Matt Hancock, the former UK Health Secretary during the pandemic, told aides he wanted to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’ to make sure they stuck to Covid rules. The texts – which were part of around 100,000 messages leaked in the Telegraph last week – also reveal discussions over when to ‘deploy’ details of a new strain. They show how Mr Hancock and others discussed how to use an announcement about the `virus` to scare the public into changing their behaviour. Mr Hancock’s adviser said: ‘Rather than doing too much forward signalling, we can roll pitch with the new strain.’
‘We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain,’ the then-health secretary responded.
‘But the complication with that Brexit is taking the top line,’ he said, in an apparent reference to media coverage of the UK’s EU exit.
‘Yep that’s what will get proper behaviour change,’ the adviser said.
‘When do we deploy the new variant,’ Mr Hancock said.
The conversation, on December 13, came amid concerns about the rapid spread of the virus in south-east England.
Mr Hancock announced that a new Covid-19 variant had been identified in the UK the next day.