Too much good news could spell trouble for Boris

Tory MP’s reaction to the lockdown easing plan is a mixed bag. In general, they would have preferred a quicker timetable. But, as I say in the magazine this week, there is also relief that Johnson has explicitly ruled out going for a zero-Covid strategy and that there is an end date for all restrictions. A big fear on the Tory benches was that unless a date was set, restrictions could drag on for years in the way that rationing did after the second world war. 

One senior Conservative backbencher from the more libertarian wing of the party observes that the plan ‘could have been worse’. What he and other similarly minded Tory MPs would like is for the government to say it will move faster if the data continues to bring good news.