Let us see better leadership over Covid-19 this year

Editorial: There is no necessary contradiction between public health measures designed to reduce the spread of infection and ‘the economic and cultural life’ of the country

Boris Johnson is guilty of mixed messages on Covid precautions (Anadolu Agency/Getty)

When Sajid Javid became health secretary in June, he said: “My task is to help return the economic and cultural life that makes this country so great – while of course protecting life and our NHS.” It sounded like a deliberate attempt to shift policy away from restrictions after Matt Hancock, his predecessor, usually found himself on the other end of the rolling debate at the highest level of government.

Yet Mr Javid and his ministerial colleagues found themselves driven by the logic of the response to a changing Covid-19 situation to impose new restrictions before Christmas, provoking a rebellion by 101 Conservative MPs.

Now Mr Javid sounds as if he is trying to appease that wing of his party again, saying that England had “welcomed in 2022 with some of the least restrictive measures in Europe”, and that “curbs on our freedom must be an absolute last resort”.

There is no necessary contradiction between public health measures designed to reduce the spread of infection and “the economic and cultural life that makes this country so great”. If the virus spreads unchecked it is likely to shut down the economy anyway, as people have to take time off work and the NHS comes under pressure, so controlling the virus is the way to keep society open.

But ministers, including Mr Javid and Boris Johnson, have a serious and persistent problem of sounding as if they are saying different things at different times. Or even at the same time. One moment Mr Javid is proclaiming our economic and cultural life open; the next he is urging people to be “cautious”. One moment Mr Johnson said people should go ahead with their arrangements for Christmas and the new year; and at the same moment he told us to be careful and responsible – in other words, cancel everything now. It was the second message to which most people listened, not least because it was reinforced by Professor – now Sir – Chris Whitty, who told us to prioritise meeting the people who mattered to us and to “deprioritise” others.

Throughout the pandemic, Mr Johnson has taken the precaution of being flanked by the government’s scientific advisers whenever he has a difficult message to communicate. This has worked reasonably well. It is when he or Mr Javid are let loose in a more political setting, such as the House of Commons, that the ministerial trumpet tends to give a more uncertain sound.

Perhaps one of Mr Johnson’s new year resolutions should be to pay more attention to the communication of public health messages. He should make it clear to the rebellious so-called libertarians on his own back benches that restrictions are a way of setting people free. He should emphasise how limited and voluntary most of the rules to limit the spread of the virus are: the advice to work from home if possible, for example, is probably the most important single measure in limiting social mixing.

Instead, he and Mr Javid are too often tempted to play to the gallery of Conservative backbenchers who imagine that they are in a battle against a new form of totalitarianism.

Let us see some leadership from Mr Johnson and Mr Javid in 2022, explaining why modest restrictions are still needed for a while yet. Leadership is the key, even if it still has to come mostly from the newly honoured Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath, Professor Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.