Matt Hancock affair (3)

[TheoMeo]

Surely you would have cameras in a Government building and surely pointing it at doorways between different areas or departments isn't a bad idea.
It looks like a screenshot of a cctv security camera monitor.

Must admit, I don't fully get it.

Either, there was a CCTV camera in the room, in which case, he is as dumb as rocks.

Or someone planted a secret camera, which is just as worrying in a government office!

@bonfireheart

I would have thought a security camera would have pointed at a door in a government to protect the person inside so they know who is coming and going in at all times for their safety. The cameras are not pointed at desks due to sensitive paperwork being on display.

I would expect there to be CCTV in the corridor and for it to be focussed on individuals office doors to be able to see who was coming in and going out. If that is the set up then I would have thought there was no need to have a CCTV camera focussing on the door from the inside.

If you suspect an affair and are trying to catch someone out then just having footage of someone (especially if they are an aide) going in and out is not nearly sufficient and no newspaper would give that the time of day.

[quote bollihigh]If they are serious then Oliver Tress's net worth is over £10million - for a quickie divorce the OW would I have thought be good for a couple of million at least. MH won't walk away with nothing either , we needn't worry they will be begging on the street. On the surface though she appears mad but who am I to judge.

biographydaily.com/2021/06/25/oliver-tress-net-worth/[/quote]
I don't think much of Oliver Tress's choice of trousers, but surely he has got to be better than Hancock?

@rosehip10 Sorry to break it to you, but all sorts of professionals have MN accounts. I am in the sector but I don’t work for the UK government, and this is in the press, so I will happily talk about it… as are all of my UK based colleagues. Hancock’s office was finally searched yesterday by security services. They found the bug based on the angle of the recording, which is a pretty good ‘identification’ if you ask me.

I agree that it looks like MH has been planning this for a while - particularly the immediate flit from the family home without hanging about to try to soften the blow/take the flak for his children and wife and GC's similar quick exit.

The Times are reporting that it was a CCTV camera hidden in a smoke detector. I wrongly assumed they'd have cameras up for protection and any feeds closely monitored in house - I completely overlooked that would compromise meetings!

Anyway also from The Times...

Under the Wilson doctrine, dating from the 1960s, when Harold Wilson was in office, MPs are not supposed to be bugged without the express permission of the prime minister.

I haven't watched 'Corrie ' since the Bet Lynch days!! I've heard of the Tyrone character though and it's sad he has gone down the ' mid life crisis ' route! ( was his character married ?)
My Dh has had motorbikes for over thirty years now. Should I be a bit worried? 😀
( my hair always looks a frizzy mess , not that anyone would be papping me at all , luckily !)

his boss thought he was 'fucking useless'

Oh and the boss is not exactly the same, is he? Hancock was n ot one person who dealt with the pandemic, no one would be allowed to make these decisions by themselves - there's always been a medical team and Boris himself.
Boris was the one who was very keen on Eat Out to Help Out in summer, same with no closing borders to India fast enough. MH really is a scapegoat here (I'm not talking about his affair, obviously that's all on him).
Surely it's Cummings who set him up with cctv etc, I bet he knew for ages re the affair, he's too shrewed not to have known seeing the pair 'working together' - the man hates MH.

It looks like a normal CCTV from the photo of the office in this DM article, the black hemisphere. The smoke alarm/sprinkler is to the left of it. Most probably a phone recording of the CCTV monitors, or taken directly from the system before it was deleted.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9729735/Hunt-Department-Health-MOLE-Mandarins-probe-CCTV-leak-doomed-Matt-Hancock.html

@Keyring

I feel sorry for her husband too. he's a rich man of course but for the same reasons that people have been arguing on here that Matt Hancock should be fleected in his divorce, well the cuckolded husband should fleece his wife too. It takes 2 to tango.

If he's got more money than her then he'll be the one being fleeced.

twitter.com/Peston/status/1408926136504131592?s=19

However you think about the Camara it's a worry.

It's a bog standard CCTV clip - how did it get to the Sun? Did government ok its release or was it given by those who are paid to access it. The latter is a breach of gdpr and official secrets act. No big deal? If Russia offered a guard big bucks for audio we are fucked.

It was a bug? Who planted it? National security? On who's orders?

Unless MH or BJ or behind this, it's a worry surely?

Maybe it's just normal CCTV and somehow it's been breached by a network. Now I know for a fact that happens all the time to the biggest of players as I have seen it regularly in real life first hand.

No matter how shit hot your IT is you are always one step behind hackers. Again, alarming in itself.

So Gove and Vine have split up too? Or is that just twitter tattle?

If it was a normal CCTV camera surely Hancock would not be snogging in front of it, unless he is brain dead (which I admit is a possibility)

I hope Martha gets herself a good solicitor tomorrow- actually I hope she instructs all of the best so they are unable to represent her toad of a husband due to a conflict. Strike whilst the iron is hot, he will be desperate to settle without any murky details coming out to salvage what is left of his political career.

