‘Arrogant and offensive’: UK Civil Service Twitter account posts message about ‘truth twisters’

Twitter users have today been left dumbfound after the official account for the UK’s Civil Service was seemingly used to take a swipe at the government in a tweet which featured the phrase ‘truth twisters’.

The UK Civil Service Twitter account, which is verified and followed by more than 240,000 people, was used to tweet out the message, which also included the words ‘arrogant and offensive’, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson finished his daily coronavirus press conference – in which he vehemently defended under-fire aide Dominic Cummings.  

Mr Cummings, said to be one of the key figures behind the government’s ‘Stay at Home’ message, is accused of breaking the coronavirus lockdown by twice travelling 270 miles from London to Durham.

The now deleted message, which had been liked and retweeted thousands of times, said: ‘Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?’

It is not yet clear if the account was hacked prior to the tweet being posted. 

The message was sent out as Prime Minister Boris Johnson finished his daily coronavirus press conference at Downing Street (pictured)

The tweet was quickly deleted and replaced with the message ‘Sorry, that page doesn’t exist’

The message prompted response from a number of confused Twitter users, as well as those who celebrated it. 

One of those to comment was left-wing writer Owen Jones, who responded by laughing at the Tweet.  

Another user, Marcus Thomas, replied: ‘Give whoever did this a medal.’

One Twitter user simply said: ‘Brilliant!’

Others were more interested in the origins of the Tweet, with one suggesting the person behind the message was set to get their ‘P45 in the morning’.

It is not yet clear if the account had been hacked prior to the message being posted.

MailOnline has contacted the UK Civil Service for more information. 

This evening, Boris Johnson refused to bow to public and political pressure to sack Mr Cummings amid rising fury over multiple alleged lockdown breaches by the top Downing Street power-broker.  

In a sign of the scope of the political crisis the Prime Minister faced television cameras for only the third time since his own brush with the killer pandemic to mount a broad-spectrum defence of his chief of staff at the end of a bruising weekend during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Johnson took the daily Downing Street news conference as a late replacement for Housing Minister Robert Jenrick, who himself has faced criticism for seeing out the lockdown at a home in Herefordshire, 170 miles from his Newark constituency.

But despite ten Tory backbenchers demanding the scalp of his closest adviser and the mastermind of the Brexit Vote Leave campaign, Mr Johnson backed the divisive Machiavellian figure of Mr Cummings over revelations he twice travelled 270 miles from London to Durham while the public were told to stay at home.   

Mr Cummings was in Downing Street for more than five hours this afternoon, fuelling speculation he would quit, as the first cracks in Tory unity appeared.

Nine Conservative backbenchers demanded his head after allegations of the second trip north, in April, emerged in today’s Sunday Mirror and Observer newspapers.

Mr Johnson said tonight he had ‘extensive face-to-face’ talks with Mr Cummings today, saying his close associate had ‘acted responsibly, legally and with integrity’.

He added: ‘I think he followed the instincts of any father and any parent, and I don’t mark him down for that.’

He added that ‘some’ of the allegations about Dominic Cummings’ behaviour during self-isolation were ‘palpably false’ but did not elaborate.

He also declined to answer whether his chief of staff, as reported, drove to the picturesque village of Barnard’s castle when such outdoor excursions were banned for the public.