Camilla Tominey Camilla Tominey

How Simon Case rose to the top of the civil service

The promotion of Simon Case to the head of the civil service – aged 41 – will create an interesting new power dynamic in Boris Johnson’s top team. Dominic Cummings, Downing Street’s resident grenade-thrower, is now working with someone more adept at defusing bombs. Case, a Barbour-wearing career civil servant, was poached from Kensington Palace, where he was Prince William’s right-hand man, by cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill. In his role as Number 10’s permanent secretary, Case oversaw anything Covid-related that crossed the Prime Minister’s desk. He is being hailed as the man to rescue the government’s erratic handling of the coronavirus crisis.

His experience with the dysfunctional royal household will stand him in good stead. As private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge, Case modernised William and Kate’s operation, turning the Cambridges into the royal family’s greatest PR weapon following Harry and Meghan’s departure in January.

Despite having served under David Cameron and Theresa May and at GCHQ, Case is a complicated choice for No. 10. He may be a natural bedfellow for Johnson — he’s described as ‘patriotic to his core’, a ‘passionate unionist’ but also ‘a bit of a gossip’ — but what Cummings will make of his ‘slightly pompous’ approach remains to be seen.

His rise through the ranks was so rapid that Cameron was apparently all set to give him a knighthood after he served as his private secretary from 2012 to 2014. (Case was taken aside by the late cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood and told it was far too early in his career to accept such an accolade.) After working as director of strategy for GCHQ from 2015 to 2016, Case returned to Downing Street in January 2016 as the principal private secretary to the prime minister, in succession to Chris Martin, who had died while in office.

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