Boris cannot solve his muzzle puzzle

SO MUCH for Boris Johnson’s “land of liberty”. Since June 15 people have been visiting all manner of shops without masks and coronavirus continues to decline. Yet, the Government has now decreed we must all wear masks in shops. Science is divided over the effectiveness of masks and the disease is in retreat. But Boris is suffering from that malaise which eventually overtakes even the most resilient politician: the need to be seen to be “doing something”.

The PM wore one himself for the first time at a recent engagement.Why? He has had the disease and had it badly so the presumption must be that he is immune and he has not bothered wearing one until now.

Consistency and logic have never been hallmarks of this government’s approach to this pandemic. My local farm shop, for example, consists of both shop and café. So, under these daft proposals, I shall have to put on a mask when I cross from one part to the next.

People can socialise in pubs but must put on a mask to pick up a pint of milk on the way home.

ICOULD have accepted this had it been advisory rather than compulsory and enforceable by law. Perhaps shops should allow certain hours when the mask dissenters can shop unmuzzled in the same way as they have allocated special times to the elderly.

At an early stage in this crisis I advocated on this page that, given nine out of 10 people who were dying had another health condition, there was no need for a universal lockdown but that the healthy should be told to keep the economy and volunteer effort going while the unhealthy and frail should stay at home. I have seen nothing to make me change my mind and do not see muzzles as an answer.

I suspect that mask-haters will, as will I, avoid the shops as much as possible which means we will not be spending and yet spending is what the Chancellor wants us all to do.