Zoff about Whatsapp messages: Johnson is stepping up pressure on the government in London

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The British news agency PA reports this on Friday on the basis of a letter from the conservative politician to the committee. This is the end of a day of wrangling over chat history.

Johnson bypasses the current government of his party colleague Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Until recently, she had refused to hand over the ex-premier’s correspondence with government officials and cabinet colleagues without censorship. The responsible authority, the Cabinet Office, allowed a deadline set by the Commission of Inquiry to expire on Thursday despite threats of criminal sanctions and announced that it would go to court. But that seems pointless now.

The investigation, led by former judge Lady Heather Hallett, aims to address Johnson’s controversial handling of the corona pandemic. The focus should be on the actions of the former prime minister. But it is speculated that Sunak, who was finance minister at the time, and other cabinet members fear the news could paint them in a bad light.

But the government is already making a bad impression. Opposition Labor leader Angela Rayner spoke of a “desperate attempt to withhold evidence”. The lawyer for the bereaved families for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, Elkan Abrahamson, accused the government of “complete disregard” of the investigation, the BBC reported. Nearly 227,000 people have died of covid-19 in Britain, according to death certificates.

Johnson continues to confront the government by relaying the Whatsapp messages. Unlike Sunak, he has little to lose. He had to resign as prime minister last summer because of ongoing scandals. He would have ambitions to return to the top of the government.

Johnson had already exposed the government on Wednesday evening when he announced that he had handed over his Whatsapp messages and notebooks to the Cabinet Office and asked them to forward them to the committee of inquiry. Until then, the authority had stated that it was not in possession of the messages.

In his letter of Friday, he announced that he would deliver more WhatsApp messages if the government granted him access to an old mobile phone. The 58-year-old had to disconnect his mobile phone in 2021 for security reasons after it was found that he was using an old number that had been publicly available on the internet for 15 years.

Johnson’s record in the pandemic is highly controversial. Initially, he downplayed the danger of the corona virus. For example, he publicly boasted that he shook hands with covid patients. He later became ill himself and had to be treated in intensive care. He was very reluctant to impose lockdowns and then violated his own measures. A separate committee of inquiry in parliament must clarify whether he lied to parliament in the so-called “Partygate” scandal. On the other hand, Johnson portrayed the British vaccination campaign as a great success.

It has long been an open secret that important agreements within the government are made via Whatsapp in London itself. Content of more than 100,000 Whatsapp messages from former Health Secretary Matt Hancock only became public in March and needed explanation. (SDA)

Source: Blick