Ministers must not mask truth

Communication must be clearer

IT IS the haphazard, and chaotic, nature of Government decisionmaking that explains the Tory grassroots backlash against Boris Johnson’s edict that it will become mandatory to wear face coverings in supermarkets and other shops in England from July 24 to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

The first hint came last Friday when Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage faced awkward questions about why so few of her colleagues, including Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, followed her example by wearing their face masks in public.

Cue 10 Downing Street officials releasing a photo, hours later, of the PM sporting a face covering while visiting a shop in his Uxbridge constituency before Michael Gove, the senior Cabinet minister, said on Sundays that masks would not be mandatory, though the wearing of them was “good manners”.

These muddled and mixed messages led to the Government rushing out an announcement at 10.30pm on Monday night without details of any changes to scientific evidence or any consultation with Cabinet ministers ahead of their weekly meeting.

Not only does the delay to the policy’s implementation appear to be questionable if the threat of Covid-19 being spread in supermarkets and shops is now a significant one, but it, again, points to the Government being slow to respond to evolving threats after resisting pressure since the start of lockdown four months ago to make the wearing of masks mandatory.

And while it will fall to the police to enforce the rules, just as forces are preparing for a potentially brutal round of cuts, where’s the awareness campaign on face mask etiquette, and how best to wear them, in order to reduce the risk of the virus being transmitted? Or, again, will Ministers wait until it is too late? Either way, this is neither the way to make policy – or secure the public’s confidence and, more crucially, compliance.