”Former chancellors Phillip Hammond yesterday demanded that the lock-down should to eased to help British business - today the Government announced it should be tightened radically - a conflict of two major interests is something Britain needs desperately - definitely not “

Funny thing, that word ‘demand’. The BBC didn’t describe it as a ‘demand’, their choice of word was ‘urged’, which puts a different complexion on things, to my way of thinking. We are all free to ‘urge’ the government to take a course of action but, of course, the government is under no compunction to do as we ‘urge’.

Hammond’s time was over at the last GE - he can ‘urge’ or ‘demand’ until he’s blue in the face, but his opinion has no more weight than anyone else’s. And he’s quite simply wrong.