The Importance of Accountability

At the heart of this is a really important principle, which is that ministers and civil servants are working for us at our cost. And if the suspicion is that communications apps like WhatsApp were used to circumvent accountability, then that is plainly wrong. Because if they had done so, they wouldn't have to be asking Boris Johnson for his WhatsApp messages. But I think it's not only about exposing the potential corruption of the present, it's about understanding the entirety of how government operates. If there's a major area where journalists and the public are never allowed access to, it becomes a kind of a secret walled garden of power who become unbreachable. It's not good for democracy or transparency