 | |
| Author | |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Subject | Matt Hancock's tenure as Health Secretary |
| Published | London |
| Publisher | Biteback Publishing |
Publication date | 6 December 2022 |
| ISBN | 9781785907746 |
Pandemic Diaries: The Inside Story of Britain's Battle Against Covid is a 2022 book by Matt Hancock, a politician, and Isabel Oakeshott, a political journalist, about Hancock's tenure as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is published by Biteback.
The book was not based on a diary but was written after the fact based on Hancock's recollections as well his records of communications. [1] [2] It dismisses allegations that moving patients into care homes caused deaths arguing that the staff in care homes were the vector of disease. [1] The book is critical of Dominic Cummings. [1] [3]
In April 2022, it was announced that Hancock would publish his diaries during the COVID-19 pandemic called Pandemic Diaries with Biteback Publishing, cowritten by Isabel Oakeshott. [1] The royalties were planned to be donated to NHS charities. [4] [5] The book was to be released in December 2022.
Reviews comment that the book presented too positive an image, making Hancock seem unduly prescient with the benefit of hindsight, arguing there may be elements of revisionism. [1] [6]
Gaby Hinsliff reviewing in The Guardian said that there were kernels of truth about how politicians make decisions in the account but comments on how the book was written with the benefit of hindsight, allowing Hancock to make himself seem prescient. [1] Rod Dacombe writing in the i said that was absurd and devoid of literary flair. [7] Adam Wagner, writing in Prospect magazine, said that the book had a focus on score settling and self-aggrandisation but that there were some genuine revelations, noting that more will be known when the UK Covid-19 Inquiry reports. [8] Wagner argues Hancock's removal of exceptions for protest from proposed lockdown regulations on the grounds that protests could undermine public trust in measures and his criticism of protestors in the book are suggestive that protests were banned based on the political views of protestors, which Wagner thinks would likely constitute government overreach. [8]
Oakeshott leaked some of the private WhatsApp messages she had access to in a Daily Telegraph article published in February 2023. [9] One message from April 2020 suggests Hancock told aides that professor Chris Whitty had done "an "evidence review" and recommended "testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result". Hancock allegedly stated this was a "good positive step". Later, Hancock allegedly stated he would rather avoid a commitment to test all people going into care homes from the community and "just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital". [10] A spokesman for Hancock said, "These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing". [11]
Matthew John David Hancock is a British politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January to July 2018, and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk since 2010. He is a member of the Conservative Party, but now sits in the House of Commons as an independent, having had the whip suspended since November 2022.
Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott is a British political journalist.
James Nicholas Bethell, 5th Baron Bethell is a British hereditary peer and Conservative politician in the House of Lords. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care and was involved in negotiating various controversial contracts.
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The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from January 2020 to June 2020.
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This article outlines the history of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Though later reporting indicated that there may have been some cases dating from late 2019, COVID-19 was confirmed to be spreading in the UK by the end of January 2020. The country was initially relatively slow implementing restrictions but a legally enforced stay-at-home order had been introduced by late March. Restrictions were steadily eased across the UK in late spring and early summer that year.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from July 2022 to December 2022.
Emergency State: How We lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why it Matters is a book by UK human rights lawyer Adam Wagner. The book explores how the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated Government response had unprecedented powers to make and change legislation at will without accountability and what safeguards could be created to prevent this in the future. Wagner was appointed to work on the Independent Commission on UK Public Health Emergency Powers.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom in 2023.
The Lockdown Files are a series of articles in The Daily Telegraph containing evidence, analysis, speculation, and opinion relating to more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages obtained from former health secretary Matt Hancock that were leaked to them.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom in 2024.
