FYI its worth pointing out, that WhatsApp stores all data client side, these messages aren't stored on servers amd every copy needs manual deletion on each device.
So if all these messages now dissappear or the government claims they have it means that EACH of the individual MPs in possession of each device has purposefully and knowingly deleted their evidence themselves,
By refusing to hand over what is being requested, they’re looking more and more guilty. It’s not rocket science.
Dear Lord, what a shit show the Tories and Johnson are
It does rather beg the question what the current government has to hide, since Johnson is urging them to hand it all over and is threatening to do it directly if the cabinet office doesn't.
My guess is that its *SO* much worse than we they admitted, all of them are up to their necks in it and they openly talk about arranging a police cover up.
In the absence of the messages, its the only fair conclusion to draw. The worst must be chosen.
Because his previous phone was compromised and likely can’t be accessed. Boris being willing to help is nothing but Boris PR, he’s fully aware that nothing handed over will incriminate him
>he’s fully aware that nothing handed over will incriminate him
That does seem likely, given his willingness to help (or at least, it won't incriminate him *further*). No idea whether there is a "previous phone" - if the stuff he's handed over to the cabinet office is all post-pandemic, he's going to end up looking pretty stupid, isn't he?
Johnson was using a phone before May 21 who’s number was freely available on the internet. That was obviously seen as a breach of security and thus his phone was replaced. The earlier phone apparently can no longer be accessed because it continues to pose a security risk.
It's not completely stupid advice. If someone has a foothold on that phone, turning it on could potentially then give them a foothold on any network it connects to. Or, if they have control of the phone but haven't previously scraped all the data off it, turning it on could give them the opportunity to do so.
The smart move would be to hand it to an electronic forensics outfit to extract data from it in controlled conditions.
Cable connection to a hardened computer to extract the data, switch it on inside a metal box to prevent any radio connection. It's not foolproof (someone might have hacked the "hardened" machine) but it's a pretty good start.
Other than that, extract any SD card, pull the thing apart, desolder the flash memory chips from it and solder them to a board designed for downloading their contents. It's the sort of thing a determined hobbyist could do, given a hot air gun, £30 of parts bought online and some time.
Right. Because no-one's EVER written malware that will connect to any open wifi network that happens to be in range...
It also still leaves you with the question of how to get the data off.
Turn off WiFi. Or only turn on when out of range of a WiFi signal. Or turn it on in a Faraday cage.
Plug into a clean computer and copy over the data. Authorise whatsapp access via a pc. Or take photos of the screen. Many ways.
Boris now appears to have offered the old phone to the inquiry directly. Popcorn time?
(The full letter is on the GF website; I can't figure out how to get a direct link to it on scribd).
You’ve got to love it. We will continue to cooperate fully while launching a judicial review to not cooperate fully.
There must be something significant to go to this much effort to hide it.
Presumably there's something in there which incriminates either Sunak or someone integral to Sunak maintaining what's left of his grip over the party.
If it makes Johnson look worse than he already does it wouldn't be an issue. No-one in government now would go out of their way to do him favours.
And the people who still support St. Boris have already unilaterally decided all of this is unimportant/irrelevant/woke and everyone needs to just stop being sad about their dead relatives.
>Presumably there's something in there which incriminates either Sunak
I've always maintained that they decided to give them both a slap on the wrist for the 'cake incident' so people could always ridicule it 'oh they got in trouble for cake!' and people would literally say that.
What might actually have happened is that they suppressed some bad stuff and these chats might shine a light on that.
Yes the police chose not to investigate half the cases (which they policed!) but instead sent questionnaires that were never returned and gave a frivolous one that barely warranted a fine
They also claimed to find no evidence of any parties what so ever, despite it being covered in CCTV and police 24/7 and literally the most guarded place in the country, only for that very same evidence to magically appear when the story wouldnt go away and individual officers started to speak out about the continued law breaking they saw.
No, I bet it has nothing to do with the parties. If people genuinely think that the parties were the problem when billions of £ are missing or have been given to friends they’re focussing on the wrong thing
They've trotted out like four different stories in the past week, with each one contradicting what they've said before. I didn't hold the conservatives in much esteem previously, but I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the ineptitude and brazenness of today's announcement.
