Like a reverse Macavity, the Cabinet Secretary is back in the headlines, at the centre of another Whitehall scandal. Today it was the Covid inquiry – the longest-running farce since Charley’s Aunt. As part of the inquiry’s ongoing hearings, it today published evidence about how decisions were made back in the dark days of 2020 when the UK was wrestling with the first wave of Covid deaths.
Among the messages shown to the inquiry were exchanges in a WhatsApp group between Simon Case and Lee Cain, the-then Downing Street Director of Communications. In one Cain asks ‘Wtf are we talking about’ to which Case replies ‘Whatever Carrie cares about, I guess’. He then went on to add ‘I was always told that Dom was the secret PM. How wrong they are. I look forward to telling select cttee tomorrow “oh, fuck no, don’t worry about Dom, the real person in charge is Carrie”.’
After Cain complained ‘She doesn’t know wtf she is talking about either’ Case retorted ‘This gov’t doesn’t have the credibility needed to be imposing stuff within only 6 days of deciding not too. We look like a terrible, tragic joke… I cannot cope with this.’ Yikes. It comes seven months after the Telegraph published other WhatsApps which showed Case mocking those affected by the government’s lockdown policies. With the inquiry set to rumble on throughout much of the 2020s, Steerpike expects to see even more embarrassing messages being made public in the coming years.
The question is: at what point does even Case decide he’s had enough?
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