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Adam Wagner Profile picture
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Mar 4 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Just wish I had called one of the chapters “WE DIDN’T BREAK THE F***ING LAW OK”
The text messages are very revealing but so far I think the basic points I make in #EmergencyState are being proved right, rather than being undermined. The dangers of opaque and little scrutinised decision making by a totally dysfunctional group of 5 men
One thing which interestingly doesn’t appear in Hancock’s book but does appear in the messages is how distrustful and resentful he was towards Sunak. The book lays it on Cummings but not Sunak (from my prospect review prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/matt-…)
From a politics perspective - these were essentially new colleagues. They had been cobbled together a few months earlier because they were who was left after Johnson’s crash and burn of the Tory party. It’s not that surprising that they were not a well oiled team

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More from @AdamWagner1

Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 5
I agree, which is hopefully what the @covidinquiryuk will do (at least with the key message threads). I suspect that the Telegraph has cherry picked the messages as much as Hancock did in his book. Both trying to serve a pre-existing narrative.
For example, their "project fear" narrative which has been a major part of their coverage throughout the pandemic. Are there other messages where people are discussing the use of fear/hope narratives in a more nuanced way? We have no way of knowing.
Have Telegraph journalists set out to present a rounded view of what was happening, which I would have thought is the task of a jouranlistic investigation? Or have messages/threads (I am not yet convinced the threads are complete) been picked out to present certain narratives?
Read 6 tweets
Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 5
A question for @IsabelOakeshott and the @Telegraph
- the WhatsApp conversations are made to look as if they are authentic threads. Are they? Or have they been edited so that messages are sometimes not in the original order or are missing intervening messages? Image
I have received two answers to this tweet from the Telegraph journalists - both vague and not directly answering the question about threads being edited. First from the deputy investigations editor…
Second from @IsabelOakeshott
Read 5 tweets
Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 4
Hancock was well aware of the rules at the time of his affair - reading the WhatsApps from Telegraph it seems like he just convinced himself, or perhaps just tried to convince his aide, he hadn’t broken them. Affair began early May during Step 2
This is just nonsense - “voluntary and arguably charitable”. The kind of joke that was being made when we were discussing the ban on intimate contact
“What EXACTLY were the rules” - remember he denied to @susannareid100 that the UK was in Step 2 when she interviewed him about the affair
Read 4 tweets
Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 3
"Privileged information"
Interesting concept here. Sue Gray was by all accounts a political problem solver for successive Prime Ministers, did she arrive with a blank slate each time? And what about those moving from journalism (where they have confidential sources) to politics?
What about lawyers moving into government? What about politicians moving into private industry? Presumably Sue Gray will have signed confidentiality agreements, and is bound by her professional standards? The objections to this appointment sound to me a little fuzzy
The main objection seems to be "the fact she is moving to Labour demonstrates she was biased over Partygate". The problem there is (a) nobody has said what part of her report is wrong, or what fact she unearthed isn't true, (b) the Met Police did their own separate investigation.
Read 8 tweets
Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 3
This is a devastating expose - devastating particularly for the children who are left with no secular education, little English and schooling in dangerous surroundings. The loophole needs to be closed

thetimes.co.uk/article/ce7955…
And excellent piece by @YehudisFletcher who has bravely campaigned on this for years

Religious freedom cannot justify the failure to educate

thetimes.co.uk/article/837915…
I wrote about this five years ago in relation to safeguarding - it’s a travesty and the children must be protected thejc.com/comment/commen…
Read 6 tweets
Adam Wagner Profile picture
Mar 2
I spoke out a lot during the Pandemic about conditions in hotel quarantine - over 200,000 people were kept in a small room, often with 15 mins exercise per day. Many children, disabled people, people who should have been given medical exemptions. This exchange sounds callous
From the Telegraph cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/c284917e-9d6d-…
I should qualify that slightly - the Telegraph is publishing a tiny and carefully selected proportion of the messages it has possession of. If it wanted to tell the real story of the Pandemic it would release them less selectively.
Read 8 tweets

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