Your commercial news round-up: Hancock, marriage, vapes, London, digital ID

Reading time: five minutes 

Matt Hancock is in a sticky situation after a stream of private government WhatsApp messages were leaked to the press, the legal age of marriage in the UK has been changed and a major city might be banning vapes. Plus, the UK economy is struggling, and one think-tank think they know who’s to blame, and if you’re always losing your ID, Tony Blair could have just the solution for you – but at what cost? This week's commercial news round-up brings you top stories from government scandal to legislative change; make sure you’re applying the wrestle with PESTLE technique to each of these stories. 

• Matt Hancock is in trouble with the British public once again, after more than 100,000 leaked WhatsApp messages revealed the government’s inner battle over covid and union confrontations. The messages were given to The Telegraph by journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who obtained them while co-writing Handcock’s latest book Pandemic Diaries. Oakeshott decided to break her non-disclosure agreement because the messages are “in the public interest”. The messages revealed: 

  • Hancock ignored advice to test all care home residents claiming the move "muddies the waters";

  • he met testing targets by counting thousands of tests that hadn’t been processed; 

  • Boris Johnson didn’t support the government’s shielding advice, stating in texts “if you’re over 65 your risk from dying from covid is probably as big as your risk of falling downstairs. And we don’t stop older people using stairs”; 

  • Hancock utilised his relationship with the editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard George Osborne to get positive coverage of the pandemic on the papers front page; and, 

  • Hancock and Sir Gavin Williamson sent a number of texts complaining about teaching unions during the pandemic saying: “What a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are” (MH), and “they really do just hate work” (GW). 

• In a drastic change to government legislation, the legal age of marriage in England and Wales has risen to 18 in an attempt to protect vulnerable children. The new act will mean that 16- and 17-year-olds will no longer be able to marry or enter into civil partnerships even with their parents’ consent. The move makes it a criminal offence to support children marrying, and is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Pauline Latham OBE MP, who introduced the Private Members Bill to Parliament, described the legislative change as “a landmark day”, adding “child marriage destroys lives and through this legislation we will protect millions”. In 2021, there were 118 cases covered by the government’s Forced Marriage Unit that involved victims under the age of 18. It’s now hoped that Scotland and Northern Ireland follow suit and review their marriage legislation. 

• Dundee could make history as the first UK city to ban shops from selling disposable vapes. A campaign, launched by climate activist and environmental PHD student Laura Young, gained the support of Dundee councillors, after she found 55 discarded disposable vapes on a one hour walk through the city. “I find these everywhere, every single day”, she told ITV News. “In the UK we dispose of 1.3 million of these every single week.” Vapes have become increasingly popular among young people due to their cheap retail price and fun fruity flavours. The number of vape users among children aged 11 to 15 has now jumped from one in 30 in 2013, to one in 10 in the past year. North East Scotland MSP Mercedes Villalba, who supports Young’s campaign has said the proposed ban centres on “stopping the practice at the producer stage so that we're not seeing single-use, complex plastic products with batteries, which can cause so much environmental damage”. 

• As the UK worries about the cost-of-living-crisis and its slowing economy, think-tank Centre for Cities has released a report suggesting London is the cause of the UK’s weak productivity. Earlier today, official data was published declaring the City has lagged in comparison to similar global cities over the past 15 years. Since 2007 Paris, New York, and Brussels have all succeeded London in productivity scales. Had London maintained its economic growth in line with these cities, its gross domestic product would’ve been £54 billion higher in 2019 alone. Centre for Cities analysis revealed the national averages growth in productivity – which is measured as the value of output worked per hour – sat at just 0.3%, while London’s was even lower at a 0.2% average since 2007. Paris averaged 0.9%, almost twice the national average of France, and New York hit 1.4% compared with a 1% average across the US. The think-tank attributed London’s slowdown to a weak performance from the City’s most productive businesses. Paul Swinney, the think-tank’s policy director, said that the many selling points of the City is its benefits, stating that “if its benefits are eroded and its costs are increasing, then it’s less attractive”. Swinney suggested London’s subpar productivity was likely a result of the challenges of Brexit as well as homeworking.  

• Digital ID has been a hot topic of conversation for some time, but now unlikely allies Tony Blair and William Hague have teamed up to call for a new digital government ID. The duo have decided to put political differences aside to bring through a “fundamental reshaping of the state around technology”. The proposed ID could hold your passport, driving licence, and tax records, and all be stored on your mobile phone. There are suggestions, that this ID could go even further, storing information such as health records, criminal history, land registry, educational qualifications, spending habits, and even ex-marriages and children. A major concern lies in the fact that such a mega-database would likely be the target of cyber attacks just as the NHS was during the ransomware WannaCry attack a few years ago. Blair and Hague are seeking to launch the platform via Government Gateway. They said: "We both believe the challenge is so urgent, the danger of falling behind so great and the opportunities so exciting that a new sense of national purpose across political dividing lines is needed." 

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