In scenes straight from The Thick of It, the source of the massive Covid stats cock-up revealed late last night has been revealed as DHSC’s use of Microsoft Excel as the data repository. Yesterday evening it emerged 16,000 Coronavirus cases had been missed off the daily figures due to an “IT error”, however details have now come to light that the IT error in question was as simple as the central Excel spreadsheet reaching its maximum file size:

“The extraordinary meltdown is believed to have been caused by an Excel spreadsheet containing lab results reaching its maximum size, and failing to update.”

Apparently “The technical issue has now been resolved by splitting the Excel files into batches”. Dido will be worried this leads to his colleagues continuing to spreadsheet behind her back…