STANLEY Johnson,

80, will go public on receiving the Covid vaccine in a bid to encourage others. The PM’s father tells me he is ‘completely happy’ to be rolling up his sleeve in anticipation of the jab.

Johnson, whose pandemic 80s thriller The Virus, was reprinted this summer, adds: ‘It is absolutely crucial we keep up all the precautions. I am 100 per cent in favour of not lowering our guard.’

What a difference a few months make. In October, he was spotted not wearing a mask in a shop. He claimed he was ‘not really a big shopping man’ and didn’t know the rules as he had been on holiday in Greece. He’d also broken the Foreign Office travel ban to get there.