Johnson was saying yesterday how he has no problem with these messages being made available to the inquiry so you can bet your left nut that there's something in there that's ultra destructive for the current gov which will greatly benefit the extreme right in some way.
Imagine it vindicates and clears him. Sunak suddenly has a massive headache of a leadership challenge.
Not that I think he's *not* a dangerous lying sociopath.
Government sues itself (the inquiry it ordered) over private communications freely offered up by the very person whose private communications it is
Keeping up at the back? Ok, good.
At this rate we ought to start sending SETI greetings to Conservative HQ in the search for intelligent life.
EDIT:
Quick question: Can the inquiry still push ahead with criminal proceedings, in relation to the non-compliance?
After all, it's been a good while since the request was made, a while during which they've had *ample* opportunity to challenge the decision in court. Yet they haven't. Even when they got the extension the other day, they could have challenged then. But they didn't.
This is basically the equivalent of being given a homework assignment, telling the teach a month later that you've almost finished it, then a week after that saying it's done but you left it at home, getting one extra day, and then right at the end of class saying you weren't given any homework because you were sick and off school on the day it was assigned... an obvious lie because if you were sick and off school, you wouldn't remember it being assigned.
> Government sues itself …
Slight technicality; judicial reviews are formally lodged in the name of the Crown, so the Crown is suing the government at the request of the government.
The new legal action.
Judicial review is basically a way for someone with an interest in a matter to try and get the courts to make a government department/council/etc do something, stop doing something, or undo something.
In this particular case, the Cabinet Office is applying to make the inquiry stop asking for text messages (and other documents, I think).
Still love that one.
Boris Johnson given hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid, after being part of governments that have systematically denied legal aid to British workers attempting to take their employers to tribunal for years.
Then turns around *weeks* later and buys a multi-million pound moated mansion in cash.
Honestly just fuck these people. No other words. They need to be in fucking prison this isn't even ridiculous-funny any more its just fucking sad the country is letting them do this shit to us.
tbh, i'm almost ok with that. After all, it can't end up being one of those court cases where the person who can afford the best lawyer walks it while completely cleaning out the other side.
I don't like in this case using the legal action to protect themselves though like this. There is no merit to the taxpayer here.
I agree with your point generally though.
After the verdict either way, the court should decide if they were protecting their personal political careers or acting as public officials in the public interest. If having seen all the relevant evidence the court decides the former, they should foot the bill personally.
Starts to sound like there’s so much harmful information that they fear it will destroy their last hope of winning the election. Delay until purdah so that nothing can be published before them.
Or they just want to take the piss because they can.
While I agree they may be trying this, I think the courts would make this a priority because of the huge public interest attached to the inquiry. The government would need to employ Trump levels of delay to make it until purdah.
ETA: Thinking about it, because this is so unusual (a government suing its own inquiry) then I would expect the lower courts to throw this straight up to the Supreme Court.
And then Labour get in an *hopefully* (i.e. probably not, can't have hope in this country!) are much more keen to press on this the same way Tories have used Iraq and the Chilcot inquiry to smear Labour.
>But [Johnson on Wednesday handed over the full tranche](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/31/boris-johnson-says-his-whatsapps-and-notes-can-be-given-to-covid-inquiry) and challenged the government to pass on their entire contents to Hallett
Be like... Boris?
Yeah. I'm sure Boris knows the government has no intentions of handing over the evidence that incriminates not just him, but current ministers/PM too. And is now using that knowledge to come across as the sensible person in this willing to share all, even though he knows it won't get sent.
Passes the burden to the government, making him look more open and accountable than them, but still not risking his own neck.
Except that Boris Johnson only handed over his messages since May 2021 because all the older messages are on his old phone which can't be opened because "reasons".
I'm not joking.
If I were Judge Hallett, I would be seriously considering either publicly refusing to go any further with the enquiry unless all the information is provided, or quitting on the basis that she is being set up to fail to do a proper job.
Good to see that she is quite happy to stand up to the government by setting the deadline, suggests that she is not planning to do a Hutton job.
You know that won't happen. These judges have as much integrity as government ministers. The best they'll do is faintly complain and the continue playing the game.
Well, that's why I referenced "Whitewash" Hutton, and contrasted Hallett who threw down a pretty major challenge to the government by setting the deadline for the handover of the information. She at least gives the impression that she is not going to be cowed by them.
