In this country we have had mixed messages from the top for well over a year. There has been massive confusion about what you can or can't do, what's legal and what's illegal, starting or ending on this date or that. We've had a labyrinthine four-tier system of restrictions that even the politicians didn't understand. We've had hubris from Johnson about defeating the virus in twelve weeks. We've had Tory little-England exceptionalism. We've had a government test and trace app costing tens of billions that doesn't work. You can be in trouble with the law if you fail to self-isolate when the app tells you to, but you don't even have to have the bloody app! We've had delayed lockdowns that have cost thousands of lives. We've had untested sick people sent from hospital into care homes. Tens of thousands of old people have died as a result. We are currently talking up the shining possibility of foreign holidays and our borders are way too porous and quarantine has, at times, been de facto voluntary.

So I don't want to hear about ordinary people being blamed. Of course, there will always be a few. Round here, people all comply valiantly with all the rules when they can, but it's often impossible, in free-for-all supermarkets for example. Everybody round here wears a mask when required. The people in this country have been very good about this. So I'm not accepting blame. It might be different in America, I wouldn't know. But we have leaders who are supposed to lead, not confuse us. We have done it in spite of our leaders. I want to see them promoting a national sense of communal responsibility, predicated on sound, clear advice and abundant information. There has been little sign of a coordinated effort to do that. So put the blame where it truly lies, not on a few renegade non-mask wearers.