Neither Boris Johnson nor Keir Starmer seems able to decide where they stand on vaccine passports

You know the type. They’re all over social media and the below-the-line comment section on internet articles thinking it’s hilarious to call Keir Starmer “Keith”. They think he’s “Tory-lite” and berate him for failing to oppose the government.

I doubt that they will be satisfied with Starmer’s cautious opposition to something that probably isn’t going to happen anyway. The government doesn’t seem sure about proposing vaccine passports, and the Labour leader doesn’t seem to be sure about opposing them, so it is not only the tiny minority of online Starmer-baiters who are entitled to feel puzzled.

Boris Johnson was invited to set out the government’s policy at yesterday’s Downing Street briefing, and offered only an empty space. Everyone knows that some form of vaccine certificate will be needed for international travel, and that there is a case for requiring evidence of vaccination for staff working with old or vulnerable people (the prime minister cited the requirement for surgeons to be vaccinated against hepatitis B as an example). But what people want to know is whether they will be required to show coronavirus ID to go to the pub, restaurant, cinema or gig.

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“There is absolutely no question of people being asked to produce certification or a Covid status report when they go to the shops or to the pub garden or the hairdressers or whatever on Monday,” the prime minister said. He has been so defeated by events in this pandemic that he feels safe only setting out policy for a week ahead.

Fortunately, Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, was a little more forthcoming this morning, saying that passports wouldn’t be needed for pubs or restaurants indoors on 17 May either. Why Johnson hadn’t said that remains obscure. The government was thinking about them only for mass events such as the FA Cup Final, Zahawi said.

In which case, there doesn’t seem much difference between the Conservatives and Labour after all. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, tried to change the subject when he was interviewed this morning by demanding assurances that no one will be required to show a passport to shop in H&M, when as far as I know no one has proposed vaccine passports for shops.

Last night, a Labour source told Politico: “On the basis of what we’ve seen and discussed with ministers, we oppose the government’s plans for domestic vaccine passports. They appear poorly thought through, will put added burdens on business and run the risk of becoming another expensive Whitehall project that gets outsourced to friends of Tory ministers.”

Which makes it odd that The Guardian yesterday quoted a Labour “source” – presumably a different one – saying that Starmer was “really angry” that The Sunday Telegraph had put his saying his “instinct” was that the British wouldn’t like vaccine passports in its headline. Should the Labour leader not take the credit for leading public opinion and getting it right?

It seems the only question is whether passports might be introduced in a few months’ time for big events, or possibly to allow the lifting of social distancing rules. I suspect that by then, if the entire adult population has been offered a first dose of the vaccine and levels of infection are really low, most people will conclude that it won’t be worth the trouble – and I think the pilot schemes will have shown how hard they will be to operate in practice.

In which case, it seems unlikely that parliament will ever be required to vote on something on which Tory libertarians and the Labour leadership can unite against the government. Once again, Johnson’s ability to avoid being pinned too definitely to any position has turned out to be one of his great strengths, and the Keith-haters can go back to complaining about the lack of proper opposition.