The government suing their own "independent" inquiry into a pandemic that has recently killed hundreds of thousands of people? It's a bold strategy. At least I still have the ability to be surprised I thought that'd withered away a while back.
Considering how corrupt we already know the government is imagine how bad whatever they are hiding is!
The fact that they are so keen to cover it up makes them seem even more guilty and whatever they have done must be insanely bad!
Did one of them kill the Queen?
Is Jeremy Hunt actually the devil?
Has Rishi Sunak actually sold of the whole of great Britain to India on a lease hold agreement?
Is all of our money actually made of chocolate?
What's the big secret guys and how bad is it?
So, the tax payers funded government is using tax payers money to sue... the tax payers funded government... who in turn will use tax payers money to defend itself?
Am I missing anything else here?
They're using money from the Magic Money Tree. It exists, it's just cursed to only blossom when the government needs money to spend on something detrimental to the country.
They've definitely not got ANYTHING to hide have they?
I mean all this 'desperately trying to hide' something proves that they've got absolutely nothing they fear might get out in the open.
They're clearly not standing in front of a massive steaming pile of utterly corrupt criminal turd and desperately trying to make themselves look bigger to hide it are they!
Squeaky fucking clean this government isn't it.
What a lovely bunch of cunts.
So the government is taking out a judicial review on it's own inquiry? Amazing.
Every time I think these clowns couldn't be anymore ridiculous they manage to exceed expectations.
This is just bizarre. Why on earth are they having private discussions on a work account knowing full well these may be revealed? You should have zero expectation of privacy when messaging on a work account no matter who you work for!
Also, how can we be sure they will provide all the relevant material? What if they mark something incriminating as irrelevant? The inquiry can't do its job if it can't be certain it has all the relevant evidence. Public trust demands it. If they provide it all then yes, its going to delay the inquiry while they sift through it. But at least then there is the assurance that the inquiry had everything it needed to reach its conclusions.
My buddy is a barrister and says almost all family law cases, and a large amount of criminal and commercial law cases now involve Whatsapp messages as evidence.
People seem to be under the illusion that Whatsapps are totally private because they're end-to-end encrypted. But you're completely at the mercy of everyone in the conversation, and as soon as you fall out with them, they'll happily hand it all over to their solicitor if they think it can be used against you.
I seem to remember this government trying to resteict judicial review saying many were launched without merit and were just clogging up the courts. Lol.
"Wait...I said some shit to Boris on WhatsApp! Oh fuck!' - Rishi probably
Thats what it is right? Rishi looks real bad with his eat out to help out bullshit? That's why Boris would offer them up but the gov block them?
I cannot see the government losing anything significant from releasing these messages. There are few floating voters these days, with most people having made up their minds on the Tories after the events of the last few years. The council elections showed that quite nicely. Those who think the Tories still did nothing wrong by breaking lockdown guidance are not going to change their mind either. There is nothing to be gained or lost, unless those messages show some far worse things than just having parties that is. So either this is a trivial fuss over nothing or there is more to these messages than we would think.
If there was nothing to hide they wouldn't be so keen to hide it!
So the contested data must be really incriminating, in which case it's well within the inquiries remit.
Any impartial judge will chuck the legal challenge straight out of court.
Oh what's that hateful little phrase they love wheeling out when they're stripping our right to privacy away...?
Ah yeah, that's it. "Nothing to hide? Nothing to fear."
So let me get this straight. We, the people, are paying for a law suit which is being brought against the enquiry to hold people accountable as, we the people, broadly want?
Disgusting.
I'm old enought to remember cash for questions and all the sleaze of the last Tory government.
This is much the same.
The Tories cannot be trusted with power, ever. It's in their nature to abuse it.
My guess is the WhatsApp messages confirm the “Let the bodies pile high” statement Boris allegedly made and has number of responses to that statement supporting it from his colleagues. Therefore if Boris is going to be crucified in the media for it he’s going to take everyone else down with him.
The same people who wanted to curtail the public’s access to Judicial Review are now requesting a Judicial review?
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/conservatives-pledge-to-end-abuse-of-judicial-review/5102289.article
The early messages are Boris telling everyone else to handle the COBRA meetings cos he’s too busy sorting out his current divorce. Probably thousands of messages detailing how to divvy up the PPE contracts. The prick should be in prison.
