Matt Hancock clashed with Rishi Sunak in a media briefing war at the height of the pandemic, leaked messages tonight show.
In October 2020, amid calls for a new lockdown, the then Health Secretary and his aides complained that the Treasury - where Mr Sunak was the Chancellor - was briefing against him and his ministry.
He messaged Mr Sunak to say: “Stop your ‘allies’ from briefing against me.”
Texts leaked to The Daily Telegraph also show that during the pandemic, Mr Hancock exchanged more than 22,000 messages with aides, editing or approving social media posts.
“I want people to think I’m working so hard I’m crazy,” he told one of his advisers.
The Tory also shared a memo from a “wise friend” about how his career could be propelled “into the next league” by the looming Covid pandemic in January 2020.
“A well handled crisis of this scale could propel you into the next league, and break you through in terms of public perception,” the pal told him.
Mr Hancock shared the messages with an aide.
He sought to enlist the support of Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to try and "outflank" the now-PM over the repeated rows, it is reported.
Mr Hancock and Mr Sunak were at odds during the pandemic over the extent of lockdown measures, with the then health secretary in favour of tighter restrictions than the then chancellor.
It comes after claims the controversial I'm A Celebrity contestant allegedly sent a journalist a "menacing message" at 1am after his WhatsApp exchanges during the Covid pandemic.
Journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who was given the messages by the shamed former Health Secretary while they were collaborating on his pandemic memoir, said it was clear that Mr Hancock was not happy after she gave him no advance notice about what she was doing.
More than 100,000 messages between Mr Hancock, aides and other top ministers during the pandemic has been published.
Ms Oakeshott told TalkTV's Piers Morgan Uncensored: "I received a somewhat menacing message at 1.20 in the morning.
"I am not going to repeat what was in the message. I think you can easily surmise whether Matt Hancock is my friend at this point."
Earlier this week, Mr Hancock rejected the claim, saying: "This is not true."
It is understood that he did send her a message late at night as he had not been contacted before the publication of the stories.
Ms Oakeshott confirmed that she broke a non-disclosure agreement to pass on the messages but said she believed she was acting in the public interest as it could be years before the official inquiry into the pandemic reports.
"The reality is that this inquiry, which I think is absolutely critical, will likely not come up with any conclusions, left to the Government's own devices, perhaps for at least a decade or more," she said.
"This resource that I had is an extraordinary way to quickly get to the truth of what happened. I think the public interest is overwhelming."
