Hancock’s selfish motives.
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 baselessly 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.
Hancock is very wrong. There is a huge public interest is knowing the extent of his irresponsibility as a government minister who ought to honourable and have the public’s best interest at heart.
Ms Oakwood rightly 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 Covid pandemic.
Addressing her decision not to reveal them until after 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.
“Not one journalist worth their salt would sit on a cache of information in such an important matter, such a historic matter, and cover that up. Do you know what would have happened if I hadn’t released this stuff? The usual suspects would have had a massive go at me for sitting on these files, wouldn’t they? We know that.”
When it was put to her that she had in fact sat on the files for more than a year while writing Hancock’s book, Oakeshott said: “There were 2.3m words. I was trying to write a book in an extraordinarily tight deadline.”
She accused Hancock of sending her a threatening message in the early hours of the morning before the Daily Telegraph’s first story was published on the messages, though she has withheld full details of the contents of the message.
Speaking to Today, she said: “He can threaten me all he likes. There are plenty of things I can say about his behaviour, by the way, that I’m not going to do – at least not at this stage – because this is not about Matt Hancock. It is so much bigger than that.”
Asked to disclose more, she simply said: “I’m saying that he sent me a message at 1.20am in the morning. It wasn’t a pleasant message.”
On Thursday, Hancock released his statement and explicitly denied this. “When I heard confused rumours of a publication late on Tuesday night, I called and messaged Isabel to ask her if she had ‘any clues’ about it, and got no response. When I then saw what she’d done, I messaged to say it was ‘a big mistake’. Nothing more.”
Responding to his statement that there was no public interest case for the leaks, Oakeshott told TalkTV: “What a ridiculous defence. For someone who’s as intelligent as Matt Hancock to issue a statement saying there is no public interest in these revelations is patently absurd. And he knows that very well.”
Ofcourse, he does, and on what grounds does she rank his intelligence as being very high? Because he was a government minister? An average intelligent individual with education and exposure can become a minister, though this does not mean Hancock is not intelligent.
The former Health Secretary is simply not showing much intelligence in his groundless argument. Going ahead of the Education Secretary to close school down was unethical, especially when added to his ill judgement in expressing disapproval for testing to be conducted on all patients going into care homes.
Isabelle Oakshott should be promoted by The Daily Telegraph. Well done girl!