Boris Johnson has been too slow on everything – including getting children back to school. And Labour knows it

With a new shadow education secretary, Keir Starmer can take full advantage of the government’s hesitancy, writes John Rentoul

Boris Johnson’s government has been slow to react to a number of issues around coronavirus (EPA)

There was a fashion in the school playground about 20 years ago for high-fiving someone, saying “Up high”, then “down low” for a low-five, if that is what it is called, but pulling away your hand before the victim could touch it and saying, “You’re too slow.”

It was silly and potentially cruel, and it is precisely the trick that Keir Starmer is playing, repeatedly, on Boris Johnson. “Up high,” Starmer supports the prime minister, even if he doesn’t actually congratulate him on his handling of the coronavirus crisis; but he offers to cooperate with the government, and then, “down low”, he replaces that support with criticism, saying again and again, “You’re too slow.”

The government has been too slow on testing, too slow on protective equipment, too slow to lock down, alleges Starmer. Whatever the government has done, it has done it too slowly. It is brilliant politics, because most people think, in hindsight, that the government’s reaction was too slow, even if Johnson followed the advice of the scientific committee at all times. It is always possible, if you cannot criticise an action, to say that it should have happened more quickly.