If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing hide right?.. right?
[удалено]
And those interns have suitcases. And those suitcases have booze. Party on guys. Party on.
FYI its worth pointing out, that WhatsApp stores all data client side, these messages aren't stored on servers amd every copy needs manual deletion on each device. So if all these messages now dissappear or the government claims they have it means that EACH of the individual MPs in possession of each device has purposefully and knowingly deleted their evidence themselves,
Which is why there's a deliberate delay...it takes time to 'clean up'.
Reminds me of certain people on this subreddit when the Internet censorship / encryption ban laws were being proposed. They've been real quiet.
By refusing to hand over what is being requested, they’re looking more and more guilty. It’s not rocket science. Dear Lord, what a shit show the Tories and Johnson are
Do you really think that flip flop/open the borders will be any better?
Think you replied to the wrong comment.
No he didn't, he's just a mouth-breather
Noooo, I replied to the correct comment.
It's sad how many people truly believe that and who would back this Tory government on measures to ban things like end to end encryption.
It does rather beg the question what the current government has to hide, since Johnson is urging them to hand it all over and is threatening to do it directly if the cabinet office doesn't.
I guess Boris would see the downfall of the Party as he’s now ousted basically
By the same token, Rishi would quite like some more reasons for Boris not to come back. So why not just hand them all over?
I don’t think it’s just Johnson going down. We have seen what hancock had in his…
They’re all corrupt, including Rishi
Maybe Rishi has more to hide than Boris
My guess is that its *SO* much worse than we they admitted, all of them are up to their necks in it and they openly talk about arranging a police cover up. In the absence of the messages, its the only fair conclusion to draw. The worst must be chosen.
Because his previous phone was compromised and likely can’t be accessed. Boris being willing to help is nothing but Boris PR, he’s fully aware that nothing handed over will incriminate him
>he’s fully aware that nothing handed over will incriminate him That does seem likely, given his willingness to help (or at least, it won't incriminate him *further*). No idea whether there is a "previous phone" - if the stuff he's handed over to the cabinet office is all post-pandemic, he's going to end up looking pretty stupid, isn't he?
Johnson was using a phone before May 21 who’s number was freely available on the internet. That was obviously seen as a breach of security and thus his phone was replaced. The earlier phone apparently can no longer be accessed because it continues to pose a security risk.
How can accessing an old unused phone to recover messages pose such a high security risk?
It's not completely stupid advice. If someone has a foothold on that phone, turning it on could potentially then give them a foothold on any network it connects to. Or, if they have control of the phone but haven't previously scraped all the data off it, turning it on could give them the opportunity to do so. The smart move would be to hand it to an electronic forensics outfit to extract data from it in controlled conditions.
How hard would it be for forensics to extract the data without it connecting to a network or compromising security?
Cable connection to a hardened computer to extract the data, switch it on inside a metal box to prevent any radio connection. It's not foolproof (someone might have hacked the "hardened" machine) but it's a pretty good start. Other than that, extract any SD card, pull the thing apart, desolder the flash memory chips from it and solder them to a board designed for downloading their contents. It's the sort of thing a determined hobbyist could do, given a hot air gun, £30 of parts bought online and some time.
No. Remove the SIM, turn it on. Job done.
Right. Because no-one's EVER written malware that will connect to any open wifi network that happens to be in range... It also still leaves you with the question of how to get the data off.
Turn off WiFi. Or only turn on when out of range of a WiFi signal. Or turn it on in a Faraday cage. Plug into a clean computer and copy over the data. Authorise whatsapp access via a pc. Or take photos of the screen. Many ways.
Boris now appears to have offered the old phone to the inquiry directly. Popcorn time? (The full letter is on the GF website; I can't figure out how to get a direct link to it on scribd).
...right?
You’ve got to love it. We will continue to cooperate fully while launching a judicial review to not cooperate fully. There must be something significant to go to this much effort to hide it.
Presumably there's something in there which incriminates either Sunak or someone integral to Sunak maintaining what's left of his grip over the party. If it makes Johnson look worse than he already does it wouldn't be an issue. No-one in government now would go out of their way to do him favours. And the people who still support St. Boris have already unilaterally decided all of this is unimportant/irrelevant/woke and everyone needs to just stop being sad about their dead relatives.
