WhatsApp - Bozo Lies Again

After spending decades following the antics of disgraced former very occasional Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, it might be expected that our free and fearless press would have figured out that Bozo is a shameless and indeed congenital liar. But that thought would have been sadly misplaced when basic knowledge of technology was required.

Mobile phones. We’ve all got them; some of us have more than one of the things. Some choose Android phones; others go for the supposedly stylish iPhone. And it is the latter that Bozo claims is taxing him beyond the limits of his memory. Sadly, instead of the press doing a little of that proper journalism that they claim to be into, most of them have merely repeated his claims.

What has allegedly taxed Bozo can be put directly: the WhatsApp messages on his old iPhone have yet to be ponied up to the Covid Inquiry. This was the device that had to be switched off in 2021 due to an alleged security breach. The deadline given is now several days into the past. But we are supposed to believe that Bozo missed the deadline because he forgot the passcode.

Hence Sky News reporting “Boris Johnson has been unable to handover WhatsApp messages from his old mobile phone to the COVID inquiry because he has forgotten the password to it … The Times said it had been told the former prime minister could not ‘with 100% confidence’ remember the code for the device he used up until May 2021”. Do go on.

“There were fears the Apple iPhone could erase the messages if the wrong digits were entered too many times … Mr Johnson's spokesperson did not deny the claims to Sky News, instead saying government-appointed ‘technical experts’ were continuing to work ‘to recover material safely from the device’”. And to that I call bullshit. Bozo is lying once again.

But give us the rest. “[Bozo] had switched phones and claimed to have been instructed not to switch the device back on again … His spokesperson said the phone was currently with his lawyers, adding: ‘As previously stated, Mr Johnson will cooperate fully with the inquiry. He wants to disclose any relevant material which is why he is fully cooperating with this process’”.

Having just switched SIMs between iPhones, or more precisely got a helpful person from my network provider to do it for me, the bullshit detector clanged into action as soon as that lame excuse was offered. This one is somewhere between “A big boy did it and ran away” and “I could be arguing in my spare time”. You just put the SIM in another iPhone and away you go.

You think I jest? Here’s Andrew Whaley, senior technical director at Promon (they’re an app security company) giving his assessment of Bozo’s latest stalling tactic: “This is a pretty lame excuse. Providing Boris’s WhatsApp is backed up, accessing the data would take minutes”. And how, pray?

“You can simply take out the SIM card, put it in another device and install WhatsApp using SMS verification to get access to all your old messages. As this is a diplomatic phone, the security measures may well be different, but even still, it’s not an impossible task by any means. This is likely not a case of Johnson being unable to access his phone, but rather a tactic to try and further evade the release of messages relevant to the inquiry”. POINT.

Another clue as to Bozo’s honesty (or lack thereof) is provided by the Tweeter known as My Sweet Landlord, who notes “When Lord Geidt was doing #wallpapergate he wanted access. He was told phone could not be accessed. After he reported he was told phone had been accessed for something else. This is the second bit of subterfuge involving Boris Johnson's iPhone”.

Some have noted that Bozo claimed to have had IT lessons from Jennifer Arcuri (ho ho ho) and so should know his way round an iPhone. Alternatively, as Brian Moore has suggested, “If they can't access Johnson's messages, they should give the phone to Piers Morgan. He'll have them in a trice”. But Bozo long ago ceased being funny. He’s lying. And stalling. Again.

Never take what that SOB says without a second source. That is all.

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