Why are important Covid documents not being released?

The most important stories from the Covid Inquiry are found in the written evidence and submitted statements. However, the Cabinet Office is refusing to release vital evidence that the Inquiry isn’t interested in, in case it ‘excessively focused’ the public’s attention on lockdown-decision making. If neither side change their position, the British people will be left in the dark.

Last November, I reported in the magazine that the witness statement of Ben Warner – who had been brought into No. 10 as Head of Data by Dominic Cummings – revealed that not only was an erroneous graph used to justify the second lockdown but that senior figures, possibly including the Prime Minister, knew that the graph was wrong but decided to broadcast it to the nation anyway. What we still don’t know is how specifically this decision to hoodwink the public was made. Warner’s statement references a number of documents which might answer this question.