It’s long been the case that No. 10 has struggled to find ministers willing to go on the morning broadcast rounds to defend the latest government meltdown. Most of them leave their phones on ‘do not disturb’ or outright refuse to go out and defend the indefensible. That there are so many indefensible incidents that a minister might be asked about makes every interview feel like an obstacle course.
But now the ministers who do end up on the airwaves are making clear that they aren’t even going to do much defending. The new formulation that figures like Therese Coffey and Will Quince (who was on the round this morning) have resorted to is to say that the No. 10 press office told them to say something, without showing much faith in or enthusiasm for that line.
Quince used the same words from interview to interview, which made it all the more pointed.
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