The big political news today has of course been the fines issued by police for those who attended gatherings in breach of the lockdown regulations in place in 2020. This, of course, follows the so-called “partygate” revelations.

Although Johnson appears to have not been included it does raise serious questions over some of his assurances to the Commons that everything that happened then was in line with the regulations that were then in force. If so then how come so many have been fined?

The big question now is whether this will have anything like the political impact that we saw in December and January or have things simply moved on? Everything at the moment pales in comparison with what is going on in Ukraine.

The one betting market directly on this is from Smarkets and given the timing it is now hard to see how Johnson could get fined before the end of the month.

Mike Smithson