Ministers must be able to let off steam – forcing full WhatsApp disclosure is unwise

In 1985, Sir Jock Colville, perhaps Whitehall’s finest ever private secretary, published his personal wartime diaries covering those crucial years where he ran Winston Churchill’s life.

What was invaluable was his account – released with extraordinary care, and wholly exceptionally due to its unique historical significance – of what Churchill, and those around him, really thought and said. He set out what Churchill pondered in the car and on the Chequers lawn; the orders he barked from his bath or bed; his informal, by-chance discussions – and often heated rows – with his generals. This was recorded (mostly) only in his diary and some of it was hitherto completely unknown. Because it was not minuted.

So, when Emily Thornberry took evidence from Sir Olly Robbins after his bizarre dismissal by Keir Starmer, and remarked that she thought “no one in Whitehall could do so much as buy a cup of coffee without it being written down”, she aired an oft-repeated misconception about the way the state works. There has always been what we might call an ‘unminuted’ layer of government. No serious organisation – in war or peacetime – could operate on any other basis.

Historically, government has run on meetings, memos and what we might think of informal corridor conversations during the day, with phone calls at night and at the weekend. Today, memos have been replaced by emails. When email became widely used in government at the turn of the century, it was initially mistaken as a place for informal and indiscreet chitchat and mischief-making. A few embarrassing disclosures in judicial reviews and parliamentary inquiries soon put paid to that.

Corridor conversations still take place. But their role in the conduct of state business has been augmented, if not replaced, by WhatsApp, Signal and iMessages. This is where the raw, unfiltered and informal discussions essential to any functioning organisation now take place. The difference is, of course, that they’re written down, and disclosable if they’re kept. If a future Colville were to publish in the 2060s about events today, there would be far fewer genuine historic revelations. Many of the important private exchanges will either have been leaked or, via some inquiry or court case, published.

This really matters to how government works. Non-corporate communications channels, to use the ghastly official term for them, sit at the intersection of four crucial aspects of the modern state. One is the effectiveness of the government machine. Another is accountability – to Parliament and, importantly, to judicial processes including inquiries – when things go wrong. A third is security – the security services ‘sweeping’ key government buildings for listening devices still happens, but nowadays all key decision-takers are carrying listening devices on their person all day, and foreign spies will gain access to those informal but written messages sent at all times of the day and night if they get in. Finally, there is our duty to history.

What to do? We’re currently in an unhappy position. As we’ve seen from the Mandelson releases, the Covid inquiry and many other processes, those who keep messages get embarrassed for indiscreet views sent in the heat of the moment, and those who don’t look shifty. Those charged with scrutinising the conduct of public business then get very partial pictures of what really happened.

Moreover, we’ve now been through several high-profile processes where tranches of private WhatsApp messages have been published. And what have we learned? Remarkably little.
It was already known that Boris Johnson’s No 10 and Matt Hancock’s Department of Health were at each other’s throats and decisions on care homes were deeply flawed. Plenty of formal documentation and witness interviews in the Covid Inquiry were made available to the inquiry to that effect. WhatsApp messages just added the swearing. And in the Mandelson releases, was it really a surprise to be told that Pat McFadden, in private, despaired about the limits of taxation?

So far in Britain, most disclosure processes involving messaging apps have revealed little of substance but plenty of gossip. One wonders what any foreign spies who might gain access to our leaders’ phones actually make of them.

Human beings in high-pressure jobs need that private space. They need to deliberate, let off steam, and talk in ways they’d never talk in public

All of this gives rise to a simple choice. One is to mandate the retention of all messages and require their download for the public record at the end of posting. Prohibit public officials from using disappearing messages too. That would solve the accountability problem and prove a delight to historians. But it would only last for a very short time. That’s because behaviour would change: WhatsApp messages would become as carefully written as emails. And some other way of preserving the safe space would take its place, possibly some wildly insecure online shared platform where messages aren’t stored.

Human beings in high-pressure jobs need that private space. They need to deliberate, let off steam, and talk in ways they’d never talk in public. This has been the case since long before Churchill’s time. Modern tech doesn’t change that. And humans in need are ingenious, so they’ll find a way.

We recommend a different path, whereby a timeless principle of good government is applied to a modern setting. That’s the duty to keep proper, formal, written records of significant developments, however those developments take place. In the past, when political and official leaders discussed things on hastily arranged phone calls where no one else was on the call, those who took part would know it was their duty to make sure that a summary was recorded if something of any significance transpired. But no record would be made if it was just a leader venting about something that they found frustrating.

For sure, this would deny us those juicy moments where some indiscreet WhatsApp gets disclosed. But that’s going to happen anyway; once more and more decision-takers find themselves in trouble over the contents of their phone, they’re going to change the way they use WhatsApp, for example by using disappearing messages, and hide their private thoughts some other way.

The timeless principle we’ve long known – keeping records of key points – should be rejuvenated. It’s the best way of reconciling accountability, security and our duty to history with effective government.

On those rare occasions when evidence to criminal standard is required, clear record-keeping can point the police in the right direction, and they can then use their intrusive powers to get to the truth. To ensure this, failure to keep proper records could, if done carefully, be a legitimate reason to sanction public office holders.

We end, as we started, with Churchill. In 1951, back in Downing Street and reunited with Colville, he issued a personal minute, now found in the national archives. “Cabinet minutes,” the great man thundered, “are much too long. The conversation is free, informal, and above all, secret. The record should be concentrated upon decisions.” Modern communications tools mean that government ‘meetings’ are effectively in permanent, informal session. All this cannot and should not be captured in its entirety.

Churchill’s principle is perhaps too narrow for modern needs: it’s not just the decision but the process around and the basis of the decision that need to be recorded. But not every expression of frustration, every cross word, and every casual moment. The principles of the high-functioning wartime state are, in most ways, applicable today. Find ways of distinguishing gossip from substance. Ignore the former – and focus robustly on recording the latter, however the conversations happen. 

Lord O’Donnell is a crossbench peer who was cabinet secretary from 2005 to 2011

Ciaran Martin is a professor at Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, who founded the National Cyber Security Centre and was director of security and intelligence at the Cabinet Office from 2008 to 2011

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