Weekend reports support the rumours Guido heard at the end of last week: that CCHQ has tipped off key players they’re preparing for a delay to the local elections, scheduled for May. Guido understands briefings to representatives of Shaun Bailey and Andy Street were made by Thursday – only a day after CCHQ and the Cabinet Office were adamantly briefing there was no plan for a delay…

While it’s been reported the elections could be delayed by up to a month, Guido has heard from two sources that delays as far away as September or even November are also on the cards – counterintuitively a month when, according to Chris Whitty, the government will once again be looking at new anti-Covid winter restrictions. As one senior local government source points out, if Boris is saying we can get largely back to normality by April, his own party HQ’s manoeuvres don’t demonstrate great confidence in the PM…