Last night Professor Ferguson resigned from Sage because he had received visits from his partner, who lives elsewhere,  to his home.  On 10 April government minister Robert Jenrick did not resign from government although he had traipsed half way round the country making visits to relatives.  I called for his resignation then, and I call for his resignation now.

Professor Ferguson, by his own admission, made a mistake.    He advised one course of action and followed another. However, he was not taking an irresponsible risk, as the Flatulent Leader did by walking around shaking hands with those he knew had the virus: in the profs case, he’d had a dose and believed, with reason, that he had immunity.  It seems he may have had a point, as he has not gone down sick again.   It is a terrible shame: we owe him much – in fact about 650,000 people in the UK probably owe him their lives.  Nevertheless, he was right to go: senior people should set an example, and hypocrisy has an unpleasant taste.

But – and it is a big, a ginormous, BUT – the same standards should apply to politicians as to their advisers.  Jenrick should go and the Flatulent Leader should go: they’ve both done much worse than the prof.