For the second time in a month, No. 10 has refused to put up a minister for the morning media round to answer questions about Downing Street’s partying.

R4 says no minister was made available for the Today Programme this morning

— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) January 12, 2022

No ministers on today's broadcast round to face up to questions about parties

Kay Burley: "Is the party over for the Prime Minister? We would ask the Government, but the minister is not available this morning... The invitation is still open" https://t.co/UlSw7Lz8LL

— Dominic Penna (@DominicPenna) January 12, 2022

Given the last time this happened was the morning after the Allegra Stratton video, and as per Chopper’s tweet last night, this all points to the PM giving a pre-prepared statement before PMQs. It’s going to be a long morning…

UPDATE: It was Grant Shapps who was pulled

Guido congratulates Jolyon for leading his team to an extremely rare victory in Christmas University Challenge over the holiday, although only in the face of incredibly weak opposition. Having managed to flub almost every single question – on topics ranging from pop culture, history and literature – Jolyon benefitted from a Christmas miracle to pull it out of the bag in the last round. Points were rightly deducted for guessing ‘Joe Biden’ to the question “March 2021 marked the centenary of the inauguration of which US President”. A barnstorming performance which Paxman kindly dubbed “just about respectable”…

Greg Hands delivered the appropriately named winding-up speech to Labour’s opposition motion, in which he absolutely slammed them for playing “student politics”, and focussing on procedural trickery rather than policy amending. Among the best quotes were:

• “Labour doesn’t have a plan, they have a four-page motion. A four-page motion is not a plan”
• “This is a student union tactic which they well-rehearsed during the Brexit years”
• “With the departure for the member of Islington North as leader of the Labour Party I thought it might have a return to serious opposition politics”
• “They have completely lost the plot into their own world of procedural gobbledygook”

Hands’ recanting of Labour’s day-by-day comms strategy was almost Hague-esque…

Last night, Red Lion staff told Guido of early plans to capitalise on the much-reported love of partying in Whitehall: they are strongly considering extending their opening hours to midnight on certain days of the week, and opening up their downstairs function area – the ‘Cabinet Room’ – more permanently. Quite a turnaround from the fears of closure due to the restoration and renewal project just a couple of years ago…

Although they lack the staff to extend opening hours every night, the provisional plan is to keep the drinks flowing on Thursdays at the very least – although if thirsty politicos have strong feelings about other days of the week, this may change. The hope is to keep punters drinking without the itch to trot off to Players later in the evening.

The most popular idea at the moment for the Cabinet Room is a regular karaoke night, which would no doubt go down well with the Tory faithful. Installing a jukebox is also a possibility. Prime opportunity to take the last few clientele away from Sports & Social (which is currently closed)…

Nicola Sturgeon has just confirmed the Scottish Government will begin to lift Covid restrictions from 17th January, with the re-introduction of unlimited sports crowds. She says they hope to be lifting restrictions on indoor live events and hospitality – including bars and clubs – from 24 January. Just two days before the UK government is looking at scrapping Plan B altogether…