Investigations

Brickbat: Breaking In

Charles Oliver | 3.9.2026 4:00 AM

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(Illustration: The Times/News Licensing/MEGA/Newscom/NEWSUK/Newscom/Miguel Discart/Wikimedia Commons)

Senior officials in the United Kingdom Cabinet Office's Propriety and Ethics team broke into a locked safe to retrieve and destroy a confidential report about allegations made against Dame Antonia Romeo, the newly appointed cabinet secretary and head of the U.K. civil service. The report was from a historic investigation into complaints from her time as consul-general in New York nearly a decade ago, relating to allegations that she misused expenses and bullied her staff. Critics say destroying the report, along with related records, looks like a serious cover-up, though officials say they had a legitimate purpose, and the safe was only broken into because nobody knew the code.

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NEXT: Tony Gilroy on Andor, the Force, and Authoritarianism

Charles Oliver is a contributing editor at Reason.

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