There is a big credibility gap between what the government says and does

After Boris Johnson appeared alongside England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, at Wednesday’s Downing Street briefing, many observed a new dynamic. Prof Whitty, long the Eeyore in the room, offered the good news that the UK was “past the peak” of the latest wave, with all the indicators now “on a downward slope”.

The prime minister meanwhile, so often the one seeming to chafe at the ever more draconian restrictions he was announcing, came across as the downbeat one. Although there were “some signs of hope”, he said, the infection level was still “alarmingly high”; the government would maintain its “cautious approach”.

What struck me as much as the apparent Johnson-Whitty role reversal, however, was the fuzziness, what seemed almost a lack of concern, on the part of the prime minister on the small matter of compliance with the regulations – either those already in force or those we have been warned are in the offing. He might have been insisting on continued caution; this was not quite the impression he conveyed.

Now, of course, fuzziness is hardly out of character for this prime minister, who has never claimed to be either a details man or a stickler for rules. His often more relaxed attitude has contrasted not only with the precision of the scientists who have shared his Downing Street stage, but also with the clear lines set out by Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. What is more, it has to be said that he can usually get away with “being Boris”. Infuriatingly for some, he is just one of those politicians who can.

It is also possible that he knows something the rest of us don’t know – about the early effects of the vaccination programme, say – so that a bit of frayed discipline may now be seen as less dangerous than it once was. Hence, on the one hand, the whole nation has the fierce government instruction to “stay home, protect the NHS...”, reinforced for Londoners by Sadiq Khan, the city's mayor, and daily warning about not using your daily exercise as a pretext for, oh horror, meeting someone, and, on the other hand, the evidence before me every day that people (many of them young) are routinely gathering outdoors with complete impunity, whether they see it as their exercise or not.

I do wonder, though, about the effects of what increasingly comes across as mixed messaging from the government. No 10 might have made great play of streamlining and focusing its communications at the turn of the year, but that is not how it seems at the receiving end: unless perhaps the purpose, scripted by some wretched behaviouralist, is to soften us up ready to loosen up. Because if Johnson seems not that concerned about following rules – indeed, if the somewhat muffled message that I, at least, heard on Wednesday is that we’re all doing pretty well and the compliance rate is fine (give or take 20,000 people or so not self-isolating when legally required to) – well, some may wonder how seriously should they be taking government instructions anyway?

We may be at a tentatively hopeful point in what is now a year that the Covid-19 pandemic has stalked this land, but there are at least three areas where some people are making huge sacrifices and others are not, where lack of clarity, inconsistency, complacency or whatever risks discrediting the bigger message of caution.

First, borders. It appears that new measures are to be announced “next week”. Next week? This, despite the urgent alarm that was sounded three weeks ago about the risk of a South African variant of the virus arriving on these shores. (Some) air routes were halted; all passengers were required to have a negative test within 72 days of their departure, to self-isolate for 10 days on arrival, and to have submitted the requisite digital form. But there were, and are still, no tests on arrival; scant monitoring of that form or what was emerging as largely voluntary quarantine, and minimal curiosity as to the circuitous routes some passengers might have taken to reach the UK. Many countries have been assiduously enforcing such controls for months.

The point is that such measures are not just about keeping a dangerous variant out – which may or may not be effective. They are also about reassuring the home population, both that controls are in place and that published rules are enforced. And that what is being required of them is also required of others, including the supposed legal ban on all but “essential” travel.

You have to ask why it is that the UK, a global travel hub by any measure, finds it so hard to introduce hotel quarantine for arrivals that we are now in the third week since the intention was stated, and major hotel chains say they have had no response to their offer of facilities. Either this is a sensible precaution, in which case it should have been brought in a long time ago, or at very least within days of first mention, or it is not sensible, and ministers need to explain why.

Second, care homes and elderly people. The government has announced that everyone in an “eligible” care home in England has been vaccinated. The vast majority of over-80s have been vaccinated, too. This is a considerable achievement that deserves due recognition. But there are three reasons why vaccination started here. One was to protect those who are at by far the greatest risk of dying from coronavirus. The second was to “protect the NHS”, as older people are more likely to need hospital treatment.

A third reason should surely be to allow families to meet their older relatives in person, maybe for the first time in almost 12 months. Yet the government and care homes are hedging, apparently in the name of the greater good: no one is safe, it is being said, until everyone is safe. But if there is one point that the passing of national treasure, Captain Sir Tom Moore, has shown, it is that no one knows either the day or the hour.

Depriving families of meeting or taking older relatives out, even after those most at risk have been vaccinated is inhumane. Was this not a reason why older people were vaccinated first? And if it wasn’t, should it not have been? In such circumstances, “Stay at home” invites disobedience – among those most likely to have observed every letter of the law all their lives. The wisdom of delaying the second dose for this group has also to be called into question.

The government needs a clear message on so-called “vaccination passports”. Denmark has said that it will introduce such a document, which could free everyone who has been vaccinated to return to something like a normal life. In Germany, a special commission ruled against such “passports”, and the official attitude here, in so far as anything has been said, appears to be negative. To my mind, this is right, because – as the German commission ruled – of the risk of creating a two-tier society.

But the more people are vaccinated, the more this question will be raised, and the government will need a properly thought-out answer. And even if there is no government-authorised scheme, could employers, educational institutions and entertainment venues, say, be permitted to operate their own ban on the non-vaccinated? Could they be prevented from so doing? With some people refusing vaccination than others, there is a lot to think about here.

If the vaccination programme has thus far provided welcome relief from the failures that have characterised so much of the UK’s response to the pandemic, it must be hoped that Johnson can find a clear message in the face of the complexities that its success will throw up.

No one would claim that such questions as a vaccination passport, protecting elderly people, or securing the borders are simple, and the mixed messages being received may well reflect genuine differences in cabinet or with scientists over how to proceed. Resolving those conflicts, however, is in part what a prime minister is for.

Let’s hope that the “road map” we are promised later this month manages to close the credibility gap that has opened up between what the government says and what it does.