The Lockdown Files

[Genie]

Matt Hancock thought it was a good idea to hand over 100,000 whatsapp messages to a journalist so she could convert them into a book and make him lots of money.

Nobody cared about the book, but I have a feeling they’ll care about many other things he and others were saying in “private” at the time.

So far it is reported the health secretary didn’t want to test elderly people going into care homes during a pandemic.

And more recently, he and Gavin Williamson accuse teachers of hating work.

There must be an awful lot of nervous Tories, donors & peers waiting for their name to be trending.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Genie

[Mark Albrighton]

I can’t help it, but “The Lockdown Files” sounds exactly like a show that Mitch Pileggi would host in the manner he did on that magic show in the 90’s. Walking around an abandoned warehouse with his brown leather jacket. 

“Coming up after the break, the mean GIF that Sajid Javid sent about Dominic Cummings that he doesn’t want YOU to see. Next, on The Lockdown Files…”

[Genie]

“The Lockdown Files” seems to be the nickname this topic has received on Twitter

[sharkyvilla]

Hopefully it ends a few careers, especially Isabelle Oakshott's.

[blandy]

I’m kind of baffled. There’s something I can’t quite get to the bottom of. There’s an agenda which is not yet revealed.

A very Tory paper is going to town on stuff which is and will be very damaging to a Tory government. This is not normal. Is it an agenda against certain individual Tories, like Hancock and Williamson, to distract from Johnson’s failings? Is it that they want to burnish their ultra right wing, libertarian, anti-lockdown stance? Is it that they think the official inquiry will just be a whitewash (it will), or will never lay an egg? Is it all of the above?

In terms of what it’ll show, well obviously that Johnson’s set of ministers were nigh on universally incompetent inadequates. We know that already. A cabinet of none of the talents.

You can’t blame the Torygraph for doing the journalistic part when given all these messages. Any paper would, but there’s something else going on, which I can’t see yet.

[ml1dch]

 

[Genie]

26 minutes ago, blandy said:

I’m kind of baffled. There’s something I can’t quite get to the bottom of. There’s an agenda which is not yet revealed.

A very Tory paper is going to town on stuff which is and will be very damaging to a Tory government. This is not normal. Is it an agenda against certain individual Tories, like Hancock and Williamson, to distract from Johnson’s failings? Is it that they want to burnish their ultra right wing, libertarian, anti-lockdown stance? Is it that they think the official inquiry will just be a whitewash (it will), or will never lay an egg? Is it all of the above?

In terms of what it’ll show, well obviously that Johnson’s set of ministers were nigh on universally incompetent inadequates. We know that already. A cabinet of none of the talents.

You can’t blame the Torygraph for doing the journalistic part when given all these messages. Any paper would, but there’s something else going on, which I can’t see yet.

You know they are covering the Brexit PM’s backside if there are no revelations about messages to/from him. 

It’s surely just a matter of time. 

[MaVilla]

do we know if all 100k messages will be released?

i know its titillating to see all the juicy ones, but i would certainly be interested in seeing all of them, the context, and many interesting messages that may not be interesting enough to be in the tabloids......

[Genie]

I’d love to know the full context of the attack on teaching unions. I am assuming it relates the period after Christmas when transmission was very high and heath experts and unions were suggesting it was crazy to reopen the schools.

The government ignored it all, opened the schools, then closed them after 1 day.

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I’d love to know the full context of the attack on teaching unions. I am assuming it relates the period after Christmas when transmission was very high and heath experts and unions were suggesting it was crazy to reopen the schools.

The government ignored it all, opened the schools, then closed them after 1 day.

Not only did they do that, they also threatened legal action against some schools who wanted to close a day early before Christmas because of how many cases they were seeing. 

I imagine those texts were around the same time the daily mail started attacking unions, when the tories and their donors wanted people back at work. 

None of them cared about education, they needed baby sitters to get people back to the office/factory.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by DCJonah

[KentVillan]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

I’m kind of baffled. There’s something I can’t quite get to the bottom of. There’s an agenda which is not yet revealed.

A very Tory paper is going to town on stuff which is and will be very damaging to a Tory government. This is not normal. Is it an agenda against certain individual Tories, like Hancock and Williamson, to distract from Johnson’s failings? Is it that they want to burnish their ultra right wing, libertarian, anti-lockdown stance? Is it that they think the official inquiry will just be a whitewash (it will), or will never lay an egg? Is it all of the above?

In terms of what it’ll show, well obviously that Johnson’s set of ministers were nigh on universally incompetent inadequates. We know that already. A cabinet of none of the talents.

You can’t blame the Torygraph for doing the journalistic part when given all these messages. Any paper would, but there’s something else going on, which I can’t see yet.

