I had been puzzling about why for most of the past 12 days, until last night, the PM and his advisers had been insisting – in tweets, short videos and statements – that he was still running the show, in spite of the evidence that he was seriously and worryingly under the weather.
The answer, which is conspicuous this morning, is that although Dominic Raab has been asked by the PM to deputise for him when chairing important committees, including Cabinet, he is not ‘in charge’, in the way that a PM appointed by HM the Queen (and a Tory leader elected by Tory MPs and party members) would always be.
It is not his fault, but he has no proper mandate.
This absence of a conventional leader of the nation is complicated and concerning for two reasons.
First, and to state the spectacularly obvious, we face the greatest peacetime crisis of our age.
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