Simon Case called Boris Johnson ‘nationally distrusted figure’, Hancock leak shows

Cabinet secretary warned Matt Hancock that public unlikely to follow then PM on Covid isolation rules

Simon Case, the most senior civil servant in the government, described Boris Johnson as “nationally distrusted figure” and warned that the public were unlikely to follow rules around isolation if they were set out by him.

The remarks were published as part of the latest tranche of the more than 100,000 private WhatsApp messages involving the former health secretary Matt Hancock sent at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which have been leaked to the Daily Telegraph.