Johnson government chaos ‘smashed good people to pieces’, Case tells Covid inquiry

Cabinet secretary says officials were working incredibly hard amid Downing Street dysfunction

Dysfunction at the centre of government near the start of the Covid pandemic meant “good people were just being smashed to pieces” as officials tried to battle the chaos, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, has told the official inquiry.

Giving evidence delayed from autumn because he was ill, Case, the most senior civil servant in the UK, said on Thursday that when he first arrived in Boris Johnson’s government, as head of the Cabinet Office, he was shocked at the way things were run.