How can Boris justify delay?

Boris Johnson is expected to announce a delay to reopening later today. How will the Prime Minister make his case, and will his backbenchers support him? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

On the podcast, Katy says uneasy Conservatives may give him the benefit of the doubt this time: ‘There are some Tory MPs who are happy to have a slightly more cautious approach, but are really growing very worried about this idea of never ending delays.’

James says the government needs to be clear with the country about exactly why delay is necessary: ‘This is one of the big questions: what is the point of this delay? If it is just to get people double vaccinated, then I think that is acceptable.’

Separately, world leaders bumped elbows over the weekend at the G7 summit in Cornwall. What came out of the conference, and is there unanimity on the biggest challenges facing the West? 

Countering China is one of Joe Biden’s priorities, so he was keen to show a united western front at the conference, but James says Beijing’s influence can be felt elsewhere too: ‘There is an element to which China will end up driving the West closer together, but I also think it is changing western conceptions about the state. We are clearly very far away from small state era thinking.’