Iain Dale: On my radio show, I asked Salmond who he would side with out of Putin or Biden. Can you guess his answer?

Plus: I’ve been around the political lobbying world for 30 years, but the Greensill scandal has genuinely floored me.

How to advise Lord North, or Heath, or Thatcher, or Johnson

A new volume of essays puts special advisers in historical context, and suggests the Cabinet has been marginalised by a succession of over-mighty PMs.

Liam Fox: Are we really going to close down the global economy every time a new virus emerges?

We have to ask whether high bed occupancy rates in the NHS are tilting the balance between efficiency and resilience in the wrong direction.

Why Cummings’ departure creates new problems for Johnson’s Brexit strategy

The former Chief Adviser has had little to do with the negotiation recently, but his leaving has knock-on effects on it. Here’s why.

Caino-ho-ho

Finding a new Chief of Staff is only the start of the changes that Johnson needs to make his government work.

James Frayne: Perhaps the Conservatives should simply revert to being southern and posh

If they can’t make a real impact on the lives of working class voters in provincial seats, Johnson will meet the same electoral fate as Trump.

Paul Maynard: Here’s why I believe as an ex-Minister that a hard rain may indeed be coming for the civil service

The machinery of state has shown itself to lack the bandwidth and agility required to deliver complexity at pace.

Allan Mallinson: What is the army for?

The Cabinet Office’s Review will ask complex questions about its purpose. But a straightforward one may be the place to start.

Radical: While political leaders hide from confrontation, activists are winning the war on self-identification

In the weeks before recess, trans rights activists became more vocal in their efforts to stop Truss’s reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Iain Dale: Butler and the police, and why Williamson will be feeling anxious this week

Plus: There is speculation of a Cabinet reshuffle soon, but I hear otherwise…

Johnson prepares for his new Prime Minister’s department

He may move out of Number Ten altogether for work and into the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall.

Tony Smith: In over 40 years of Home Office experience, I can’t recall a time when our borders have been under so much pressure

I know that government needs a cross-Whitehall programme that actively engages with the myriad of departments and agencies.

Friends of Cummings: “A hard rain is coming.”

“Dom is a decentraliser,” we were told.  “But he’s resistant to decentralising to people who he thinks aren’t up to the job.”

Why the Cabinet Office will be in the dock for Covid failures when the inquiry comes. As will Sedwill.

The Treasury has been welded at the top to Number Ten. Now there’s a push to do more of the same to the Office.

Profile: Helen MacNamara, who could yet hold Cummings’ fate in her hands

“The new Sue Gray” – responsible for policing propriety and ethics – may yet be asked to rule whether Johnson’s adviser has behaved improperly.