ANDREW Marr had a question about coronavirus: how seriously do we take this?

The presenter had clearly decided “very seriously indeed” judging by how the subject dominated his show’s newspaper review and an interview with Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary.

Understandable enough given the gravity of the situation. But hang on, didn’t something rather important happen on Saturday that the Sunday politics shows should have been all over like the common cold? Resignation of the most senior civil servant in the Home Office, perhaps? The Home Secretary, the person in charge one of the great offices of state, being accused of bullying staff? Something to see here, surely?

There was on Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday. Before Sophy Ridge got to it, though, the presenter played that increasingly popular game, Where’s Boris?

“Now of course everybody needs some time off,” she said to Mr Hancock. “Not everybody needs to be on TV every time they are working. But some will be wondering if there is a bit of a pattern forming. The Prime Minister very slow to visit flood hit areas, the PM hasn’t been in Number 10 this weekend.” In short, why wasn’t Boris Johnson chairing emergency meetings this weekend instead of leaving it till Monday?

READ MORE: Joanna Cherry on wanting to be an MSP

“The Prime Minister has been all over this,” said Mr Hancock, adding that the PM did a night shift in a hospital last week to find out what it was like “on the front line”. (Despite no media being present for this visit to Kettering General Hospital, news of it somehow got out. One trusts there will be the usual rigorous leak inquiry by the PM’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings.) As compelling as this image was of Mr Johnson behaving like some latter day Gladstone, going on nightly reconnoitres, Ridge did not pursue it in favour of asking the Minister about the row involving Priti Patel, the Home Secretary.

Mr Hancock had settled on a formula, saying that Ms Patel was “very determined” as well as “very courteous”. He was so pleased with this he used it on every show he appeared on.

Coronavirus, being all over the Sunday papers, was obviously going to take up a large slice of the review on Marr. Auntie had even wheeled out the BBC’s health editor, Hugh Pym, to be on the panel.

But there was another story on all the front pages, of the English papers anyway (papers outside London still do not exist in the world of The Andrew Marr Show), that of a certain wedding and baby.

Marr covered the forthcoming marriage of the Prime Minister, and his partner’s pregnancy, in as much as he showed us the front pages, including the Sunday Telegraph’s “Number 10 wedding – and a baby too”. Nothing like getting one’s focus right.

READ MORE: Labour should support indyref2

But there was no comment sought on the subject from the panel. At the end of the paper review Marr simply announced: “Right, that’s all we’ve got time for. The Prime Minister has another baby coming. And so to the weather…” It was another move along now folks moment.

Extraordinary. Mr Johnson will be the first PM to marry in office since Lord Liverpool in 1822. It is a newsworthy event, worthy of comment, so why so sniffy about it?

At the start of the show, Marr had flagged up the presence of Matt Hancock and said he would be asking the Minister about the very public resignation of Home Office official Sir Philip Rutnam. Yet when it came to it, in the course of a 17 minute interview he asked only one question on the subject, coming at it sideways by asking how important it was that ministers had good relationships with their senior civil servants. Mr Hancock dispensed the “determined but courteous” line again and Marr returned to the coronavirus.

That was your lot as far as quizzing the Minister went. At least there was a Minister present. Sunday Politics Scotland led on falling standards in education. It had been a landmark week, with concerns mounting about Scottish pupils falling behind their peers elsewhere, and the Education Secretary John Swinney announcing the terms of an independent review by the OECD. What better time to have an interview with Mr Swinney? But interview came there none.

READ MORE: Battle plan outlined

“We invited Mr Swinney on to today’s programme,” said presenter Gordon Brewer, “but were told that in a series of interviews and statements he had made his position clear and there was nothing more to add.”

Instead there was a three way discussion with MSPs on the education committee, which aired the issues but was not the same as having a minister there.

READ MORE: Patel faces calls to explain resignation

Boris a no-show till Monday; no Home Secretary; and now the Scottish Education Secretary refers the public, PMQs style, to answers he gave earlier rather than appear.

If things get any worse, the Sunday shows might have to start offering fees of £7500 per appearance, a sum now known in the business as “a Ruth”.