One element of “Partygate” that keeps coming up is the sheer stupidity of it, says Sebastian Payne in the Financial Times. How, people wonder, could the “notionally bright folks” running the country have possibly thought that their “series of illicit jamborees” were in any way acceptable? Well, I have a theory: it was “lockdown detachment”. While the rest of us were stuck at home, office life in government “rolled on” as usual. This wasn’t because officials thought the rules didn’t apply to them – it was because the business of government simply couldn’t be conducted remotely, in many cases for security reasons. So in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, “desks were occupied throughout the three lockdowns”. It was, at work at least, life as normal.

Kicking Novak Djokovic out to “keep our borders strong and keep Australians safe”, as Aussie PM Scott Morrison absurdly put it, was absolute “rot”, says Chris Kenny in The Australian. Djoko’s views on vaccines were well known long before his visa was granted. The emergency ministerial powers used to cancel it (and overrule the federal court’s decision to back his appeal and let him stay) are there for “genuine threats to the nation”. Deporting a bloke for his views on public health is an “outrageously undemocratic and illiberal action”. The fact that Djokovic is healthy, tested negative, and has some natural immunity from having had the virus just “compounds the inanity of what has transpired”.