“Disgusting and misogynistic” WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have been disclosed to the Covid inquiry, according to the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne.
Cummings, Johnson’s chief adviser when Covid struck, is due to appear before the inquiry for the first time next Tuesday.
Speaking on his Political Currency podcast with Ed Balls, Osborne said he had been told that the latest messages shared with the inquiry contained foul and sexist language.
He said: “From what I understand, there are some pretty staggering things that have been said on those WhatsApp messages … not just by Boris Johnson, but key advisers like Dominic Cummings. Really pretty disgusting language and misogynistic language.”
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Osborne suggested that worse language could emerge next week. He said: “I think we’re going to get some pretty astonishing and frankly shocking WhatsApp messages and the like being published from that Johnson period.”
He said the messages would show “just what a complete nightmare it was for many people working in 10 Downing Street and who worked at the top of government at the time, and potentially some things that are going to cause some real problems for individuals who were in charge at the time.”
I read an article a while back that said data retrieval for forensic purposes was rarely impossible, it just got increasingly expensive and they were dealing with things like hard drives that had been “destroyed”. Encryption makes it trickier but there are often ways and means otherwise every wrong 'un would just claim to have forgotten their pin. With WhatsApp it’s probably just easier to access the other person’s phone they were talking to.