Boris Johnson’s mind was made up on the English lockdown by a cabinet leaker. My snout whispers that the Prime Minister had not formally agreed to call time on pubs and restaurants by the end of the No 10 summit with Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock. Rather, he’d requested three additional papers from experts Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance ahead of a final decision. The account would help explain Saturday’s chaos, where a TV address to the nation was nearly three hours late – Johnson needed a delay to decide exactly what he would close. Downing Street points the finger at a special sieve in Gove’s team. My snout reports No 10 called other news organisations to reveal there had been a leak, confirming a shutdown was coming. In the government virus shambles there are no time-outs for struggling Johnson.
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