No one reading leaked messages from a former health secretary will be surprised to discover that Britain was badly governed during the pandemic. The evidence was not concealed in private WhatsApp exchanges, but played out in public view as a parade of equivocation, contradictions and dissimulation.
Statistics showing tens of thousands of Covid-related deaths in the care sector spoke of negligence at the time. Matt Hancock’s claim to have thrown a protective ring around the sector has long ago been proved false. That private communications, published by the Daily Telegraph, appear to show him resisting testing measures that might have helped avert the calamity can be shocking and predictable at the same time.
