The top British civil servant is reportedly considering quitting after embarrassing WhatsApp messages he sent during the Covid crisis were leaked.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is considering stepping down before the next elections, expected at the end of 2024.
It comes after messages he sent were released by the Daily Telegraph’s investigation into conversations involving Matt Hancock when he was health minister.
In a message, Mr Case suggested that then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ‘nationally distrusted’.
In another, Prince William’s former aide mocked international travelers who had to quarantine in Premier Inn after arriving in the UK as ‘shoeboxes’.
And one revealed that Mr Case said opposition to Covid-19 restrictions was a ‘pure Conservative ideology’, prompting calls from MPs for him to be sacked.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is considering stepping down before the next elections, expected at the end of 2024.
In a message, Mr Case suggested that then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ‘nationally distrusted’.
Mr Case is said to be “genuinely undecided” whether he will leave his position early. according to the Financieele Dagblad.
Downing Street said it has confidence in the cabinet secretary despite a series of fiascos that have raised questions about his abilities.
A senior official said: “The charges have been against him for so long now, the only interpretation can be that the prime minister probably doesn’t want to get rid of him.”
Mr Case also at one point warned Mr Hancock that Mr Sunak was ‘going crazy’ over the lockdown rules being imposed on business.
And he seemed to take pleasure in the inconvenience caused by some of the lockdown rules, at one point saying the prospect of first-class travelers being forced to occupy tiny rooms in quarantine hotels was “hilarious.”
His leaked comments have sparked backlash from some Tory MPs. Yeovil’s Marcus Fysh said: ‘Simon Case is clearly not fit to be cabinet secretary and should resign.’
A minister described his interventions as ‘extraordinary’, adding: ‘He should be above the fray, but he seems to have embraced it with a sort of youthful glee. It’s just embarrassing.’
Former cabinet minister Esther McVey cited Case’s criticism of Sharma – suggesting that it showed that he had failed to comply with the civil service’s duty of impartiality.
“If Mr Case thinks Alok Sharma is pursuing such a hard conservative ideology, it can only mean that he is just another senior official on the left wing of British politics,” she said.
A friend of Mr Case told The Times that while the reports would ’embarrass’ him, they did not reflect his approach.
“I’m sure he will be embarrassed by these comments, but they were made in the heat of the moment, in the middle of a national crisis, in response to a minister,” the source said.
‘They do not represent the entire policy process. We are talking here about informal language use in an informal setting.’
Mr Case’s comments are among 100,000 posts about Mr Hancock leaked to the Daily Telegraph by Isobel Oakeshott, the biographer of the former Health Secretary.
During an exchange on Covid isolation, Mr Case wrote: ‘We are losing this war because of behavior – this is what we need to reverse (which probably also depends on people hearing about isolation from trusted local figures, not nationally distrusted figures like the Prime Minister, unfortunately).’
In a separate exchange, Mr Sharma and Mr Sunak, who was chancellor at the time, appear to have expressed concern over a requirement for hospitality companies to collect customer contact details.
Case said Sharma would be “crazy” if he resisted the rules and suggested he was guilty of “pure conservative ideology.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg said the reports suggested Mr Case and Mr Hancock had worked together to ‘marginalise’ those in government who opposed stricter lockdown rules.
But Downing Street said the Prime Minister continued to have confidence in Mr Case.
Asked about the controversial reports, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘These are possible areas that the independent inquiry will look into.
“You heard the Prime Minister say last week that we won’t get into bits of information, we think the inquiry is the right place to sort this all out.”
He added: ‘What we are seeing are fragmentary bits of information being placed in the public domain, we don’t have the context behind it or even significant government work and process that would involve the cabinet secretary and others. ‘