"I’m convinced the Tories are actually using COVID, and manipulating the crisis, as a means of distracting the public’s attention away from the disaster (for most of us ordinary Joes and Janes - Johnson and his cronies themselves will do very well from it) of the crash-out, no-EU-trade-deal Brexit they’re heading us for at the end of the year."

I think it's that but much more as well. Who'd have thought a year ago that a government in a democracy could ORDER people to stay at home almost at the drop of a hat, or tell us that we can't have our families to stay over, or force us to wear masks? Once these edicts are enforced it makes it far easier for the government to do things like it again, under who-knows-what circumstances in the future. It isn't just a brexit diversion, it's a power-grab, and it's all the more frightening when you consider who it is who's grabbing the power.