I think it’s less deep than that. Oakeshott is right wing but has no loyalty to the Tories. She realises she has a huge story here, she realises the ghostwritten book isn’t going to make her any money, and she reckons she can break NDA with a public interest defence.

If you are looking for the conspiracy, though, Dom Cummings has been banging on about exposing Hancock via WhatsApp leaks for ages. But I think that’s just frustration at Hancock trying to present himself as a Covid hero. And Cummings and Oakeshott are polar extremes on lockdowns.

My guess is it’s just lots of people with overlapping goals finding mutual benefit in leaking this and destroying Hancock. Rather than anything coordinated.

[desensitized43]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

I’m kind of baffled. There’s something I can’t quite get to the bottom of. There’s an agenda which is not yet revealed.

A very Tory paper is going to town on stuff which is and will be very damaging to a Tory government. This is not normal. Is it an agenda against certain individual Tories, like Hancock and Williamson, to distract from Johnson’s failings? Is it that they want to burnish their ultra right wing, libertarian, anti-lockdown stance? Is it that they think the official inquiry will just be a whitewash (it will), or will never lay an egg? Is it all of the above?

In terms of what it’ll show, well obviously that Johnson’s set of ministers were nigh on universally incompetent inadequates. We know that already. A cabinet of none of the talents.

You can’t blame the Torygraph for doing the journalistic part when given all these messages. Any paper would, but there’s something else going on, which I can’t see yet.

I think what you’ve got is a bunch of right wing ultras getting a bit of payback on those that betrayed the dear leader and/or implemented lockdowns and government ‘handouts’ that saved the lives and livelihoods of people they see as lower than pondscum.

People like oakshott didn’t want lockdown or furlough. They saw it as an infringement of their “civil liberties” and money to those they regard as “less deserving”. They’d have preferred it if the elderly and infirm had just accepted their fate and died quickly and quietly while the rest of us descended into destitution rather than the state stepping in to protect the people.

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

I think what you’ve got is a bunch of right wing ultras getting a bit of payback on those that betrayed the dear leader and/or implemented lockdowns and government ‘handouts’ that saved the lives and livelihoods of people they see as lower than pondscum.

People like oakshott didn’t want lockdown or furlough. They saw it as an infringement of their “civil liberties” and money to those they regard as “less deserving”. They’d have preferred it if the elderly and infirm had just accepted their fate and died quickly and quietly while the rest of us descended into destitution rather than the state stepping in to protect the people.

Yes, definitely those 2 things, they’re on my list, too.  But there’s something else at play, I just can’t see what, yet. We’ll have to wait and see what, if anything comes out about PPE and the rorts with all that. It’s easy to expose the utter inadequacies of wazzocks like Hancock and Private Pike via their own messages, but we’ll see if they also go for PPE, track and trace, or more Oakshoty characters like Patel, Mogg and others. Because they’re undoubtedly very dim bulbs, too.

[Mark Albrighton]

Goes about as well as you’d expect.

 

[Mark Albrighton]

 

[Davkaus]

We all knew "Eat Out To Die Out" was a disaster. It continued for a week after they're discussing it being a big problem that Handcock kept out of the media.

[foreveryoung]

Stuff said behind the scenes that the public don't agree with, big deal! It was clearly a f*** up how it was all delt with. For one, stopping families seeing their loved ones in care homes for a year, was one of the worst decisions made in Covid times, utterly disgusting, only took a bit of thought and organisation to not have to do this.

As for Oakshott, still would. 

[sidcow]

On 02/03/2023 at 11:31, Mark Albrighton said:

I can’t help it, but “The Lockdown Files” sounds exactly like a show that Mitch Pileggi would host in the manner he did on that magic show in the 90’s. Walking around an abandoned warehouse with his brown leather jacket. 

“Coming up after the break, the mean GIF that Sajid Javid sent about Dominic Cummings that he doesn’t want YOU to see. Next, on The Lockdown Files…”

I was wondering if a poster called Jim Lockdown would be the main protagonist of this thread. 

[Davkaus]

11 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Stuff said behind the scenes that the public don't agree with, big deal! It was clearly a f*** up how it was all delt with. For one, stopping families seeing their loved ones in care homes for a year, was one of the worst decisions made in Covid times, utterly disgusting, only took a bit of thought and organisation to not have to do this.

 

The problem is that all too often their defence was that it was a fast-moving problem, with facts changing all the time, and they did the best they could with the information they had. Usually shouting stuff about hindsight when criticised.

Having access to the messages that prove that even at the time they knew what they were doing was wrong is absolutely massive.

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

The problem is that all too often their defence was that it was a fast-moving problem, with facts changing all the time, and they did the best they could with the information they had. Usually shouting stuff about hindsight when criticised.

Having access to the messages that prove that even at the time they knew what they were doing was wrong is absolutely massive.

But was it all so fast moving. To me the government dictated the pace, just seemed so chaotic.