Lord Sedwill was branded by a “genius” by Simon Case, his Cabinet Secretary sucessor, over excluding Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance from a meeting on relaxing lockdown restrictions, the Covid Inquiry heard, Neil Johnston reports.

Mr Case, then the incoming Cabinet Secretary, had complained of “Dom drama” in a note sent to his predecessor on May 22, 2020.

In a message on WhatsApp, Mr Case said:

Away from more Dom drama, we had a good meeting earlier with PM. He and Rishi readily agreed a package, quite quickly.

Your call about not including Patrick and Chris was genius – it removed that dynamic.

Package is: primary schools as planned, Yr 10/12 limited; open up outdoor economy from 1 June; all nonessential retail (with social distancing) from 15 June; relax outdoor gatherings (so long as socially distances etc) and a few other bits and bobs.

Patrick V happy with it – feels phasing if schools and retail is a big help.

In response, Lord Sedwill said:  “Good. Well done. You’ve made a real difference in a few days. The real genius move was not including myself!”

When asked about his thinking behind the suggestion to exclude Sir Chris and Sir Patrick, Lord Sedwill noted Sir Patrick was “happy” with the decision. 

“My presumption is that we would have done a lot of – probably Simon – would have done a lot of work in advance of the meeting between the prime minister and chancellor to make sure that whatever was on the table was acceptable to the experts.

“This was just a question of managing a meeting of that kind where the prime minister and chancellor had came to it in different positions. So, it was just about managing the dynamics of an informal meeting.”