Cabinet Secretary Simon Case ‘considers quitting’ before the next election after humiliating Covid WhatsApp leaks showed him claiming that ex boss Boris Johnson was ‘nationally distrusted’

Britain’s top civil servant is reportedly considering quitting after embarrassing WhatsApp messages he sent during the Covid crisis were leaked.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is mulling stepping down from the post before the next election, expected late in 2024.

It comes after messages he sent were released by the Daily Telegraph’s probe into conversations involving Matt Hancock when he was health secretary.

In one message, Mr Case suggested that the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ‘nationally distrusted’.

In another the former aide to Prince William mocked international travellers having to quarantine in Premier Inn ‘shoe boxes’ after arriving in the UK.

And one revealed Mr Case said that opposition to Covid-19 restrictions was ‘pure Conservative ideology’, leading to calls from MPs for him to be sacked.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is mulling stepping down from the post before the next election, expected late in 2024.

In one message, Mr Case suggested that the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ‘nationally distrusted’.

Mr case is said to be ‘genuinely undecided’ whether to depart his role early, according to the Financial Times.

Downing Street said it had confidence in the Cabinet Secretary despite a string of fiascos which has raised questions about his abilities.

One senior official said: ‘The charge sheet is now so long against him, the only interpretation can be that the PM probably doesn’t want to get rid of him.’

Mr Case also warned Mr Hancock at one point that Mr Sunak was ‘going bonkers’ over lockdown rules imposed on business.

And he appeared to take delight in the inconvenience caused by some lockdown rules, saying at one point that the prospect of first class travellers being forced to occupy small rooms in quarantine hotels was ‘hilarious’.

His leaked comments have triggered a backlash among some Tory MPs. Yeovil’s Marcus Fysh said: ‘Simon Case is clearly not fit to be Cabinet Secretary and should resign.’

One minister described his interventions as ‘extraordinary’, adding: ‘He’s supposed to sit above the fray, but he seems to have embraced it with a sort of juvenile glee. It is just embarrassing.’

The former cabinet minister Esther McVey singled out Mr Case’s criticism of Mr Sharma – and suggested it showed he had not complied with the civil service duty of impartiality.

‘If Mr Case thinks Alok Sharma was pursuing such a hard-line Conservative ideology it can only mean that he is yet another senior civil servant on the left wing of British politics,’ she said.

A friend of Mr Case told The Times that although the messages would ’embarrass’ him, they did not reflect his approach.

‘I’m sure he will be embarrassed by these remarks, but they were made in the heat of the moment in the middle of a national crisis responding to a cabinet minister,’ the source said.

‘They do not represent the full policymaking process. We are talking about casual language being used in a casual setting here.’

Mr Case’s comments are among 100,000 messages involving Mr Hancock that have been leaked to the Daily Telegraph by the former health secretary’s biographer Isobel Oakeshott.

During an exchange on Covid isolation, mr Case wrote: ‘We are losing this war because of behaviour – this is the thing we have to turn around (which probably also relies on people hearing about isolation from trusted local figures, not nationally distrusted figures like the PM, sadly).’

In a separate exchange, Mr Sharma and Mr Sunak, who was chancellor at the time, appear to have raised concerns about a requirement on hospitality firms to collect contact tracing details from customers.

Mr Case said Mr Sharma would be ‘mad’ to oppose the rules and suggested he was guilty of ‘pure Conservative ideology’.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said the messages suggested Mr Case and Mr Hancock had teamed up 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 messages, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘These are potentially areas that the independent inquiry will look at.

‘You heard the Prime Minister last week say that we won’t be getting into piecemeal bits of information, we think the inquiry is the right place to have this all set out.’

He added: ‘What we are seeing are piecemeal bits of information being put in the public domain, we don’t have the context that sits behind them or indeed significant Government work and process which the Cabinet Secretary and others would have been involved in.’

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