Sir Howard Elston, our diplomatic reporter, watches a circus of ambiguity, deceit and governmental stupidity. But he has new earth shattering factoids.
A secret file thuds onto my desk (writes Sir Howard). It contains edited out-takes of the daily wingding press briefings from the bozos standing in for Bojo. They contain quotes either edited out or stated off mic but picked up by my hush hush Covid microphones. Here are excerpts:
BBC reporter: Why are you fucking things up?
Mr Hancock, health secretary: The actability factor has been handled through the Transport Deprtment who, for some reason, is handling vaccine tests.
ITV reporter: Matt, old boy, how can you guys confirm 80,000 PPE suits from Turkey even before the deal was made?
Mr Raab, foreign secretary: As Foreign dickhead, I’ll handle this. The response is simple. We have no idea.
Sky reporter: How come we finally bought eighty tonnes of the stuff but send a plane to Istanbul that could only handle forty tonnes?
Hancock: I think our culture secretary will answer that once he is appointed.
Times reporter: Are you guys for real…?
Raab: I’ll have to defer to the Prime Minster once we get him on the blower…
Hancock (interjection): But we don’t have his number.
The secret tapes contain another 450 hours of out-takes. More later.