Penny Mordaunt says Boris Johnson's Covid WhatsApp messages went missing

Penny Mordaunt, a government minister, has reported that her WhatsApp conversations with Boris Johnson, the leader of the House of Commons, have mysteriously disappeared. This issue arose during the government's ongoing Covid inquiry. She stated that two years' worth of their discussions have vanished. Boris Johnson had previously informed the inquiry that he had misplaced approximately 5,000 messages. His spokesperson assured the BBC that he has submitted all pertinent messages in his possession to the inquiry, complying fully with their requests.

A number of politicians have experienced the loss of WhatsApp messages during the pandemic. This includes Rishi Sunak, who was serving as the prime minister at the time, and former Stormont ministers. Penny Mordaunt, who held the position of paymaster general at the time, declared in her witness statement: 'I could find no WhatsApp messages between me and the PM between 20 March 2018 and 22 March 2020. ' She made 14 attempts to arrange a meeting with Boris Johnson's chief of staff concerning the missing messages, but received no response from his team.

Subsequently, she was informed that she would be required to pay a substantial sum to have her phone forensically examined, as the device was her personal property and not government-owned. She also discovered that a similar issue has occurred with WhatsApp messages exchanged with Michael Gove, who was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the time. So, is it possible for WhatsApp messages to simply vanish? Messages are stored separately on each individual's device. If two people are exchanging messages, both of their phones will have a complete, independent record of their conversation. Messages can only be deleted for all participants up to 48 hours after they are sent. However, any messages older than that can only be deleted by someone on their own device. Therefore, if one person deletes a message that is more than two days old, the other person will still have it. It can only be deleted from the other person's device by someone who physically accesses that device and logs into their WhatsApp account.