Can the Tories really come together in Boris’s absence?

Sympathy for Conservative politicians rarely overwhelms their political opponents. But everyone with the interests of the country at heart (not to mention a modicum of human decency) should try to put themselves in their place.

Imagine being a government minister. You are in a crisis like nothing you have encountered before. Unlike every political storm you’ve trudged through, the pandemic has no foreseeable end. A temporary emergency is one thing. Most people are capable of handling short-term privation, and can repeat dozens of clichés about the need to grit our teeth, tighten our belts and keep calm and carry on. But no government in the world has a viable coronavirus ‘exit strategy’. Not one can say with certainty how to break out of a health crisis and economic crisis that feed off each other. The best guess is that there will be no way out until we have a vaccine, and God only knows how long that will take to arrive.