Alex Thomas, a former civil servant from the Cabinet Office and Department of Health and now a programme director at the non-partisan think tank the Institute for Government, told the inquiry political figures and senior civil servants insulting each other behind people’s backs was “more common than it should be”.

Thomas described the function of the Cabinet Office as “chaotic,” and said it was not a “decision-making structure that was good, either at responding quickly and authoritatively to rapidly developing external events or synthesising complex material that was coming in from scientists, economic advisers, other government departments".