A key component of the daily Westminster and political circus is making one lucky government minister parade around the broadcast media every morning to communicate key government messages and answer questions from journalists.
But today it seems the cabinet put their alarms on snooze as no-one was available to speak to Sky News, leaving Kay Burley in a bit of a lonely pickle.
It came the day after the government left the UK on tenterhooks waiting to see if it would introduce new measures to control the spread of coronavirus over Christmas - ultimately leaving restrictions in the “maybe” pile, and as numerous experts and health organisations advised people to basically put in restrictions themselves.
So it would have been nice to get some clear communication from the government but as there wasn’t, she didn’t let the government off easy.
She said: “After saying they reserve the right to bring in further measures, what impact will that have on our plans for celebrations and holidays?
“The head of the World Health Organisation calling for people to cancel events in order to save lives.
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“We were keen to see clarification from the government this morning but there’s no minister available to clear up the confusion for you.”
#KayBurley - "There's no Minister available, this morning, to clear up the confusion." pic.twitter.com/4v13JLl1wB
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) December 21, 2021
It is not the first time the government has recently dodged media scrutiny.
After the Downing Street Christmas party allegations started kicking off, Sajid Javid cancelled a media round saying he was upset by the video of Allegra Stratton laughing while discussing how to answer press questions about the alleged event on 18 December 2020, which is said to have taken place while the rest of the country obeyed lockdown rules.
Today, Steve Barclay eventually turned up on LBC and BBC Breakfast where he encouraged people to get their booster jabs and urged the public to make sensible choices when socialising over Christmas, whatever that means.
It’s just a shame Burley wasn’t given the same opportunity to have a good old chat.
Indy100 has contacted Downing Street to see why no-one was sent to Sky News this morning.
