Boris Johnson accused of using Whitehall staff as ‘guinea pigs’ amid coronavirus outbreaks

Officials still working from home despite prime minister’s back-to-office call

Whitehall
(Image credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Civil servants are in open rebellion against Boris Johnson’s back-to-work plan, following two fresh coronavirus outbreaks in Whitehall.

Senior officials claim their staff are being used as “guinea pigs for the government’s plans to boost the economy by sending people back to their offices”, The Times reports.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.