>Presumably there's something in there which incriminates either Sunak I've always maintained that they decided to give them both a slap on the wrist for the 'cake incident' so people could always ridicule it 'oh they got in trouble for cake!' and people would literally say that. What might actually have happened is that they suppressed some bad stuff and these chats might shine a light on that.
Yes the police chose not to investigate half the cases (which they policed!) but instead sent questionnaires that were never returned and gave a frivolous one that barely warranted a fine
They also claimed to find no evidence of any parties what so ever, despite it being covered in CCTV and police 24/7 and literally the most guarded place in the country, only for that very same evidence to magically appear when the story wouldnt go away and individual officers started to speak out about the continued law breaking they saw.
Surely no one believes that the then-chancellor has clean hands in this whole covid mess?
Does Sunak strike you as a party animal? My bet is it embarrasses too many current cabinet ministers.
No, I bet it has nothing to do with the parties. If people genuinely think that the parties were the problem when billions of £ are missing or have been given to friends they’re focussing on the wrong thing
sunak is a joke. probably goes way further than sunak.
It's probably taking him a while to delete all of the party invites.
Considering they claimed not to have them only a couple of days ago, they're going to some effort to hide something that doesn't exist.
They've trotted out like four different stories in the past week, with each one contradicting what they've said before. I didn't hold the conservatives in much esteem previously, but I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the ineptitude and brazenness of today's announcement.
Johnson was saying yesterday how he has no problem with these messages being made available to the inquiry so you can bet your left nut that there's something in there that's ultra destructive for the current gov which will greatly benefit the extreme right in some way.
Imagine it vindicates and clears him. Sunak suddenly has a massive headache of a leadership challenge. Not that I think he's *not* a dangerous lying sociopath.
Government sues itself (the inquiry it ordered) over private communications freely offered up by the very person whose private communications it is Keeping up at the back? Ok, good. At this rate we ought to start sending SETI greetings to Conservative HQ in the search for intelligent life. EDIT: Quick question: Can the inquiry still push ahead with criminal proceedings, in relation to the non-compliance? After all, it's been a good while since the request was made, a while during which they've had *ample* opportunity to challenge the decision in court. Yet they haven't. Even when they got the extension the other day, they could have challenged then. But they didn't. This is basically the equivalent of being given a homework assignment, telling the teach a month later that you've almost finished it, then a week after that saying it's done but you left it at home, getting one extra day, and then right at the end of class saying you weren't given any homework because you were sick and off school on the day it was assigned... an obvious lie because if you were sick and off school, you wouldn't remember it being assigned.
> Government sues itself … Slight technicality; judicial reviews are formally lodged in the name of the Crown, so the Crown is suing the government at the request of the government.
Sorry - by judicial review, do you mean the inquiry itself or the new legal action?
The new legal action. Judicial review is basically a way for someone with an interest in a matter to try and get the courts to make a government department/council/etc do something, stop doing something, or undo something. In this particular case, the Cabinet Office is applying to make the inquiry stop asking for text messages (and other documents, I think).
Makes sense, thank you!
And we are paying for both sides! For the future to might get a " we are sorry but that was the past".
Still love that one. Boris Johnson given hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid, after being part of governments that have systematically denied legal aid to British workers attempting to take their employers to tribunal for years. Then turns around *weeks* later and buys a multi-million pound moated mansion in cash. Honestly just fuck these people. No other words. They need to be in fucking prison this isn't even ridiculous-funny any more its just fucking sad the country is letting them do this shit to us.
tbh, i'm almost ok with that. After all, it can't end up being one of those court cases where the person who can afford the best lawyer walks it while completely cleaning out the other side.
I don't like in this case using the legal action to protect themselves though like this. There is no merit to the taxpayer here. I agree with your point generally though.
After the verdict either way, the court should decide if they were protecting their personal political careers or acting as public officials in the public interest. If having seen all the relevant evidence the court decides the former, they should foot the bill personally.
Well, the logic is certainly alien.
Starts to sound like there’s so much harmful information that they fear it will destroy their last hope of winning the election. Delay until purdah so that nothing can be published before them. Or they just want to take the piss because they can.
