100,000 WhatsApps later, what have we learnt about the pandemic years?

New revelations of government decision-making during years of lockdown are a reminder of a dark time we shouldn't forget. PLUS: Inside the Lords.

The content of Matt Hancock’s leaked WhatsApp messages won’t come as a shock to many. With or without an inquiry, most people know by now that government ministers made serious mistakes during the pandemic period. From failing to properly test individuals entering care homes to the repeated closure of schools and the imposition of draconian legislation with no democratic mandate, our years of lockdowns seem like a nightmare we’d rather forget.

But forget we cannot - not least because so many of us were told to shut up and put up with the cruel attacks on our civil liberties and social fabric. In leaking Hancock’s messages, Isabel Oakeshott has at least reminded us of the need to demand answers from a political class that has repeatedly failed to explain the decisions made throughout the pandemic. Without knowing these answers, we cannot protect the things we hold dear, and prepare for any future public-health challenges.

In the spring of 2021, with the UK still under most of the lockdown restrictions, the Academy of Ideas was commissioned to undertake the People’s Lockdown Inquiry, which was published in June 2021. Hoping to give an alternative view to that pushed during interminable press conferences, we asked Lobster Films to go out and talk to people from all walks of life about what the lockdowns had done to their lives.

It’s worth watching these little videos again, almost two years later, to remind ourselves that behind Hancock’s obsession with targets were the lives of real people who were affected by government decision-making.

Jackie told us about how lockdown had meant an almost total loss of livelihood as a swimming teacher. ‘Being in a house full of people has still been lonely’, she told us - something many parents have echoed when describing what family life was like under successive lockdowns.

‘Panic’ was how Strahila described her experience. After losing her job, and not qualifying for any financial benefits from the government, she faced a new normal of relying on her husband for support. ‘It took my confidence away from me’, she said.

‘I work in middle-class households, who have a very different experience of the pandemic to the rest of us’, Denis told us. The pandemic has encouraged a sense of other people as being ‘diseased’ or ‘dirty’, and made us feel like we needed to avoid each other, he says. The corrosive effect of social distancing on social cohesion still remains, years after the government lifted its restrictions.

The effect of school closures and social distancing on children and teenagers has been much discussed. But it really hit home for me when watching our interview with Rhylee, Paisley and Hunter. Hearing little kids talk about each other as carriers of germs is pretty horrible - and, as Paisley says, the experience of learning at home for many children without access to multiple resources was less than poor.

Rick told us about two of his grandparents who died during the pandemic. He was unable to see either, despite neither having Covid, and tells us that it was ‘like they were locked away for their own good, almost as if that nursing home was a prison, instead of a home to live in’. He says it ‘just didn’t feel right’ - especially after the vaccine was introduced.

New mum Naomi told us about her treatment at hospital during the birth of her son, Noah. Like many lockdown mothers, Naomi’s husband was barred from staying with her in hospital during a complicated birth. And as a new parent, the important social connections with other families and health visitors were restricted, leaving her family isolated and struggling. Picking up on the infamous ‘rule of six’, Naomi explains how this just didn’t add up for the vast majority of families, revealing how rushed government policy had failed to take into account the needs of families.

There will undoubtedly be academic studies and data research for years to come, examining aspects of how policymakers responded to Covid-19. But, as we said when we published the People’s Lockdown Inquiry, we need to discuss the hard-to-measure, qualitative impact on society.

Whether you supported the UK government’s lockdown measures or were more sceptical, one worrying development has been the demonising of dissent and the explicit and implicit attempts at silencing questions and inquiry. Rather than suggesting that the costs of lockdowns outweighed the benefits, we must continue to assess the (often hidden) collateral damage of policy decisions. Even if people believe these policies were necessary to deal with the pandemic, we must not forget what took place.

Watch the rest of our People’s Lockdown Inquiry interviews on our YouTube channel.

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Inside The Lords

This week, I reflected on the two major bits of news gripping the Lords - the Brexit deal and the Hancock WhatsApps.

From the headline news that the government has given us, the deal doesn’t sound too objectionable - who wouldn’t welcome easier trading lanes and a more organised system? But, as always, the devil is in the detail. And reading the EU documents on what kind of compromises have been reached is eye-opening. This is not the wonderful solution to put the lid on all things related to Northern Ireland and Brexit - not nearly. The question of sovereignty is not answered by Rishi’s dealings with Ursula von der Leyen. And it was pretty tough sitting in the Lords, listening to opposition benches crow about how right they were all along about Brexit. Questions about the the status of Northern Ireland related to a border poll might continue, but until that issue is resolved, it is none of the EU’s business what happens within the union of the United Kingdom. The continuing intervention of the ECJ is also an insult to the promise to ‘take back control’ that so many - including those in Northern Ireland - voted for in 2016.

As for Hancock, what can you say? We all know that a government inquiry would be as full of redactions and black holes as it would information, so at least on that level this leak is welcome. But we all knew that care-home residents were mistreated, and we also knew that the government’s claims to be ‘following the science’ weren’t strictly true. For example, from the messages, it seems that Hancock was more obsessed with reaching his April 2020 testing target than in making sure the right people were being tested. It tells us something about the technocratic, tunnel-vision mindset that dominated the pandemic period that ministers and officials were not taking into account the lives and livelihoods these targets would affect.

The question is, what do we do with all of this? Many of us would like to close the book on the pandemic, but the threats to civil liberties that were normalised during that dark period remain today. We must keep fighting for freedom and democracy, holding to account those politicians who fail to answer to the public.