Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

For a government obsessed with optics, it beggars' belief that more thought wasn’t given to James Shaw’s decision to travel all the way to Scotland for a climate change conference in 8 weeks' time. I mean, let’s get past the glaring carbon footprint of all that travel and look at the other hypocritical aspects of this. This is a party who objected so strongly to Parliament being resumed in person that they refused to attend; such was their horror that travel should take place during Delta. That same sentiment seems to have conveniently been overlooked in this case. Add to this, the fact that he will take up an MIQ spot which has magically appeared for him at the end of it all. So that’s a spot he’s taking that could have gone to someone else. There are people in virtual queues for months on end with a variety of excellent reasons as to why they should get an MIQ spot, yet James Shaw just magically jumps the queue and gets one. Optics? Not good. But then, for a bright guy, James Shaw seems to make a lot of biz