Boris’s steely spine is vital under pressure

THIS paper has never shied away from being a critical friend to Boris Johnson.

When the Prime Minister has erred we have chastised him. But when he’s triumphed, we’ve delighted in his success.

So today we applaud him for showing a steely spine, in the face of colossal pressure from Labour and Sage scientists, to spurn calls for another disastrous lockdown.

True, a two-week so-called ‘circuit break’ might briefly halt Covid’s advance. But what would we really gain? A short respite before the virus quickly reappeared.

Rather, it would simply postpone deaths (as pro-lockdown scientists accept), ruin businesses, drive up unemployment, and worsen health. Indeed, hundreds more under-65s have tragically died from heart attacks and strokes due to lockdown.

Sir Keir Starmer, who condemned tough curbs in Covid hotspots on Monday, now wants a job-destroying national shutdown. Why? Naked political opportunism. Labour MPs, sickeningly, reckon the pandemic crisis is ripe for exploitation.

But how long would it last? Wouldn’t it push the virus deeper into winter? With no vaccine, wouldn’t we just yo-yo in and out of lockdown? Pitiably, he won’t say.

But Mr Johnson barely needs such enemies when he’s got friends like Matt Hancock.

The smug Health Secretary embarrassed the UK by exposing his ignorance on herd immunity (once championed by Sir Patrick Vallance, no less), and earning a stinging rebuke from the eminent epidemiologists whose views he’d pompously ridiculed.

Truly, after his calamitous failings on PPE, testing and care homes, the country deserves a circuit break from Mr Hancock.

In the meantime, the PM should focus on making his three-tier alert system work.

Yes, it’s grotesquely restrictive. It fails to balance the risks to Britain’s health and wealth. But it is immeasurably better than the pain of another lockdown.