Today we learned Laura Trott is the unthinking person’s Helen Whately | John Crace

After becoming chief secretary to the Treasury, this was Trott’s moment to crash and burn on the media round

Just over a week ago Laura Trott received a call from Rishi Sunak. Would she like to join the cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury? Come the following Tuesday, she might have wished she had thought a little harder before taking up the offer. Instead, she was left to crash and burn on the morning media round. It turns out that Laura Trott is the unthinking person’s Helen Whately. That bad.

Mishal Husain began the BBC Today programme by asking for Trott’s thoughts on Patrick Vallance’s evidence to the Covid inquiry. What did she make of the discrepancy between what the former chief scientific adviser had said about the Eat Out to Kill Someone scheme and Sunak’s own account. That the then chancellor had not bothered to consult any of the scientific team before setting out to find how many old people he could let die before the inevitable next lockdown.

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