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Aide made BBC ‘downplay’ Hancock piece

By Lockdown Files Team The Daily Telegraph

AN AIDE to Matt Hancock claimed that he successfully persuaded the BBC to move an article criticising the then health secretary to make it less prominent on its website, can disclose.

Messages contained in The Lockdown Files reveal that in April 2021, Damon Poole, Mr Hancock’s aide, told the MP that he had made the broadcaster place the story in a less important slot on its website, and was trying to keep it off the one o’clock news.

Mr Hancock also told Mr Poole during the pandemic that the BBC needed “putting back in their box”, despite the fact the broadcaster is independent of the Government.

The exchanges about the negative article took place over WhatsApp in the same week as the BBC ran a story about Mr Hancock’s stake in a company that had won £300,000 in NHS contracts.

While the chats do not link to the story directly, they are thought to be talking about an article that ran under the headline “Matt Hancock owns shares in NHS-approved firm”.

The article explained that Mr Hancock owned 15 per cent of his family’s waste disposal firm, Topwood Ltd, which had also won NHS business, and included quotes from Labour criticising “cronyism at the heart of this government”.

Jonathan Ashworth, the then shadow health secretary, was also quoted, calling for the head of the Civil Service to investigate whether Mr Hancock had broken the ministerial code.

Months later, Mr Hancock was found to have broken the code – albeit in a “minor” and “technical” way.

It is understood that Mr Hancock and his team believed the story was misleading as the contracts in question were in the Labour run NHS in Wales.

BBC insiders said that the story had moved “in relation to breaking news” and that it makes its own editorial decisions.

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2023-06-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/281642489559719

Daily Telegraph