I’ve been talking to Westminster insiders and they say the lockdown could last up to 12 months

Ministers prefer to talk about the ‘light at the end of the tunnel,’ as Dominic Raab puts it, without being honest about just how long that tunnel might be, says Andrew Grice

Dominic Raab confirmed a three-week extension to the lockdown on Thursday (10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty)

An announcement on how some of the lockdown’s restrictions will be eased is likely when the latest three-week period ends on 7 May. But that, as Boris Johnson’s hero Winston Churchill said in 1942, will not be “even the beginning of the end, but … perhaps the end of the beginning”.

The immediate decisions for ministers include how to get more people back to work and whether to reopen primary schools, some shops and restaurants. There is growing concern inside the government about the potential cost in lives from postponed NHS treatments, notably for cancer, so restoring them is a priority.

But I’m told ministers are also talking privately about a three, six, nine and 12-month strategy – primarily because this “war” will not be won until there is a vaccine.

Sadly, they have yet not shared such a time frame with the public. They prefer to talk about “light at the of the tunnel,” as Dominic Raab put it on Thursday, without being fully honest about how long the tunnel might be.

Ministers have told civil servants to stop talking about an exit strategy. They are desperate to change the music, but it’s too late. They are losing the battle of the language over how the lockdown will end. As European countries start to lift some of their measures, UK ministers need to announce an exit strategy too, even if they don’t call it that.

It’s no use the health ministers Matt Hancock and Nadine Dorries saying journalists shouldn’t dare to ask about an exit plan. We are not China. With parliament in recess for almost a month until next Tuesday, the media is filling the vacuum – and trying to get the answers the the public and business want.

At one level, ministers’ reticence is understandable. “How we communicate as a government, as ministers, has a direct impact on the amount of cases that we have, and therefore the amount of people who die,” Hancock argued on BBC Radio 4. “The communications are part of the policy, and that is why we will not be distracted into confusing that.”

But there is another reason: ministers are rattled because, for now, there is no exit plan, and there can’t really be cabinet agreement on one until Johnson is back at work.

It is not a battle of cabinet egos while the man his ministers call “the boss” rightly recuperates at his Chequers country retreat. It’s more about different government departments looking at the lockdown through their end of the telescope. The only person who can balance these competing interests is the prime minister.

Johnson’s communications skills are being sorely missed; they will be needed to explain a more nuanced message to the public as the restrictions are gradually relaxed. It will be the communications challenge from hell. Understandably, ministers want to stick to simple, crisp messages like “stay at home”. They got in a mess over their initial advice for the over-70s, which confused the public, as did the term “self-isolation”. Ministers want to avoid lifting and then reimposing some curbs if a second wave of the disease emerged. Apart from posing a renewed threat to the NHS, it would look incompetent and invite some people to ignore the rules.

Raab’s five tests (why do politicians fixate on the number five?) were a welcome start, but his statement was a holding operation. Of course it’s right to extend the lockdown but people have acted like grown-ups and should now be treated like them, not children. The public are capable of digesting more than one message at once; if explained well, people would understand why some curbs on their freedom remained and others were lifted. Nicola Surgeon, Scotland’s first minister, acknowledged her ”duty“ to spell out how the crucial decisions will be made “so that we treat the public like the grown-ups that they are”. Ministers in London should take note.

Normally, all governments like to discuss policy options in private before announcing their decisions to the world. But this is not a normal decision. It is probably the most complicated and difficult one today’s ministers will ever take.

A “not in front of the children” approach will not work. Ministers should use the next three weeks to start a debate on how the restrictions can be unwound and offer some examples of the light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, the government will risk losing the goodwill and support it has currently got and the unexpectedly high level of compliance with the measures.

Ministers need to take the public with them, not hand down orders from on high. It is time for Johnson’s self-styled “people’s government” to trust the people.