Hancock Half Hoakeshotted

She told Vicky Pryce that it would be OK to shop her former partner Chris Huhne over his getting her to take the points for him being caught speeding on the way back from Stansted Airport to London. Ms Pryce was then convicted of perverting the course of justice and jailed. That alone should have rung warning bells about mercenary hack Isabel Oakeshott.

Cock indeed

And it wasn’t the only time where information in Ms Oakeshott’s possession leaked, although attributed to her equally untrustworthy protégé Steven Edginton: the nominally confidential cables sent by then UK Ambassador to the USA Kim Darroch were leaked to the Mail on Sunday. Darroch incurred the displeasure of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and had to resign.

On top of that was the time Ms Oakeshott claimed she’d been hacked, as an explanation for Byline Media getting hold of a tranche of emails exposing the true extent of Brexit Bad Boy Arron Banks’ relationship with representatives of the Russian state. The dirty tricks, spoilers, and damage limitation would have made even the late Max Clifford stop and think.

Nevertheless, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, for reasons best known to him, and which he will probably come to regret, entrusted Ms Oakeshott with a significant tranche of WhatsApp conversations around Hancock’s behaviour during the then developing Covid-19 pandemic, for his “Pandemic Diaries”. He also got her to sign an Non-Disclosure Agreement.

This has proved to be a most unwise choice, as Hancock discovered earlier this week when the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph revealed that the former minister’s trusted source (ho ho ho) had shared said WhatsApp conversations with its hacks. “The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic”. Whoops!

There was more. “The Lockdown Files is the biggest leak of data involving the Government since the 2009 MPs' expenses scandal, shedding new light on issues including care home deaths, lockdowns, testing, school closures and face masks”. To be recycled by the Tel in favour of lockdown deniers.

And more. “The Telegraph analysed messages containing 2.3 million words. In The Lockdown Files we reveal the contents of those messages, and the serious questions they raise … In the first major story from The Lockdown Files, we found evidence that Matt Hancock watered down his Chief Medical Officer’s plan for testing in English care homes”. And yet more.

Hugely embarrassing not just for the Evening Standard, but every other paper, was the revelation that Hancock tapped the title’s then editor George Osborne - his former boss - for favourable coverage, and Osborne effectively responded “yeah, sure”. Ben Kentish of LBC admitted he was “lost for words”.

Rachel Clarke, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, observed “Wow. In Sept 2020, Covid testing backlogs were so dire that people were driving hundreds of miles for tests. But [Matt Hancock] personally arranged for a test to be couriered to Jacob Rees-Mogg for one of his kids. And then sent straight to a lab … A corrupt little man to the core”. Were any more Tories thus favoured?

The questions are being asked already, with Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper putting the Government front bench very much on the back foot. Meanwhile, the questions are being asked as to why Ms Oakeshott feels it’s OK to shaft Hancock, NDA or no, but not Brexit booster Banksy.

Marina Purkiss put it this way: “Have I got this right … Oakeshott felt compelled to leak Hancock’s WhatsApp messages because we need ‘urgent answers’ … But apparently sat on emails showing alleged Russian interference in Brexit and our democracy … Or have I missed something?”

Why did Ms Oakeshott break an NDA and shaft Matt Hancock? Whatever her claims - which should be treated with maximum scepticism and equal contempt - one thing comes clear: this is someone that no-one should trust, not even as far as they could chuck her. She is not a disinterested party, but someone most likely wanting to push a lockdown demonising agenda.

Never trust Isabel Oakeshott with anything confidential. Ever. That is all.

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