Last night Westminster fell over themselves to make the obvious jokes after Boris used the briefing to announce a new vaccine bottling plant at Barnard Castle. GlaxoSmithKline will use the new site to support the manufacturing of 60 million Novavax vaccines down the road in Stockton, preparing vials of the doses and packaging them. Guido hears the announcement was far from a happy coincidence…

Last week a government source got in touch regarding the impending news; delighted at the thought of a vaccine plant in Barnard Castle being announced on the anniversary of Cummings’s fateful journey up to the area. A civil service government source has since described the announcement to Guido as “closure”. Turns out the Department of Health might not be quite the smoking ruin Cummings described…