Yesterday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak told LinkedIn News it’s “really important” for young people to be in a workplace, and that he expects society will be “slowly getting back to that”. He forcefully went onto anecdote his early career in Scotland where he doesn’t believe he’d have got as far had it been via Teams or Zoom. His words are splashed by the Times today.

Responding to the Chancellor’s words, Gillian Keegan had to sheepishly admit on Times Radio that just 20-25% of her DfE civil servants have returned to the office. The government can be confident a fair few Freedom of Information requests have been submitted this morning for other departments’ figures…

Asked by LBC’s Tom Swarbrick whether the government was asking people to return to the office Gillian Keegan clarified:

“No, no all we’re saying is it’s safe to go back to the office and we’ve urged businesses to use the summer to be cautious. 

“But of course businesses will decide, we’re not telling them what to do they’ll decide between flexible working and how many people go back to the office”.

A classic SW1 case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’?