The Telegraph Profile picture
Mar 1 10 tweets 4 min read
🔴 Boris Johnson proposed giving over-65s choice on Covid shielding

The then PM’s misgivings about isolation revealed as he asked if the most vulnerable could be trusted to decide level of risk for themselves

🧵Thread 👇

#TheLockdownFiles
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0… Boris Johnson proposed giving over-65s choice on Covid shiel
🔵 While lockdown pressed pause on most Britons’ lives, those who were clinically “extremely vulnerable” were much more severely isolated - and for longer
🏠 “Shielding” guidance brought in during the very early days of the pandemic warned them not to leave their homes for any reason other than a medical appointment – not even for the one hour’s exercise then enjoyed by the rest of the country
🔴 For many, it had a grim effect on mental health – with more than a third of people who were shielding reporting a decline, according to research by the Office for National Statistics
But as these conversations show, even those who were involved in devising these measures seemed unsure whether their implementation was “effective”.

🗣 Boris Johnson wondered out loud if the Government should trust people to make decisions for themselves
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0… Boris Johnson has his temperature checked on January 4, 2021
📰 In August 2020, Johnson spotted an article in The Spectator suggesting the way forward might be to “protect the elderly and other high-risk groups until they are protected by herd immunity, while the younger generations keep society afloat”
💬He sent the article to a Whatsapp group with key officials - this is the conversation that followed:
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0… WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson and key officials on
📅 A few weeks later, Mr Johnson spotted another article – this time in the Financial Times.

It suggested that the mortality rate from Covid had recently fallen and the elderly were no longer the main drivers of the virus
Read the conversation he had with officials here⬇️
#TheLockdownFiles
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…

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More from @Telegraph

Mar 3
The latest stories from the Telegraph’s #TheLockdownFiles:

🗣 Hancock: ‘Get heavy with police’ to enforce lockdown

✍️ @RachelSJohnson: 'As police pursued my father, my mother endured care home prison'

🔴 Hancock's team: Can we lock up ‘pub hooligan’ Farage?

Read more ⬇️
💬 WhatsApp messages in @Telegraph's #LockdownFiles show how then health secretary Matt Hancock and colleagues gave officers ‘marching orders’ to enforce measures.

Read them in full 👇
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
✍️ 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and I completely support Isabel Oakeshott’s bravery in showing us how the sausage of doom was made,' writes @RachelSJohnson.

'It must never, ever, happen again'

#TheLockdownFiles
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 2
🔴 ‘Get heavy with police’ to enforce lockdown, Matt Hancock told ministers

#TheLockdownFiles #LockdownFiles

Follow the latest revelations here ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
🚨 Ministers and the country’s most senior civil servant discussed how they needed to “get heavy with the police” to crack down on the public during the Covid pandemic.

Read more ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
✔️ WhatsApp messages in The Lockdown Files disclose how Matt Hancock and colleagues gave officers their “marching orders” to enforce lockdown measures, just days before Number 10 staff held a party in Downing Street.

Read more ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0… Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 2
Your latest stories from the Telegraph’s #TheLockdownFiles:

🔴Britain’s second lockdown was based on ‘very wrong’ data, Boris Johnson feared

🔵 Top mandarin mocked holidaymakers 'locked up' in Covid quarantine hotels

🚨 ‘Get heavy with police’ to enforce lockdown, Hancock said
Follow the latest revelations here ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/lockdown-…
#TheLockdownFiles #LockdownFiles
🔴 Boris Johnson was worried that he had “blinked too soon” in plunging Britain into a second national lockdown on the basis of data that scientists had warned him was “very wrong”.

#TheLockdownFiles #LockdownFiles

Read more ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
Read 5 tweets
Mar 2
Behind on #TheLockdownFiles? Here's what you might've missed:

🔵 Matt Hancock staged ‘rearguard’ action to close schools

🔴 Williamson: Teachers looking for 'excuse' not to work during pandemic

✍️ Oakeshott: 'Hancock can threaten me all he wants'

Read more here ⤵️
🔵 WhatsApp leaks reveal how then health secretary and his advisers mocked Gavin Williamson in private for 'freaking out'

Read more here ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
#TheLockdownFiles
🔴 Sir Gavin Williamson criticised both school staff and unions for their response to coronavirus, saying that the latter “really do just hate work”.

Read more here ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
#TheLockdownFiles
Read 4 tweets
Mar 1
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: Matt Hancock staged ‘rearguard’ action to close schools

Thread 🧵⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
⚠️ Matt Hancock mounted a “rearguard action” to close schools despite Sir Gavin Williamson battling “tooth and nail” to keep classrooms open, leaked WhatsApp messages reveal.

Read more ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…
🔴 Exchanges seen by The Telegraph reveal that the then health secretary battled the education secretary in late December 2020 and suggested it was “mad” that Sir Gavin was attempting to keep schools open.
Read more ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0… Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 1
🔴 The Government is set to face an urgent question in the House of Commons over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic following the publication of #TheLockdownFiles.

It will take place immediately following #PMQs.

Follow the latest 👇
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…
🔴 Sir Keir Starmer said the formal inquiry into the Government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic must report by the end of this year as he raised #TheLockdownFiles in the House of Commons.

Follow the latest here ⬇️
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/… Keir Starmer in the House of Commons  (UK Parliament/Jessica
🔴NEW: Using WhatsApp to discuss Government business is “part and parcel of modern government”, Downing Street said

Read the full story ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…

#TheLockdownFiles
Read 4 tweets

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