Case closed: Was this the most excruciating day in the Covid Inquiry so far?

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. And another: “I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country.” He’s also described Mr Johnson and his inner circle as “basically feral”. “It’s my own idiocy and nothing else,” squirmed the man who is still cabinet secretary, assuring Lady Hallett he had actually been trying to transfer them to safe-keeping for the inquiry. “There were some dark days when we felt we could not get it right.” About day-to-day government, Mr Case said: “It was definitely dysfunctional and it was difficult, oddly enough, sclerotic isn’t quite the right word.” Case apologised early in the hearing for his blunt WhatsApp messages which he called “very raw, in-the-moment, human expressions”. One day he would be bantering on WhatsApp with Matt Hancock, another day he responded to a proposal to sack the amorous former health secretary with: “I think that’s a great move.” One day he was vowing never to undermine Mark Sedwill, his predecessor as cabinet secretary, another he typed to a colleague: “He is toast and no one will mourn his passing.” But there were also outbursts that told cold truths about the state of No 10 under Boris Johnson when Covid was claiming tens of thousands of lives each month.