Boris Johnson’s bafflingly sheepish coronavirus guidance won’t fly for much longer

Trapped in this no man’s land between ‘we’re all doomed’ and trying not to panic, we all deserve much better, writes Matthew Norman

The PM's guidance was laissez-faire compared to that of other world leaders (EPA)

Out of chaos and disaster comes revolutionary change – and on this sceptic isle, the signs are already encouraging.

Whether this will catch on and spread through every outpost of the state apparatus, time will reveal. But assuming what holds for this uniquely pernicious peacetime threat should extend to far less menacing corners of national life, prepare for a golden age of hands-off government.

When Boris Johnson stood at his lectern on Monday offering some survivalist counsel to the nation, the possibilities he opened up were thrillingly apparent.

On the same day, other world leaders such as President Macron of France took a less laissez-faire approach to minimising the carnage. Following the Italian model, Macron didn’t advise his citizens to take every imaginable precaution. He commanded.

But not Johnson. Bless his heart, the ruthlessness he summoned to banish all the more civilised MPs from his party (for voting against a far worse Brexit deal than the one against which he voted multiple times himself) was AWOL.

The Stalinist of a few months ago had mutated, as even the nastiest viruses can, into a much milder strain.

This new Johnson didn’t order us to stay out of theatres, pubs and restaurants. He tentatively made the request. If the polite suggestion is just the ticket for a matter of life and death, it seems both just and logical that it be deemed suitable for less potentially terminal corners of national life.

At the end of July, for example, when the second tranche of income tax is due, one trusts that Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise will take a markedly less dictatorial tone than previously.

What used to be known as a “tax demand” will presumably be restyled a “tax request”, with HMCE appending a hand-written note to the printed statement on these lines.

“I say, it would be awfully nice if you’d transfer the amount below to us by 31 July, because what with all this virus malarkey we find ourselves a little strapped. But of course, we’ll quite understand if it’s inconvenient and you’d rather not.”

As for the justice system, a radical change in how judges deal with miscreants also seems imminent.

“Slasher McBride, you have been found guilty of 11 counts of premeditated murder – and of much the most savage type, I may add, it has been my misfortune to encounter in the 20 years I have sat on this bench.

“As the psychiatric evidence attests, you are a viciously sadistic psychopath from whom the public should be protected for as long as you live.

“I therefore respectfully advise you to check yourself into HMP Belmarsh forthwith, to begin a life sentence with no possibility of parole. If you find the prospect disagreeable, however, I’m sure that an officer of the law will be happy to give you a lift home, and we’ll hear no more about it.”

This is war, as Macron said, and we are not being led by a reincarnation of the PM’s hero and role model. Prime minister, as someone else almost said to Dan Quayle, I have long admired Churchill, I have studied Churchill, I have read many books about Churchill (though not too much, on traditional shortness of life grounds, of yours). And you, sir, are no Winston Churchill.

Johnson isn’t even the imperious Captain Mainwaring. He’s John Le Mesurier’s unflinchingly diffident Sergeant Wilson, asking the platoon if they’d frightfully mind not going to the pub when there’s a drill to do, though of course if they’re bushed and think they’d benefit from a couple of pints…

Trapped in this no-man’s land between “we’re all doomed” and trying not to panic, we deserve better. Precious days were sacrificed to the dodgy scientific theorising about herd immunity that had three doctors I spoke to last week almost speechless with disbelief that the measures so delicately proposed now hadn’t been issued by edict then.

Photographs of the unconcerned young in bars hours after Monday’s press conference suggest that Johnson will soon have to yield to the urgency of the moment, and issue instructions rather than make requests.

How many lives will have been jeopardised because of that delay may never be quantifiable. But the credibility of a leader in a national emergency is also a precious commodity, and Johnson has been spending it too freely.

The notion that the public’s capacity to respond to danger is fragile and time-limited – that draconian quasi-curfew orders need husbanding until the ideal moment – may be popular in the behavioural psychology seminar.

Out here in the real world, people are calmly petrified and increasingly unnerved by the frequency of U-turns. They are outraged by the assumption that the decision to make acting responsibly optional has less to do with any health strategy than sparing the insurance industry the financial nightmare about to befall millions of individuals.

Bending over backwards to be fair to him, perhaps I do Johnson a disservice. Maybe buried in the sheaf of papers he ploughed through for that Churchill biog, was a memo in which the old boy toyed with cordially inviting the inhabitants of the East End to observe the blackout … “But not to worry if switching the lights out is a nuisance, as there’s a pretty decent chance these Luftwaffe chappies will take pity and give your street a miss.”