Experienced multimedia journalist with a background in investigative reporting. Expert in interviewing, reporting, fact-checking, and working on a deadline. Excel at cinematic storytelling and sourcing images, sound bites, and video for multimedia publication.
Work well with photographers and videographers when not shooting his own stories, and love to collaborate on large, in-depth features.
The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- John Furner
The Treasury today faced backlash over a ‘tone-deaf’ social media post showcasing the biggest Budget announcements.
Just hours after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled his catalogue of big-ticket moves, his department shared a mocked-up version of a group chat captioned: ‘BREAKING NEWS: Spring Budget WhatsApp Files leaked’.
All of the messages were fake texts sent from other parts of Whitehall, including the departments for Education, Transport and Work and Pensions.
It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the bombshell leak of Matt Hancock’s personal messages.
The post, made from the official Treasury Twitter account, presents the Government’s Spring Budget key messages as a WhatsApp leak in apparent reference to thee bombshell leak of fort Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s personal messages
KEY CLAIMS OF THE LOCKDOWN FILES INVESTIGATION
Matt Hancock rejected the Chief Medical Officer’s call to test all residents going into English care homes for Covid
A minister in Mr Hancock’s department said restrictions on visitors to care homes were ‘inhumane’, but residents remained isolated many months on
Mr Hancock’s adviser arranged for a personal test to be couriered for Jacob Rees-Mogg’s child at a time of national shortage
Mr Hancock told former chancellor George Osborne, then editor of the Evening Standard, ‘I WANT TO HIT MY TARGET!’ as he pushed for favourable front-page coverage
Mr Hancock allegedly met his 100,000-tests-a-day target by counting kits that were despatched before the deadline but might never be processed
Social care minister Helen Whately told Mr Hancock the testing system was ‘definitely working’ after she managed to secure a test ‘just’ 50 miles from where she lived.
Mr Osborne warned Mr Hancock that ‘no one thinks testing is going well’ in late 2020
The then prime minister, Boris Johnson, revealed he was going ‘quietly crackers’ about the UK’s shortage of test kits
Face masks were introduced in school hallways and communal areas after the PM was told it would avoid an ‘argument’ with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon
Matt Hancock took ‘rearguard’ action to close schools after former education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson persuaded the PM to keep them open in January 2021
Sir Gavin said teachers were looking for an ‘excuse’ not to work during the pandemic
Ministers said there was ‘no robust rationale’ for imposing the ‘rule of six’ on children, but did it anyway
Pupils with false positive results on a lateral flow test had to isolate at home for ten days, even when they tested negative on a PCR, to avoid ‘unpicking’ the policy
The PM feared that he ‘blinked too soon’ in plunging the UK into a second Covid lockdown after being warned that gloomy modelling which bounced him into the move was ‘very wrong’
Mr Johnson was eager to ease curbs on retail, hospitality and gatherings in June 2020 but was told he was ‘too far ahead of public opinion’
Mr Hancock and top civil servant Simon Case joked about travellers ‘locked up’ in quarantine hotels during Covid lockdown
The minister said the Government should ‘get heavy with the police’ to help crack down on Covid lockdown rulebreakers
Mr Hancock’s team asked if they could ‘lock up’ Nigel Farage after he posted a video of himself in a pub when they suspected he was in breach of rules
Mr Hancock referred to Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme as ‘eat out to help the virus get about’ and lobbied officials not to extend the scheme
Mr Hancock clashed with the Treasury, calling Steve Barclay, now the Health Secretary, a ‘w***er’ and accused Mr Sunak of ‘showing ankle to the hard right’ by warning of a second national lockdown
In the hours after his affair with married aide Gina Coladangelo became public, he said the worst they could be accused of was kissing ‘before they legalised hugs’
Ministers sought to remove NHS England boss Lord Stevens just says after Covid was first detected, saying it would be a ‘massive improvement’
Mr Hancock plotted to have ‘worse than useless’ and ‘complete loudmouth’ Sir Jeremy Farrar, who is now the WHO’s top scientist, sacked from SAGE
Mr Hancock planned when to ‘deploy’ the news of a new Covid variant to ‘frighten the pants off’ the public so they complied with lockdown rules
The former Health Secretary branded the Government’s vaccine tsar Dame Kate Bingham ‘totally unreliable’ and ‘wacky’ after she said only the vulnerable needed to be vaccinated against Covid
Mr Hancock wanted to be the face of the vaccine rollout, planning to do media rounds and ‘own’ the news of the Covid jabs
Mr Hancock attempted to hide that he’d take Ms Coladangelo to a dinner with the US health secretary
Sir Chris advised ministers not to enforce the sex ban during the pandemic
Sir Chris told ministers Covid jabs couldn’t be fast-tracked during the early days of the pandemic because the virus wasn’t deadly enough
Experienced multimedia journalist with a background in investigative reporting. Expert in interviewing, reporting, fact-checking, and working on a deadline. Excel at cinematic storytelling and sourcing images, sound bites, and video for multimedia publication.
Work well with photographers and videographers when not shooting his own stories, and love to collaborate on large, in-depth features.
Experienced multimedia journalist with a background in investigative reporting. Expert in interviewing, reporting, fact-checking, and working on a deadline. Excel at cinematic storytelling and sourcing images, sound bites, and video for multimedia publication.
Work well with photographers and videographers when not shooting his own stories, and love to collaborate on large, in-depth features.
