“WHEN DO WE DEPLOY THE NEW VARIANT?”

[Secretary of State for Health and Social Care] Matt Hancock wanted to “deploy” a new Covid variant to “frighten the pants off” the public and ensure they complied with lockdown, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph have revealed.
***
In a WhatsApp conversation on Dec 13, obtained by The Telegraph, Damon Poole – one of Mr Hancock’s media advisers – informed his boss that Tory MPs were “furious already about the prospect” of stricter Covid measures and suggested “we can roll pitch with the new strain”.

The comment suggested that they believed the strain could be helpful in preparing the ground for a future lockdown and tougher restrictions in the run-up to Christmas 2020.

Mr Hancock then replied: “We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain.”

Mr Poole agreed, saying: “Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour [sic] change.”

Plus: “Just as many U.S. liberals have attacked Elon Musk for releasing the Twitter files, many journalists in the U.K. have criticized the Telegraph and reporter Isabel Oakeshott. . . . It is a weird aspect of our present historical moment: journalists hate journalism.”