Having worked with various Government departments over the years on a number of different things, if there is ever a choice between a. Incompetence b. Conspiracy or C Foresight I'd be having a max bet on A every time.
The 22bn also includes testing which is very much in operation and has been set up from scratch and is anything but non existent. There has without doubt been cronyism in the awarding on untendered contract but lets not pretend that it is 22 billion quid on a smartphone app.
I don't know why...
That's my frustration with it all. There is no sense that Johnson has any kind of idea what his priorities are. "Keep schools open" was a mantra last week yet in the summer the pubs were open and the schools weren't. Then it was all about "Helping out to eat out" until the industry was shut...
I'm fairness to Hancock he was arguing in private to shut the schools last week (Peston tweet). Whilst he can be a bit weird - that crying on the telly for example - he is one of the better ones in that cabinet for talent. Williamson was arguing for schools and Boris went for the latters opinion...
Having read the PDF on Gov.uk the thing that sticks out as an outlier is places of worship being open. Golf courses will be shut though. Makes sense obviously.
The thought of a minimum of 6 weeks of working at home and teaching the kids is enough to drive me to the wine rack on a Monday night.