What is behind Isabel Oakeshott and her role in the Matt Hancock WhatAapp leaks?

Some might say the former political journalist isn’t always a terribly reliable friend, says Sean O’Grady

Turncoat? Oakeshott claims anyone would be ‘utterly insane’ to think she did it for the money (Reuters)

Isabel Oakeshott has betrayed the trust of Matt Hancock and put a huge number of private messages between ministers and officials during the covid pandemic into the public domain. But there are huge questions over the timing of their release and why they have been made public ahead of the official inquiry.

Is there anything in these tales of the expected?

The Daily Telegraph, which has published Oakeshott’s trove of Hancock messages, markets them as a sequel to its MPs’ expenses revelations from 2009, but so far they are nowhere near as shocking. The WhatsApp messages certainly don’t reveal any dark conspiracies.