We can safely assume Boris Johnson will miss the ambitious mass-testing plans outlined in Operation Moonshot

Editorial: After six months of the pandemic, the government is out of excuses as to why we are not where we need to be over Covid-19

The prime minister has made another ambitious promise ( )

There seems to be a sort of informal national competition to discover what is the longest journey anyone has been advised to take in order to get a test for Covid-19.

From Kent to Galashiels, Suffolk to Aberdeen, Denton to Llandudno, Leicester to Edinburgh… an unkind observer might quip that before long the NHS Test and Trace system will invite some individual to go to the moon, hence the name chosen for the prime minister’s astronomically ambitious mass testing programme, Operation Moonshot. Perhaps Elon Musk will be invited to join Dido Harding’s testing team.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of ambition, but Boris Johnson seems to be the only person who believes that, even with £100bn being thrown at it, it is actually practical in the required timescale. Some of the technology required apparently does not yet exist, and it is perfectly possible that a vaccine will be developed, or the pandemic will have burnt itself out by the time the moonshot has landed. Maybe Matt Hancock will prove to be Britain’s answer to Neil Armstrong, but it takes a giant leap of imagination to envisage it.

Operation Moonshot illustrates perfectly a pattern that has emerged in the prime minister’s response to abject failure. Whether it is the faltering path to Brexit or some dismal episode in the coronavirus saga, the standard prime ministerial routine is as follows. First, deny any failure has taken place and claim “fantastic” success (true only in the literal sense). Second, lambast his critics for not being supportive and backing the government’s efforts. Third, invent some new ever-more eye-catching new target or initiative, preferably with some gigantic number attached to it. The point of Mr Johnson reaching for the heavens is to confuse and distract from his own shortcomings here on Earth.

Sometimes it has worked, but it requires a larger and larger dose of “boosterism” to convince anyone, and the law of diminishing returns is starting to make itself felt. The ludicrously named Moonshot programme is yet another idea for some world-beating testing and tracing technology, which few believe will ever materialise. 

It sounds like a product of Dominic Cummings space-obsessed imagination. Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock might be better advised to just ensure that worried parents don’t have to spend all day trying to book a covid test, with mixed success. 

It is now six months since the first concerns about testing availability surfaced, and progress has been made; but the basic aim of a wide and easily accessed service offering rapid results is still absent. With children heading to their schools, students to higher education and people returning to the workplace, the test and trace system, complete with app, and active local public health teams, is essential to avoid a second national lockdown. 

The nation’s defence against Covid-19 are woefully inadequate. Unlike in the spring, when everything about coronavirus was new, there are now no excuses. The moon is a very large target, but we can safely assume that Mr Johnson will miss it.