I am finding the defence of the Prime Minister’s behaviour nearly as interesting – and revealing – as the behaviour itself.

Nadine Dorries says in a tweet that his behaviour – presumably any behaviour – was justified by the fact that ‘100s of staff were running Covid war room offices’. I guessed that this view might lie behind the behaviour – that anything is justified by being on a war footing. Maybe this is allowed by the emergency legislation, which is always possible, but I would have thought it should have emerged sooner as a justification. Also, the pictures suggest everyone lolling about having a drink in the garden, getting plastered, which doesn’t exactly suggest them being on a war footing.

And then Jacob Rees-Mogg, who can usually be relied to reveal the reality of the situation, reminds Tory MPs that the office of Prime Minister is now more like that of a President, not a Prime Minister, which is an interesting development which would certainly help to explain some of the recent behaviour, roaring back and forth to Chequers with a police escort, when it was forbidden to everyone else. But, again, I don’t remember voting for Johnson as President. Maybe, again, it was contained in the emergency legislation.

Both help to explain why 10, Downing Street has been constructed as a parallel universe, not subject to the laws of the land.