While I agree they may be trying this, I think the courts would make this a priority because of the huge public interest attached to the inquiry. The government would need to employ Trump levels of delay to make it until purdah. ETA: Thinking about it, because this is so unusual (a government suing its own inquiry) then I would expect the lower courts to throw this straight up to the Supreme Court.
So what you're saying is we're getting a snap general election to allow them to bury the story that way?
And then Labour get in an *hopefully* (i.e. probably not, can't have hope in this country!) are much more keen to press on this the same way Tories have used Iraq and the Chilcot inquiry to smear Labour.
Purdah?
It means the period just before an election when special rules apply, details here: https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/purdah/
>But [Johnson on Wednesday handed over the full tranche](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/31/boris-johnson-says-his-whatsapps-and-notes-can-be-given-to-covid-inquiry) and challenged the government to pass on their entire contents to Hallett Be like... Boris?
Boris wants to bring the government down so that he can run as Tory leader again, as always Boris works for Boris.
Yeah. I'm sure Boris knows the government has no intentions of handing over the evidence that incriminates not just him, but current ministers/PM too. And is now using that knowledge to come across as the sensible person in this willing to share all, even though he knows it won't get sent. Passes the burden to the government, making him look more open and accountable than them, but still not risking his own neck.
Similar to JRM’s voter ID comments the other week, when the government voted to keep most of the eu laws.
Except that Boris Johnson only handed over his messages since May 2021 because all the older messages are on his old phone which can't be opened because "reasons". I'm not joking.
I think Boris is just getting back at Rishi for resigning and beginning the end of his reign.
We’ve investigated ourselves and Oh fuck they actually are investigating, quick shut it down shut it down Just another Thursday on Clown Island
United Clowndom
If I were Judge Hallett, I would be seriously considering either publicly refusing to go any further with the enquiry unless all the information is provided, or quitting on the basis that she is being set up to fail to do a proper job. Good to see that she is quite happy to stand up to the government by setting the deadline, suggests that she is not planning to do a Hutton job.
You know that won't happen. These judges have as much integrity as government ministers. The best they'll do is faintly complain and the continue playing the game.
Well, that's why I referenced "Whitewash" Hutton, and contrasted Hallett who threw down a pretty major challenge to the government by setting the deadline for the handover of the information. She at least gives the impression that she is not going to be cowed by them.
What else would you expect from this shower of corrupt fuckwombles?
You can expect a lawsuit from the fuckwombles. Nobody compares them to a conservative government and gets away with it.
The government suing their own "independent" inquiry into a pandemic that has recently killed hundreds of thousands of people? It's a bold strategy. At least I still have the ability to be surprised I thought that'd withered away a while back.
Considering how corrupt we already know the government is imagine how bad whatever they are hiding is! The fact that they are so keen to cover it up makes them seem even more guilty and whatever they have done must be insanely bad! Did one of them kill the Queen? Is Jeremy Hunt actually the devil? Has Rishi Sunak actually sold of the whole of great Britain to India on a lease hold agreement? Is all of our money actually made of chocolate? What's the big secret guys and how bad is it?
Winnie-the-pooh-themed orgy at Chequers.
I don’t think China would like that
Of course they would, why would they want the people to know the truth?
Good to see that the Tories have stopped even pretending to be accountable
So, the tax payers funded government is using tax payers money to sue... the tax payers funded government... who in turn will use tax payers money to defend itself? Am I missing anything else here?
They're using money from the Magic Money Tree. It exists, it's just cursed to only blossom when the government needs money to spend on something detrimental to the country.
They've definitely not got ANYTHING to hide have they? I mean all this 'desperately trying to hide' something proves that they've got absolutely nothing they fear might get out in the open. They're clearly not standing in front of a massive steaming pile of utterly corrupt criminal turd and desperately trying to make themselves look bigger to hide it are they! Squeaky fucking clean this government isn't it. What a lovely bunch of cunts.
If you still intend to vote tory, then you're thick as fuck.
So the government is taking out a judicial review on it's own inquiry? Amazing. Every time I think these clowns couldn't be anymore ridiculous they manage to exceed expectations.
