The Covid isolation shambles is what we have come to expect from Boris Johnson – and that is shameful

Boris Johnson was right all along, according to one joke doing the rounds in Whitehall: when he cancelled last Christmas, he said we would be free by Easter. We will be. The only problem is that it will be Easter 2022.

The gallows humour will intensify after the shambolic attempt by the prime minister and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak to get around self-isolation rules by conveniently joining a trial under which people are tested daily for Covid-19 instead of staying at home. After more damaging allegations of “one rule for us, another for everyone else”, they beat an embarrassing retreat almost three hours later.

The official line is that the prime minister and chancellor “briefly” considered whether they should join the scheme, and then decided not to. But that doesn’t square with sending Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, on to the Sunday TV programmes to defend the indefensible decision.

So now Johnson and Sunak must self-isolate for 10 days because they held a meeting last Friday with Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who has mild Covid symptoms. Downing Street has withdrawn from the pilot project that at least one of the bodies it listed as taking part, Transport for London, insists it has not joined. So that’s alright then.

Well, not quite. Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, did take advantage of the trial to avoid quarantine after attending the Champions League final in Porto with his Chelsea-supporting son.

Johnson is now under mounting pressure from business, MPs and Tory-supporting newspapers to bring forward the 16 August date when fully vaccinated people will be able to have tests rather than isolate. Two weeks ago, there were optimistic signals that the start date would be sped up, but ministers got cold feet as the number of Covid cases climbed. They haven’t admitted it, but there are fears in Whitehall about the ability of NHS test and trace to cope with the extra demand for tests. We have been here before, despite its budget of £37bn over two years.

In an attempt to distract attention from the fiasco over Johnson and Sunak, the government rushed out an announcement that double-jabbed critical NHS and social care workers will not have to isolate from today. It didn’t prevent embarrassing headlines in Monday’s newspapers, however.

The damage was already done, and the dangerous “one rule for us” impression will solidify in the public’s mind. Mud sticks and hardens; the Labour opposition will certainly throw it, just as Johnson and his ministers still dine out on the EU’s foolish threat to ban the export of vaccines from Ireland to Northern Ireland – even though that, too, lasted about three hours.

Tory MPs and some ministers think the episode proves some vital cogs are missing in the No 10 machine – including an early warning system that detects trouble ahead. The only comfort for Johnson is that he U-turned quickly, so the damage will be less than that inflicted by Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham; that saga had more time to reach the public consciousness. But if Johnson does not prevent more “one rule for us” moments, the label could become his political epitaph.

That Johnson is self-isolating at his Chequers country retreat on “freedom day” when restrictions are lifted in England is full of irony. In every sense, this is not the day the PM imagined. He had planned to invoke the spirit of his hero Winston Churchill. A government source told The Mail on Sunday: “The plan had been for Boris to effectively declare victory over the virus by summoning the spirit of Churchill, with appropriately stirring rhetoric. That no longer feels appropriate.” You can say that again.

Johnson’s appeal for the public to exercise caution as he unlocks betrays body language that is far from confident he is doing the right thing while cases numbers are so high. He is most definitely not following the science; even the experts do not know what will happen next because they don’t know how people will behave over the next few weeks. Ominously, the phrase “flying blind” is again being heard in Whitehall.

One senior Tory told me after the sudden U-turn on Johnson and Sunak self-isolating: “It’s a shambles. I’m very worried about Boris and his operation. He looks ridiculous. I fear the public will give up on him.” He is ultra-loyal to Johnson, so we know what the PM’s growing number of critics are thinking.