Digested week: scotch eggs a welcome change from Boris Johnson's waffle | John Crace

The substantial meal debate at least distracted us from PM and Matt Hancock's dull briefings

Where's Priti Patel, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Alok Sharma and Oliver Dowden when you need them? They may all have their limitations as cabinet ministers but they did used to liven up the Downing Street press conferences with their incompetence. I especially miss Sharma who was a joy to sketch as he never knowingly answered a direct question with a direct answer and I could never quite work out whether that was because he hadn't really understood the question or genuinely had no idea of the answer he was expected to give. Perhaps both. Now the twice weekly briefings are shared between Boris Johnson, who tends to hog the ones where there might be some good news on offer, and Matt Hancock - the prime minister's preferred patsy - who gets to do all the ones where there is bad news or no news. They are much more boring as a result as Boris just waffles on in a sub-Churchillian haze while Hancock sounds more and more like the floor manager in a department store. In some weeks I find myself sketching Hancock at least twice and I long for the time when I can ignore him for a month as I'm worried I'm running out of anything new to say about him. But I find myself obliged to carry on, like someone engaged in a dysfunctional relationship, just to see how the whole thing pans out. Still, we have had the scotch egg drama to keep us entertained as the government once again tried to make up policy as it went along. First we had the environment secretary, George Eustice, saying a scotch egg constituted a substantial meal, only for him to be contradicted by Gove, who maintained that two scotch eggs were a decent starter. Personally, I've never much liked them anyway but if I was invited out for a meal only to be served a single scotch egg, I'd feel mighty pissed off.