The mystery of Boris Johnson’s missing WhatsApp messages

Where have Boris Johnson’s diaries and WhatsApp messages gone? The row over the demands of the Covid Inquiry for evidence from the former prime minister and his aide Henry Cook took another twist yesterday, with his team insisting that he has already handed over all the relevant material to the Cabinet Office and that it is in fact the government that’s holding the whole thing up.

The inquiry wants all messages from Johnson’s phone, and had demanded them by 12 May, then 4 p.m. yesterday, and now there’s another deadline extension of 1 June. The Cabinet Office had disagreed with the extent of these requests, saying not all of it was relevant and that revealing all the communications from the pandemic now, rather than under the 30-year rule would damage the decision-making process in government more widely. It is worth pointing out, though, that the inquiry doesn’t need to publish everything it is handed.

Already the Johnson camp has been fighting with the Cabinet Office over the way it handled new information that was passed to the police about potential rule-breaking.