Coronavirus Newscast: Hancock’s Whatsapps

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock disputes claim he rejected care home Covid advice. Adam is joined by Chris and BBC media editor Katie Razzall to discuss Matt Hancock’s Whatsapp messages at the height of the pandemic, which were leaked to the Daily Telegraph. Also, Justin Webb from Americast and the BBC’s Victoria Gill examine FBI Director Christopher Wray’s comments that Covid-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab. Today’s Newscast was made by Tim Walklate with Madeleine Drury, Cordelia Hemming and Peter Cooke. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The editor was Damon Rose.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:05.0	Hello, it cannot have escaped your attention that the telegraph has obtained thousands and
0:10.8	thousands of WhatsApp messages that were sent and received by Matt Hancock, who as you
0:15.5	know was the health secretary for England at the start of the Covid pandemic.
0:19.7	And they're publishing lots of stories related to these WhatsApps and it's incredibly revealing
0:24.9	about just how the government was operating at that time.
0:28.2	But now the messages comprise 2.3 million words.
0:33.1	And the telegraph reckons that's three times as many words as there are in the King James
0:37.0	Bible, which is a very telegraph reference.
0:40.2	We thought we'd come up with some newscast equivalents.
0:42.6	So War and Peace, which I've still never read, is 587,287 words.
0:49.4	So Matt Hancock's WhatsApps are 3.9 War and Pieces.
0:54.5	This Harry's memoir, Spare, is 150,000 words.
0:58.4	So it's 15.3 Spares.
1:01.8	And this is my favourite one.
1:03.0	The entire Harry Potter series is just over a million words long.
1:07.4	So Matt Hancock's WhatsApps are the equivalent of two entire Harry Potter series.
1:13.0	That's a lot of messages.
1:15.2	But then it was a very busy time.
1:17.0	And it means we're going to have a very busy newscast.
1:19.4	Newscast.
1:20.4	Newscast from the BBC.
	...

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