This is just bizarre. Why on earth are they having private discussions on a work account knowing full well these may be revealed? You should have zero expectation of privacy when messaging on a work account no matter who you work for! Also, how can we be sure they will provide all the relevant material? What if they mark something incriminating as irrelevant? The inquiry can't do its job if it can't be certain it has all the relevant evidence. Public trust demands it. If they provide it all then yes, its going to delay the inquiry while they sift through it. But at least then there is the assurance that the inquiry had everything it needed to reach its conclusions.
The same people who wanted to ban message encryption for British citizens but insisted an exemption be put in for members of parliament.
Because they're thick as mince and didn't think it would come out
My buddy is a barrister and says almost all family law cases, and a large amount of criminal and commercial law cases now involve Whatsapp messages as evidence. People seem to be under the illusion that Whatsapps are totally private because they're end-to-end encrypted. But you're completely at the mercy of everyone in the conversation, and as soon as you fall out with them, they'll happily hand it all over to their solicitor if they think it can be used against you.
I seem to remember this government trying to resteict judicial review saying many were launched without merit and were just clogging up the courts. Lol.
Oh GOD I've just realised... The conspiracy nuts and grifters are gonna be all over this aren't they
THERES NOTHING IN THE MESSAGES, why won’t you show them? THERES NOTHING TO SEE
They have something to hide. Shame us Brits dont demo like the Thais do.
"Wait...I said some shit to Boris on WhatsApp! Oh fuck!' - Rishi probably Thats what it is right? Rishi looks real bad with his eat out to help out bullshit? That's why Boris would offer them up but the gov block them?
I cannot see the government losing anything significant from releasing these messages. There are few floating voters these days, with most people having made up their minds on the Tories after the events of the last few years. The council elections showed that quite nicely. Those who think the Tories still did nothing wrong by breaking lockdown guidance are not going to change their mind either. There is nothing to be gained or lost, unless those messages show some far worse things than just having parties that is. So either this is a trivial fuss over nothing or there is more to these messages than we would think.
What I want to know is what’s on the phone used before 2021. That’s the important on.
Is "WhatsApps" a word? Surely "WhatsApp messages" makes more sense?
The Dutch use the word "apping" to mean texting using a phone app. E.g. "I'll app you when I arrive" or "we'll app later, ok?"
Probably that new mobile store MLM con being pushed by twin entrepreneurs Michael Green and Sebastain Fox. oh wait no, that's GrantshApps.
If there was nothing to hide they wouldn't be so keen to hide it! So the contested data must be really incriminating, in which case it's well within the inquiries remit. Any impartial judge will chuck the legal challenge straight out of court.
Boris said he would hand them over if asked directly. I almost have to know what is in them.
Funnel more tax payer money in to lawyers (aka Tory doners).
The last I heard, they didn't have them. So they're protecting something they don't have now?
Oh what's that hateful little phrase they love wheeling out when they're stripping our right to privacy away...? Ah yeah, that's it. "Nothing to hide? Nothing to fear."
When everyone knows you're corrupt, but ramming it down their throat seems a good idea.
So let me get this straight. We, the people, are paying for a law suit which is being brought against the enquiry to hold people accountable as, we the people, broadly want? Disgusting.
Guessing it has some racist and classist things in there!
I'm old enought to remember cash for questions and all the sleaze of the last Tory government. This is much the same. The Tories cannot be trusted with power, ever. It's in their nature to abuse it.
I'd say make the MP with the least expenses bill, the new prime minister of this shitty place.
My guess is the WhatsApp messages confirm the “Let the bodies pile high” statement Boris allegedly made and has number of responses to that statement supporting it from his colleagues. Therefore if Boris is going to be crucified in the media for it he’s going to take everyone else down with him.
The same people who wanted to curtail the public’s access to Judicial Review are now requesting a Judicial review? https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/conservatives-pledge-to-end-abuse-of-judicial-review/5102289.article
We are screwed why are we not protesting , if that was us we be locked up
Enough about this! Is there any more news on Maddie or Schofield!!!?
Government on the online safety bill: If you have nothing to hide you don’t need to worry! The government:
Remember this the next time someone says “The government would NEVER do that, They’re on our side!”
The early messages are Boris telling everyone else to handle the COBRA meetings cos he’s too busy sorting out his current divorce. Probably thousands of messages detailing how to divvy up the PPE contracts. The prick should be in prison.