Matt Hancock said the government would need to 'get heavy' with police to enforce Covid-19 lockdown measures, according to the latest leaked messages published in The Daily Telegraph.
Today the paper has highlighted an exchange between the then health secretary and cabinet secretary Simon Case in August 2020 where Mr Case asked the question: "Who actually is delivering enforcement?" Referring to the various lockdown measures the public were under at the time.
Hancock replies saying: "I think we are going to have to get heavy with the police." Mr Case then points out that they are due to have a meeting with other ministers and the 'cops'.
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Subsequent messages appear to show this message was put across to police. Following a meeting in January 2021 involving the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, Hancock messaged Mr Case saying the "PM was in vg (very good) shape" and that "the plod got their marching orders".
In other exchanges, Hancock and Mr Case joked about travellers arriving in the UK being "locked up" in quarantine hotels, with the Cabinet Secretary saying it was "hilarious". Hancock also shared a news story about a man and a woman who were fined £10,000 each for failing to quarantine with Mr Johnson, who replied: "Superb".
The Telegraph said the messages also showed Hancock wanted his team to contact the Home Office after a news report suggested ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage broke quarantine rules after returning from a trip the US. His special adviser Jamie Njoku-Goodwin replied: "Does he count as a pub hooligan? Can we lock him up?" Hancock then said his case should be dealt with "like any other".
In March 2021, when Piers Morgan left ITV’s Good Morning Britain – where he had a reputation for giving ministers a hard time over Covid – social care minister Helen Whatley joked they should "celebrate" at the department’s team meeting that evening. Hancock replied saying this was "perfect".
Elsewhere, in November 2020, Mr Johnson expressed concern that he had "blinked too soon" in ordering a second lockdown based on modelling that was "very wrong". Months earlier in June, the then-prime minister discussed speeding up plans to lift restrictions following the first lockdown, but was warned by his media advisers they were "too far ahead of public opinion".
The exchanges were among more than 100,000 messages passed to the Telegraph by the journalist Isabel Oakeshott. She was originally given the material by Hancock while they were collaborating on his memoir of his time in government during the pandemic.
Hancock has condemned the leak as a "massive betrayal" designed to support an "anti-lockdown agenda," but Ms Oakeshott has insisted the release was "overwhelmingly" in the public interest.
Shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the exchanges revealed the "arrogance and shameful lack of respect" of ministers towards the police. "At the same time as they were flagrantly breaking the law themselves with their lockdown parties, they were demanding stronger enforcement by the police on everyone else," she said.
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