The revelations about the true nature and extent of ‘Government by WhatsApp’ are of great concern. Our democracy is founded on the principle that Government decision-making is open and transparent so that Members of Parliament are able to hold Government to account on the basis of evidence.
I asked the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, about this. She told me: ‘This is deeply regrettable… I would just hope that on such serious matters as the Covid inquiry, the Westminster bubble can rise to the challenge of dealing with this in the manner in which it deserves to be addressed’.
She went on: ‘My understanding is that people’s WhatsApp messages have been captured and are being captured for that Covid inquiry’. The Minister’s complacency has since been exposed by John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, who has warned that the lack of clear controls over the rapid increase in the use of private messaging Apps poses real risks to transparency and accountability within Government.
He has called for new requirements on Ministers and civil servants to maintain the public record.

Another disturbing aspect of the Government’s lockdown policy is its decision to set up the Rapid Response Unit to control public debate around the justification for lockdown. As a result of a Subject Access Request, I have discovered that this Rapid Response Unit was using taxpayers’ money to collect and store the content of various interviews which I gave about lockdown.
Interviews with LBC, Newsnight, Times Radio, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and TalkRadio were transcribed and disseminated. On enquiring why my personal data being treated in this way, I was told that: ‘The Rapid Response Unit was used to understand the spread of information and potential disinformation and help inform how the Government communicates effectively with the public’. That answer discloses a disturbing mission-creep from the original justification for the Rapid Response Unit, which was to ‘combat false and misleading narratives’.
All I was doing was questioning the justification for face masks, the justification for restricting the freedom of those who had been vaccinated, challenging the need for all care home staff to have vaccinations and calling for the roll-out of vaccines for healthy children to be paused. Far from disseminating ‘false and misleading narratives’, I was challenging the Government’s use of them.

My reference in December 2021 to further restrictions forming ‘part of a scaremongering propaganda campaign’ can now be seen to have been prescient. Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps now confirm that that was, indeed, the Government’s intent!
My conclusion, therefore, is that Parliament must ensure that Government never again uses the tools of totalitarian regimes to intimidate and deter MPs from challenging restrictions on freedom.