Charles Walker, Vice Chair of the 1922 Tory backbench committee in the Commons tells TWTW that he thinks the government knew it intended to “cancel” Christmas on Wednesday or Thursday but waited for Parliament to rise to do it. Says many of his colleagues find this “egregious.”

When put to Walker that Matt Hancock said this morning that wasn’t the case, it was the briefing on Friday which prompted the decision, Walker says: “Hmm yeah...well I’d have to disagree with the SoS on that.” So he’s either saying Hancock isn’t being truthful or is misinformed.

Walker: “Surely at some stage a senior government minister has say I’ve offered my resignation to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister has to say- very early I’ve had to accept this.”

Reminder- Charles Walker is Vice Chair of the Tory backbench committee.

Walker heavily implies it’s Matt Hancock he wants to see resign: “I’m not asking for the government to collapse. I’m asking for a Secretary of State to take some responsibility.”

The Charles Walker interview is extraordinary in what he is inferring. A senior Conservative MP is essentially accusing his govt and ministers of deceit about what they knew about the new strain and when and by implication the timing of the new lockdown.

More study aids and generous grade boundaries for 2021's exams will be welcomed by many teachers and students. But doesn't address a fundamental problem of the next exam season: equity. Because there's great variation in how different schools have been affected by self-isolation.

Let's take the most recent attendance stats which I still don't think have really registered.

Most recent data- attendance rate across England of 83%

In secondary schools it's 78% (!)

So more than 1 in 5 secondary pupils are off school, largely for Covid related reasons.

But that’s just an average. Some schools’ attendance are at levels where they can’t really function, or certainly provide the quality of education they normally do.

Teachers’ are split between trying to run online lessons and those in schools.

Whole year groups are off.

Some students are in isolation, return to school and within days are in isolation again.

As I’ve reported before, IT provision is still patchy. Lots of reports of kids not doing work at home either because they get of the swing of it or they don’t have the IT resources.

And that’s before we get on to staff isolation, which is also proving a nightmare in many places.

In other words, you have to have everything go right for your education not to be impacted by Covid right now. And that’s affecting some places more than others.