Duck soup

One minister departs, another joins, everyone is on strike, and Chris Skidmore is back

The title of the 1933 Marx Brothers’ film derives from an older American expression meaning “to do something simple”; after all, a mallard sitting in a pond is already a kind of Duck Soup. Since the film it has also taken on the sense of comic mishap.

One way to update the term would be, to use an internet meme, “you had one job”. Of course, said mono-focused worker usually does that one job badly. That’s a bit how UK higher education feels this morning.