How can the UK beat coronavirus with ever-evolving and bewildering restrictions?

Polling released this week showed plummeting levels of confidence in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by Boris Johnson’s government.

And anecdotal evidence quickly makes clear that many people are thoroughly confused about exactly what restrictions are in place in their home area.

Viewed from Westminster, this confusion is all too understandable.

Even for those whose job it is to keep track of the ever-shifting details of the government’s guidance and instructions, it can be difficult to work out – let alone remember – what is allowed where.

Since the switch from the national lockdown to local “whack-a-mole” restrictions, there have been a bewildering variety of measures governing which different people can meet which others, in what size groups, and whether they’ll be able to eat or drink or shop, inside or outside, in their own homes or at the pub.

The BBC has recently produced a very useful online guide where you can type in your postcode and find out what the rules are where you live. But nothing so simple is on offer from the government, whose website assembles a succession of press releases relating to different areas but no over-arching guide.

And when it comes to the way the changes are announced, the situation is more confusing still.

We’ve seen that in action over the past few days, when massive restrictions affecting millions of people and potentially costing thousands of them their livelihoods were unveiled through the medium of Whitehall advisers whispering in the ears of selected journalists.

Civic leaders across the north were furious to learn about new rules via the press. Citizens were unable to be sure what changes were coming. Government ministers appearing on TV seemed to think that no decision had actually been made.

And even those who read the unconfirmed briefings were unable to be sure whether they would turn out to be right or not. So much has been briefed to the press over the past few months, but then not come to pass – the circuit breaker, the demand to return to the workplace or risk losing your job – that it’s difficult to know what to believe.

What makes it worse is that even after an official announcement, details of any changes are routinely withheld until the latest possible moment, with official notices of new laws and penalties appearing literally minutes before they come into force at midnight.

For journalists, it’s become a regular job first thing in the morning of a new restriction to pore through the obscure legalese of a statutory instrument – passed into law without debate in parliament – to find out exactly what people are now banned from doing and how much they can be fined.

Everyone knows that the coronavirus pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime crisis and that the authorities need to move quickly to keep ahead of the disease. But viewed from Westminster, it’s difficult to imagine a system more perfectly designed to prevent people from responding with the certainty, consent and discipline required for a national effort to defeat the virus.

Yours

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor