The UK government’s top health official discussed plans to “deploy the new variant” to force the public to comply with lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions, explosive leaked text messages have revealed.
The WhatsApp messages of former British health secretary Matt Hancock were published by the UK media.
The leaked messages show that the top British official colluded to “frighten the pants off everyone” about COVID-19 variants to force compliance.
Less than a week before the British government withdrew plans to relax restrictions for Christmas 2020, Hancock asked an aide when they should “deploy the new variant.”
On December 13, 2020, then-Health Secretary Hancock and aide Damon Poole were discussing the possibility of London Mayor Sadiq Khan opposing a lockdown for the city.
They discussed plans on how to encourage compliance with restrictions.
“Rather than doing too much forward signaling, we can roll pitch with the new strain,” Poole told Hancock.
Hancock responded, “We frighten the pants of (sic) everyone with the new strain.”
“Yep, that’s what will get proper behavior change,” Poole agreed.
Shockingly, the health minister then asked, “When do we deploy the new variant.”
Poole responded that he had “been thinking about this.”
He then advised Hancock that they needed to be “more cautious.”
Poole suggested that they keep “schools off paperwork/agenda,” perhaps referring to not applying new restrictions to schools.
The day after those messages were exchanged, Hancock announced new lockdown measures.
The new measure he announced were justified by a new alleged variant of COVID-19.
“This rise in transmission — as well as the new variant of COVID — should be a warning to us all that — even after such a difficult year — we must stay vigilant,” Hancock said on December 14, 2020.
The UK was then placed on lockdown over Christmas.
The alarming messages were revealed in more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages obtained and published by The Telegraph.
Hancock, who remains a member of Parliament, denounced the leak of his messages.
“There is absolutely no public interest case for this huge breach,” he said in response.
“All the materials for the book have already been made available to the Inquiry, which is the right, and only, place for everything to be considered properly and the right lessons to be learned.”
“As we have seen, releasing them in this way gives a partial, biased account to suit an anti-lockdown agenda,” he complained.
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