Boris Johnson is still officially recuperating from coronavirus at Chequers and is ‘not doing government work’, according to No. 10. But he is starting to do some activities that sound distinctly work-related.
He will be having an audience with the Queen over the phone this week, and will also be phoning President Trump on Tuesday to thank him for his wishes when he was in the hospital and to get an update on the G7 response to the crisis. But the Downing Street line remains that ‘he isn’t doing government work but he is getting updates on the situation’.
In Westminster, it’s almost as easy to find someone else to blame as it is to make up a random target
So though these are signs that Johnson is starting to do a little more as he recovers, Dominic Raab remains in charge as his deputy. The First Secretary of State will chair a cabinet meeting on Thursday and will also take Prime Minister’s Questions as part of the new hybrid virtual House of Commons on Wednesday.
Johnson will continue to follow his doctors’ advice about his return to work but one effect in the meantime of his absence is that some people are looking around to blame someone for the shortages of personal protective equipment and the fact that the government’s testing programme isn’t even halfway to the capacity needed for it to hit 100,000 tests a day next week, let alone carry out the tests themselves.
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