Covid Inquiry: Rishi Sunak ‘Lost’ WhatsApp Messages, Changed Phone ‘Several’ Times

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that missing WhatsApp records, directly impacting the ongoing Covid inquiry, were lost after he’d changed his phone multiple times since the pandemic.

Sunak served in the key role as chancellor under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the pandemic. The inquiry’s lead counsel, Hugo Keith KC, pressed Sunak on the apparent oversight in safeguarding messages that could be vital to the Covid probe.

“I have changed my phone multiple times in the years since then and I’ve said previously the messages wouldn’t have come across,” the prime minister said.

Sunak confessed not being “a prolific user of WhatsApp.”

When asked about warnings from officials regarding the need to protect his message history for a potential inquiry, Sunak continued: “I do not recall anyone in my office making that recommendation or observation to me at the time.”

Keith then presented evidence to Sunak in the form of an article from The Spectator in which he is quoted as saying: “Everything I did was seen through the prism of: ‘You’re trying to be difficult, trying to be leader’” and, referring to Johnson, “I’d say a lot of stuff to him in private. There’s some written record of everything.”

The counsel then asked about why it was important to have “private” conversations,

“Of course, I’d have conversations with the PM,” Sunak answered. “In terms of written records, at multiple moments I would write to him so he could have it in one place and thoughts and analysis from me with regards to perhaps exit road maps or the two-meter to one-meter rule, there will be others…. there is lots of different bits of evidence where I did write to him formally at particular points where I thought it made sense to lay out a set of arguments from me to him.”

The prime minister opened his testimony with an apology.

“I just wanted to start by saying how deeply sorry I am to all of those who lost loved ones, family members, through the pandemic, and also all those who suffered in various different ways throughout the pandemic and as a result of the actions that were taken,” he said. “I’ve thought a lot about this over the past couple of years, it’s important that we learn the lessons so that we can be better prepared in the future.”