Emboldened by better than expected Covid figures, ministers are piling the pressure on civil servants to stop working from home and return to the office.
One nudge being bandied about is the threat of a pay cut for home workers. As to whether this actually happens remains to be seen.
As the media try to stoke up tensions between Boris and Rishi over the letter that Rishi sent Boris wrt Covid restrictions on travel, the real issue that has not been satisfactorily explained is why the hell did Boris only learn about the letter from the media?
Had an official really forgotten to tell Boris that Rishi had written to him, or had the official deliberately withheld the letter, or had Boris simply not opened his red box?
We will never know the truth!
For reasons best known to themselves, both Keir and Boris invoked ghosts from the past yesterday by referring back to the halcyon days of the premierships of Thatcher and Blair.
Could it be that the current leaders of the Tories and Labour don't actually have any policies of their own?
Dominic Cummings has laid into Carrie Johnson again, this time in an interview with the Spectator.
Cummings claims the PM said his then-girlfriend-now-wife Carrie was driving him “crackers” and that he wanted to “find her a job with lots of foreign travel — could we get the Cabinet secretary to give her a job on COP26, traveling round with Kate Middleton.”
It's almost as though Cummings is jealous that Carrie won Boris's heart and attention over that of Cummings.
Eternal triangles rarely work in the long term!
Jeremy Clarkson is right ,when he says that governments can't even fix potholes in our roads.
Yet we entrust governments with running our health service, education, defence, making laws etc etc!
Are we fools, or are politicians conmen?
Much to the relief of the travel industry, Boris and Number 10 have confirmed that there will be no public amber watchlist.
However, there is in fact a secret amber watchlist for government eyes only; as ministers need to know which countries are of concern in terms of case numbers and variants.
Hereinafter known as Schrödinger's Watchlist!
“Ministers have a week to salvage the summer.” My latest thoughts on the failed traffic lights system. @GBNEWS @ThePCAgency pic.twitter.com/3mHpme5CPM
— Paul Charles (@PPaulCharles) August 2, 2021
Given the recent polling, and newspaper headlines citing various minister show want travel restrictions loosened, it is likely that the traffic light system will not be further complicated.
Transport select committee Chair Huw Merriman told BBC Radio 4 Westminster Hour’s Alex Forsyth:
“An amber watchlist will be viewed as a massive red flag which is likely to cause bookings to those countries on that watchlist to collapse.
In my view, we don’t need any more uncertainty, complexity, or anxiety for passengers, or this beleaguered sector. It just needs clarity. I would urge the government not to do anything with it.”
