Guido would have thought that the months-long cronyism row created by the David Cameron-Greensill scandal may have caused the government to improve their attempts at transparency. One source of eternal frustration to hacks is the ministerial release of meetings, which regularly imply some secretaries of state and SpAds enjoy fewer than a dozen meetings per quarter.

The Institute for Government’s Tim Durrant has now started pointing out the laughably slapdash approach taken by key figures when filling out these forms. Recently, Home Office ministers have self-reported as having attended:

Which sound like they run counter to the government’s equalities agenda. 

Other meeting details included one with Laura Kuennsberg, the purpose of which was unsurprisingly “Media Engagement”, and Sadiq Khan, who was met “to discuss London-related policy”. Colour Guido surprised…

The lack of attention to detail may have just hit a new low, however. DfT permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly is reported as recently having met “Paul Heathrow” to discuss “operational issues concerning Covid-19″. 

Just one small technical point: there’s no one called Paul Heathrow. Like Tim, Guido presumes the government meant Lord (Paul) Deighton, the non-executive chair of the airport. Either transparency standards are now on the floor, or nominative determinism has gone too far…