A second lockdown would be a disaster for Boris

Could Britain be heading for a second lockdown? Boris Johnson says his government is doing ‘everything in our power’ to prevent one, but failed to rule it out if coronavirus cases don’t stop rising. Yet even if the Prime Minister does end up ordering Britain back indoors, it’s worth asking whether he has the political capital to carry out such an order. Amidst a stormy few weeks in which the PM has alienated both wings of his own party, angered the frontrunner to become the next US president and been blasted by most of the press, I’m not convinced.

When the first lockdown happened in March, there was a lot of goodwill throughout the country for both the idea of locking down and the government’s handling of the crisis. People were scared of a novel virus that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, and even those who were politically prejudiced towards disliking a Tory government were suddenly rooting for this one, at least as far as Covid went.