I wouldn't be surprised if Gina was only really interested in the connections and with those gone he's not the most alluring prospect is he...

I suspect the affair was exposed in order to reveal dodgy deals albeit indirectly- definitely an inside job the Cummings coup?

My guess ( based on nothing ) is the camera was a plant.

As I said on another thread, according to the DM it was regular CCTV footage leaked by an anti-lockdown member of Hancock's staff. He thought Hancock had been too eager to lockdown, so leaked it.

The original reach-out to the media, according to the article, came with this memo: "I have some very damning CCTV footage of someone that has been recently classed as completely fucking hopeless."

From the pictures they've used, it looks like there was very clearly a camera on the ceiling, adjacent to the smoke detector. I imagine that if you're around those black-domed ceiling cameras all the time, you sort of forget that they're there.

You can tell the layout in part through the absolutely (though unintentionally?) hilarious graphic they've created for the article: it includes things like "white board," "Queen painting," and "KISS DOOR" (all in capital letters).

It's a DM article, so make of it what you will.

From the Speccie ....

www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-matt-hancock-had-to-go

The MPs' silence was unlikely to last all weekend. especially if fresh details emerged. There are reports that he has ended his marriage abruptly, driving home on Thursday to dump Martha, his wife and mother of his three kids, before heading off to a new life with Gina Coladangelo. Some reports say Martha suspected nothing and she has even been struggling with long Covid, after catching the virus from him. Some of these reports are hard to believe – who, really, can know such details? But they matter because this is what No10 will have feared was coming. The power of such details was shown in the Robin Cook affair: he dumped his wife in Heathrow over the phone after a newspaper exposed his affair with an aide. All this resonates more than, say, squabbles over who Covid and care homes. Then comes the issued of illegality: Labour has asked the Met to investigate if Hancock’s fumbling in his office would have broken the laws that he created. More developments along these lines would be likely.

The Sunday Times has something more significant: that Hancock took Mrs Coladangelo to the G7 health ministers’ summit, raising questions about whether they stayed together (the event took place a month after their being filmed canoodling in his office). The brilliantly-informed Tim Shipman has a devastating quote from a Cabinet source.

“She went with him to the G7 health ministers summit. Did he disclose this to the PM? If it was shown he was shagging on the taxpayer he had to go. He’s been puritan-in-chief in the government and now it turns out he’s a massive, lying hypocrite.”

@sergeilavrov if it was a bug. Who do you suspect planted it & why release the footage now? Also why expose the fact a ministerial building is bugged. They could have accessed a lot more info.

He's a fucking lizard.

Like pretty much ever politician that's ever lived and ever will live.

Hateful group of people.

They are both plonkers then for not realizing the cameras were recording their every move.
These people ( like Hancock ) are voted in by the public to do important jobs, yet they ' forgot' they could be caught out by security at any time? Cameras that were there long before they were too , I assume? ( unless it was a plant which seems unlikely now, going by mumsnet anyway )
Obviously not very bright are they?
Hopeless indeed.
(His look around the door was hilarious though)

@Winnona Either they’re confident other bugs won’t be found on the basis of this one being identified, they already got everything they needed and had nothing to lose by creating chaos with a scandal and a security breach (in which case, Russia) or they wanted to glean actionable insight into how a deep sweep is conducted and so used this to trigger that response. Can also be insightful to see who is most reactive about bugs in offices.

Another alternative is that the bug itself wasn’t secure, and the images were intercepted (either technologically or by human means). Individuals and agencies often forget to secure their counter security. It takes some time to install a bug on a ceiling, so must have happened at night or someone able to go in and out of his office freely - for any length of time - did it. Identifying that individual must be a priority.

I think his mistress will have a change of heart and go back to her multi millionaire husband. My guess is she was only interested in his status and what she could benefit from. Now the thrill has been taken away and they are free to see each other I doubt it will last.

I wonder if he thought he was above it all. So was therefore stupid enough to take the risks.

The affair is the smokescreen. Everything else needs to be investigated. He is probably hoping that in the future all we will remember is his affair rather than whatever else was going on.

@Notonthestairs

I agree that it looks like MH has been planning this for a while - particularly the immediate flit from the family home without hanging about to try to soften the blow/take the flak for his children and wife and GC's similar quick exit.

The Times are reporting that it was a CCTV camera hidden in a smoke detector. I wrongly assumed they'd have cameras up for protection and any feeds closely monitored in house - I completely overlooked that would compromise meetings!

Anyway also from The Times...

Under the Wilson doctrine, dating from the 1960s, when Harold Wilson was in office, MPs are not supposed to be bugged without the express permission of the prime minister.

Interesting. Your last statement confirms my belief that Johnson is in this bugging up to his neck.

@Anjo2011

I think his mistress will have a change of heart and go back to her multi millionaire husband. My guess is she was only interested in his status and what she could benefit from. Now the thrill has been taken away and they are free to see each other I doubt it will last.

This is what I think, in fact I bet she’s horrified he’s left his wife and that was never her intention.