How to get away with it ...
British politicians have a well worn path in such cases as Partygate or the Covid enquiry.
First you deny everything, then you deny specifics, then you issue the vaguest and least sincere “apology” possible. The kind that says “IF mistakes were made we have learnt from them”.
You hope that details will remain hidden so the media will get bored and if forced to do something you launch an enquiry but you make sure it is a long one. By the time it finally emerges you hope we have all moved on and no one has to fall on their sword.
But this time the Tory government is going even further. Claiming that it does not have to provide the enquiry with evidence that might damn it or clear it.
Apparently this lot are so inefficient, badly organised and inept that they managed the greatest health crisis in centuries by WhatsApp, with no records. Or they have been lost or the dog eat them or something.
The very fact that they are trying this on makes one assume that the messages, communications, decisions and consequences are absolutely shocking.
They are rapidly approaching an all out fight with the enquiry, the government will lose that fight. Then we will see what really happened.
But even the fact that WhatsApp is at the centre of government, that politicians are using their personal phones, that notes were not taken and kept, is utterly damning in itself.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.