Boris has two advantages: a compliant public and Keir Starmer

Nothing has changed. At the beginning of the Covid crisis, the PM would give press conferences abetted by Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty. Trying to lighten the proceedings, Boris did the jokes. There was no attempt at rivalry. A brief smile from either of the other two was as warm as a glint of midwinter sunshine on the brass plate of a coffin-lid. As for Boris, he never understood that there is a crucial difference between light touch and light-weight.

Judging by Saturday, he still does not. On either side, the two scientists flanked him like grim-faced gaolers. By all accounts, they had virtually stiff-armed him into the latest restrictions. That came after a characteristic Boris performance. Stubbornness was rapidly overtaken by insecurity. What if the scientists were right? The final phase was panic. To be fair to Boris, he is very good at eating his own words when they become inconvenient. No politician – conceivably no human being – has had more practice in doing that. So a man who would make a good Santa Claus ended up by banning Christmas.

In the short-run, this led to total confusion. On Saturday evening, St Pancras and King’s Cross were heaving. By Sunday morning, Waterloo was full of officious policemen, demanding to see passengers’ tickets and asking where they were going, and why.

It is hardly surprising that other governments observed this closely. Panic is infectious. No-one rushes to make excuses for the French, but when the Eurostar terminal collapsed into chaos while Mr Johnson’s government had clearly lost control of events, M Macron can be forgiven for deciding that the UK should be put in quarantine.

If Boris is to believed, President Macron is now more helpfully disposed. One wonders if that would still be the case, were he to watch Monday evening’s latest press conference, a rambling affair. On prospects for the future, the PM talked about optimism. Patrick Vallance talked about more restrictions. This was an interesting double act: hard cop, unconvincing cop.

In all the fog of contradiction, one point is clear. In Montgomery’s favourite word, there was no grip (not that he always excelled at it.) Ministers and officials needed to think everything through. How serious was this new strain of Covid? How many fatalities would it cause? Was the NHS under threat?

Equally, what effect would Tier 4 have on the economy? Struggling small businesses, reassured by all the talk about vaccines, had come to believe that they might have a future. Now, all seems steeped in gloom.

Covid is not the only threat to health. A large number of cancer patients have suffered delays. Some of those will be life-threatening. The lock-downs have also caused mental problems, especially, no doubt, among cancer sufferers and vulnerable small businessmen. Has anyone in Whitehall addressed all that?

If not, perhaps that is just as well. Someone might have come up with an algorithm. Whenever a minister uses that word, we know exactly what will come next: pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook. Even so, we do need  to think through the consequences of the latest lock-down. Although Boris Johnson and thinking through do not inhabit the same solar system, he has two short-term political advantages, neither of them deserved: the first one, depressing.

Without going as far as Gaullist grandeur – une certaine idée de la France – most of us have a certain idea of our country. At the high end, it involves the rule of law. Lower down, it works on the assumption that regulations which would trespass on lawful activities should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Lord Sumption has written so well about all that. But how many people are listening? If bureaucrats play on fear, much of the public seems happy to obey their edicts. The Air Raid Warden in Dad’s Army would be delighted by all that subservience. So what has happened to the hearts of oak? Have we become a nation of sheep led by Air Raid Wardens?

The second advantage is Sir Keir Starmer. What does he think about all this? Does he know, and if he did, would anyone care? The Labour leader may be hoping that everything will go wrong, which is not impossible. But it is not a dignified posture. It may seem a curious comparison, but Keir Starmer’s stance is straight out of Edward Lear. “Who, or why, or which, or what, is the Akond of Swat.”

Between the Akond of Starmer and a timorous populace, Boris’s poll ratings are much better than he deserves. This does not mean that he is doing the right thing for the country.