Ministers can no longer ignore the problems Covid has exposed

Tuesday’s cabinet meeting discussed the usual topics of Covid and the Brexit transition period, but at the end, Boris Johnson told ministers he had asked Sir Michael Barber to conduct a rapid review of government delivery ‘to ensure it remains focused, effective and efficient’. Downing Street’s readout of the meeting said the Prime Minister told his colleagues that ‘it remains important to ensure that work continues to ensure that we build back better from the pandemic’.

Barber, currently chair of the Office for Students, set up the first ‘delivery unit’ in Downing Street in 2001, and has even written a book on How to Run a Government. He will be examining how No. 10 can deliver its domestic policies over the next few years. And he will surely come across a number of issues that have become political rows in this pandemic, but which have been bubbling away for a very long time.