Winning back lost trust is key

A return to work like no other

TODAY HERALDS a day of trepidation for a great many families as they prepare to return to work – or school – for the first time in many months. It’s not the ‘ return to normal’ portrayed by the Government. It’s a tentative step into the unknown as living and working with Covid- 19 becomes the ‘ new normal’.

And it’s why our first appeal is a societal message rather than a political one – look out for family, friends and neighbours on such a difficult day and offer them your support and counsel. They will be eternally grateful because they, too, are as perplexed as everyone else about the now endless mixed messages – and U- turns – from the Government on just about every aspect of Covid- 19.

In turn, it is this issue of trust – or mistrust – which explains the reluctance of many to head back to the office or those groups of people wilfully disregarding official guidance on social distancing and so on. There has been a breakdown in the Government’s communications, one that can be traced back to Boris Johnson’s chief aide Dominic Cummings and his own defiance of the lockdown, and it cannot be ignored as Parliament, too, resumes following its own summer recess.

This country will be better placed to withstand the deepest recession in history, and react to sporadic outbreaks of the virus, if the advice and guidance to the country at large is far clearer than it has been in recent weeks.

But it also requires Boris Johnson to empower public health leaders like Professor Chris Whitty, Sir Martin Vallance and their close colleagues rather than appearing to sideline them because of Downing Street’s desire to prioritise the appointment of a TV spin doctor to host televised press conferences. It is another move which is unlikely to restore that most elusive commodity of all – trust – if Ministers are to be assured of the level of public compliance witnessed in the first phase of this crisis.