How many more scandals can Simon Case take?

After Matt Hancock himself, it seems that the person who comes out worst from the lockdown files is Cabinet Secretary Simon Case. Hancock’s WhatsApps show Case accusing Boris of being ‘nationally distrusted’ and described some lockdown criticism as ‘pure Conservative ideology’. Hardly the model of civil service impartiality…

And off the back of those revelations it seems that Case is now considering his own position. According to today’s Financial Times, ‘friends’ of the Cabinet Secretary say he is ‘genuinely undecided’ about staying up until the next election, which is due by December 2024. They say he is ‘fed up’ with all the briefings against him’ with his ‘original sin’ supposedly ‘being young and talented and promoted to that before he was grey’. Or Gray, even.

Mandarins are also quoted in the Telegraph as saying that the WhatsApps show his ‘naivety’ and ‘inexperience’ and had ‘hurt his reputation.’ The Times has meanwhile reported the views of one anonymous Cabinet minister who argues that ‘Case is looking more and more ridiculous, I think he has to go. Rishi needs to clear him out. It’s the level of indiscretion.’ Concerns about Case are not merely confined to his role in lockdown but rather his troubling tendency to seemingly be at the centre of every No. 10 storm.

And you can read more about some of the other scandals in which Simon Case has been embroiled here…