The tweet, which was sent out quickly after Boris Johnson provided the daily instruction in which he revealed he was standing by elderly assistant Dominic Cummings, was promptly taken down but not prior to it had been screen shot and also shared by loads of other accounts.

A tweet from the Cabinet Office claimed that the ‘unauthorised tweet’ was being examined.

One of those to capture the tweet prior to it was gotten rid of was Lewis Goodall, BBC Newsnight plan editor, that shared it together with the subtitle: “This has just been tweeted from the UK Civil Service account.

One of those to capture the tweet before it was removed was Lewis Goodall, BBC Newsnight policy editor, who shared it alongside the caption: “This has just been tweeted from the UK Civil Service account. This is the craziest political weekend for a long time.”

Others joked that it could have been accidentally posted by a staff member who meant to share it from their personal account, while others suggested that whoever it was will be facing a rough day at the office tomorrow.

Elsewhere in government today, Johnson said he will be standing by Cummings who has faced calls to resign after it was revealed he drove more than 200 miles to a second home during lockdown.

Speaking at today’s briefing, Johnson said: “It is because I take this matter so seriously, and it is so serious, that I can tell you today that I’ve had extensive face-to-face conversations with Dominic Cummings and I’ve concluded that in travelling to find the right kind of childcare, at the moment when he and his wife were about to be incapacitated by coronavirus and when he had no alternative, I think he followed the instincts of every father and every parent and I do not mark him down for that.”

He later added: “I think what they did was totally understandable. I think any father, any parent would understand what he did”.

Cummings drove 260 miles to a second home in Durham after his wife started to show coronavirus symptoms.

It’s claimed he did so because he wanted his sister and niece to look after their four-year-old child and bring food round.

The revelations were published by the Mirror, and seem to directly contradict an account published by Cummings’ wife Mary Wakefield last month, in which she wrote about herself and her husband getting ill but failed to mention any trip outside of London.