The Tories face their biggest problem yet

Up until a few days ago, ministers could see how the government might regain its footing in the polls after several weeks of self-inflicted damage. The argument went like this: as Christmas approaches voters will see that life in Britain — and specifically England — carries on with very few Covid restrictions whereas elsewhere in Europe more draconian measures have been imposed.

This scenario seemed plausible. Austria was in lockdown and heading for compulsory vaccination; there had been rioting in Holland after the announcement of an 8 p.m. curfew and several German states had cancelled Christmas markets. In private, secretaries of state were making the case that the decision to remove all lockdown restrictions in July had been vindicated by events and that Britain’s early success with the vaccine rollout meant most of the elderly population had been offered a booster jab ahead of any winter wave. Few ministers wanted to state the argument too strongly (Covid has a horrible capacity to surprise), but Nadhim Zahawi, the former vaccines minister, now Education Secretary, did declare last week that the UK would be the first major economy to exit the pandemic.