Quiz of The Week: 20 - 26 February

Dominic Cummings’ departure from government was supposed to bring peace to Downing Street, but the fragile truce at No. 10 appears to have broken down this week.

The resurgence of infighting is being attributed in large part to allegations that Boris Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds is acting as a power broker inside No. 10. Tensions have been stoked further by an attack on the civil service by the prime minister’s new deputy chief of staff, who has publicly blasted the “lack of capability” at Whitehall to deliver successfully on projects across the UK.

In another headache for the government, questions have been raised about a slight slowing in the Covid vaccinations campaign. Officials insist the public has no reason to “panic”, however, with a bumper delivery of doses scheduled to arrive in early March.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the pandemic, and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week:

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

The Tories can console themselves with reports that they are by no means the only UK party experiencing internal strife.

The Labour Left is once again at war with the party’s leadership over the shortlist for a mayoral candidate selection race ahead of the May local elections.

And the Scottish National Party (SNP) is also facing criticism, in the wake of the publication of Alex Salmond’s evidence in the Holyrood inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment allegations against him. Salmond claims he was the victim of a politically motivated plot aimed at preventing him from making a comeback - an allegation that has further deepened the split between the former first minister and his ex-ally Nicola Sturgeon.

Over in the US, early studies suggest that a new Covid strain detected there could be more infectious and deadly than other coronavirus variants.

But there was better health news back in the UK, with Public Health England announcing that zero cases of flu have been recorded over the past seven weeks. The drop in influenza infections has been linked to the widespread use of face masks and hand sanitiser during the Covid pandemic.

This apparent proof of the effectiveness of face masks provides further reason for one unfortunate TikTok user to continue covering up her easily misinterpreted pre-pandemic tattoo.