PRESSURE mounted on the government today as it had less than 24 hours left to reveal uncensored messages and diaries belonging to former prime minister Boris Johnson.

The government is withholding the messages, claiming that they are “irrelevant” to the Covid-19 breach inquiry.

But inquiry chairwoman and former Court of Appeal judge Lady Hallet has insisted that it is she who will decide what material is relevant or not relevant to the inquiry.

She said the Cabinet Office had “misunderstood the breadth of the investigation.”

The government has until 4pm tomorrow to hand over the material. If ministers refuse, they could face legal action.

According to the notice seeking the messages, the inquiry is requesting conversations between Mr Johnson and a host of government figures, civil servants and officials.

They include England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty, as well as then-chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, messages with then-foreign secretary Liz Truss and then-health secretary Matt Hancock, former top aide Dominic Cummings and then-chancellor Rishi Sunak.

The Cabinet Office has provided more than 55,000 documents, 24 personal witness statements and eight corporate statements to the inquiry.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “We are fully committed to our obligations to the Covid-19 inquiry.

“As such, extensive time and effort has gone into assisting the inquiry fulsomely over the last 11 months.

“We will continue to provide all relevant material to the inquiry, in line with the law, ahead of proceedings getting under way.”