Policing Minister Kit Malthouse dodged answering the “Marshal” funding question when he was on Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday 4 Sept 2020.

Since Prime Minister Johnson announced last week that Covid Marshals would play a major part in his Government’s strategy to enforce the Social Distancing Regulations the one question on all our lips is who is going to pay for it?

According to the Prime Minister, local council are expected to foot the bill. Since then there have been 2 U-Turns and now here we have the Policing Minister ducking the question all together, choosing instead to pass the book to his Treasury colleagues.

Isn’t this just typical of this Tory Government. Drop out a juicy sound-bite for the right-wing press to latch onto then run like hell when it comes to the details and blame someone else for the confusion caused.

To be frank, with a second wave of COVID-19 staring us in the face, diversions such as this from the real task of fighting the Pandemic is the last thing local councils need.