Ding, ding, ding! It’s day two of the revelations from the Telegraph’s lockdown files and today’s chosen battlefield is the school playground. The paper splashes on claims that Matt Hancock as Health Secretary fought a ‘rearguard action’ to shut down the nation’s schools against the efforts of Sir Gavin Williamson, who held the Education brief from 2019 to 2021. Exchanges reveal the lengths which Hancock went to fight such battles, privately suggesting it was ‘mad’ that Sir Gavin was trying to re-open them in January 2021. After Johnson initially backed Williamson, his cabinet rival sneered that ‘the next u-turn is born’, adding:
I want to find a way, Gavin having won the day, of actually preventing a policy car crash when the kids spread the disease in January. And for that we must now fight a rearguard action.
He then immediately contacted Boris Johnson’s chief of staff and began privately lobbying to have schools closed before children returned.
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