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The Guardian - UK

Politics

Jessica Elgot

Matt Hancock’s leaked messages being ‘used to rewrite history’, say civil servants

Matt Hancock Boris Johnson Rishi Sunak Simon Case Chris Whitty Gavin Williamson Isabel Oakeshott Steve Baker Pandemic

An activist hold a placard outside parliament protesting against former health secretary Matt Hancock — WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic by former health secretary, Matt Hancock, are being serialised in British press. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

The mass leaking of thousands of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages have laid bare in the starkest terms the extent of the divisions inside the cabinet and among advisers and civil servants handling the deadliest pandemic in modern times.

But some who worked in Number 10 and across Whitehall, as well as bereaved families, have been angered by what they see as a rewriting of history by some cabinet ministers and by the framing of some of Hancock’s texts.

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