Happy Friday!

I’ve been missing for a bit and anyway the last couple of weeks have been an exercise in waiting for the PM’s lame excuse machine to crank up. This week it’s ‘no one told me it was against the rules’. You made the rules! Last week was ‘I’m sorry I got caught’. But he’s gonna ride it out and the Tories won’t get rid of him until at least May, if the local elections are bad. Who wants to lead a government presiding over the worse cost of living crisis in 20 years and a collapsing NHS? He’s also taken all mask mandates and wfh directives as a sop to the hardline nutcases in his party…

Anyway here are some links…

Boris Johnson’s non-apology underlines his utter contempt for the British public

It’s not just Johnson: the whole culture that cheered him on needs booting out

Who’s really leading Britain – Boris Johnson or the crazy-face emoji?

Spiralling energy prices will turn the UK’s cost-of-living crisis into a catastrophe

For the Conservatives, scrapping the BBC licence fee is more complicated than it sounds

The empty promise of instant delivery

We’ll never have a normal flu season again. This is in the US but this is what ‘living with COVID’ means.