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Jacob Rees-Mogg’s four-day work week

It transpires Rees Mogg takes no official papers back to Somerset for long weekends

By Kevin Maguire

Until partygate detonated, Covid VIP lanes for Tory cronies and donors were the biggest scandal engulfing the government. Conservative peer James Bethell, a health minister during the pandemic, admitted deleting texts and WhatsApp messages about £90m worth of testing contracts that were challenged in court, pleading that he mistakenly believed there would be back-ups. Official guidance stating ministers should use government systems or, if going private, ensure copies are provided to their department, isn’t deterring Bethell. He’s to speak at an Institute for Government “WhatsApp in Westminster” seminar as a digital comms evangelist, asking colleagues for successful examples. It’s akin to inviting Dracula to head the NHS blood service.

Haughty Jacob Rees-Mogg notoriously dismissed partygate as “fluff”, and now the office bore risks being, as he might say, hoist with his own petard. The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, who obsessively hounds civil servants working from home, is accused of putting in only a four-day week himself and takes no official papers back to Somerset for long weekends. “The minister does not take a box on Fridays,” advised a Whitehall email. One grafter observed it smacks of 21st-century hypocrisy from an 18th-century throwback.

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