How PM’s new head honcho earned nickname ‘Headcase’
PICKED by Boris Johnson to be Britain’s top civil servant, Simon Case has a wild past.
While a student at Cambridge, he established a drinking society called The Justice, where members were put on mock trial for indiscretions.
Records of the group’s events show ‘Headcase’, as he was nicknamed, ‘prosecuting’ fellow members for crimes such as ‘drinking a girl’s drink’ and ‘sleeping with the enemy’ — dating members of another college. According to ‘proceedings’ from the first meeting, recorded in a mockcourtroom style, the future Cabinet Secretary ordered one chap to ‘take off a sock, put it over his glass and drink a fine of three fingers’. For coming to his defence, a female member was made to ‘eat a slice of pizza from [a male member’s] chest without using her hands’. Cabinet meetings could be lively!