Boris Johnson dismissed the exasperated messages exchanged between senior officials Mark Sedwill and Simon Case, on his first day of giving evidence at Britain’s Covid inquiry. In July 2020 Simon Case, the then-head official in Downing Street and now the Cabinet Secretary, said “I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country”, in a message to Sir Mark, who was cabinet secretary at the time. Speaking on Wednesday (6 December), Mr Johnson said Whitehall mandarins would have said similar “pretty fruity” things about the Margaret Thatcher administration if their “unexpurgated” messages had been available in the same way as WhatsApp exchanges now.