02 Jun Jacob Rees-Mogg: row over Boris WhatsApp messages is ‘synthetic’
THE row over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages is “synthetic” and the Government is right not to hand them all over, according to former Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg.
He told GB News: “Today there’s been the synthetic row about WhatsApp messages between the Cabinet Office and the COVID inquiry. Now it seems the Government will be taking its own inquiry to court.
“I’m often willing to criticise the Government when it’s wrong, but on this occasion, it’s right. If they get this enormous quantity of information, the chairman of the inquiry, Lady Hallett, will drown in trivia, and the report will not be completed in time for the next pandemic.
“Lady Hallett has asked for every WhatsApp message but the Government won’t provide that which is unambiguously irrelevant. And the Government is right…the chairman is not entitled to go on a general fishing expedition, which wouldn’t be in the interests of the inquiry which needs to be moved in a timely manner.”
He continued: “We need to make sure this inquiry is done in a timely and efficient way and look at other countries. But we also need to move away from the obsession with COVID, because malicious and officious prosecutions of technical lockdown breaches are still going on in secret courts, which is not good for British justice.”
He added: “There’s a backlog in the courts. They’re years behind with serious cases. Why are they faffing around with trivial lockdown COVID-related cases? We need a swift inquiry, swift answers.
“We need to be thinking about the future, not endlessly harping on about the past.”
