1 - How do you turn a press conference into a hostage video?Having kept his scientific advisers away from press conferences in the last few days the Prime Minister appeared alongside Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty.
But he stopped journalists asking them for their scientific and medical opinion on Dominic Cummings’ breach of lockdown on his day trip to Barnet Castle.Johnson said “I’m going to interpose myself and protect them” to stop civil servants “being dragged into a political argument”.
Sam Coates of Sky News highlighted the absurdity of the situation by asking the advisers to simply nod if they wanted to talk and eventually the scientists responded that they did not want to get dragged into politics. 2 - A change of tone There