British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak risks being dragged back into the emotionally fraught row over the U.K.’s response to COVID-19 as his government tries to prevent the release of ministers’ WhatsApp messages to a public inquiry.
Sunak’s office must decide by Thursday whether to bow to the inquiry’s demands, though there is no sign it will do so. An official said the government stands by legal advice it received last year not to share information by default, and to block the release of "politically sensitive” material about the pandemic.
The written advice from James Eadie, seen by Bloomberg, said documents recording discussions between senior ministers during the pandemic should not be disclosed "as a matter of course,” because doing so would undermine the principle of collective responsibility — the convention in British politics that ministers can voice dissenting opinions and expect them to remain private.
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