First he told us that herd immunity was the plan – then he told us it wasn’t. Then he told us the virus could be brought under control in 12 weeks – and it inevitably wasn’t. Then he told us we could mix at Christmas for five days – that was reduced to one just days beforehand and led to a long, deep lockdown in January.

These are just some of the things that Boris Johnson has told the British public over the pandemic which turned out to be nonsense. The latest was that the plan for lifting lockdown in England was “cautious” and “irreversible”. Accepting that 200 people a day could die is not cautious, it’s stupid and callous. And the idea that Covid restrictions can be lifted at a time of mounting cases and never reinstated is also pretty stupid.

And now we have evidence directly from the government that Johnson is, to use a British term, talking out of his arse. A document released late last night reveals that in September, the government is going to look again at the rules to prepare for winter.

A sensible thing to do? Very much so. But there’s absolutely nothing written here, nor anywhere else in the document, which says restrictions will not be reimposed. Elsewhere, the document references “high risk settings”. Whilst not explicitly making it clear here, the Government in the past has repeatedly referred to nightclubs as such. Do you see how they’re being lined up to take the fall yet?

The words “consider mandating” are mentioned here. In government speak, this usually means “we hope not to have to intervene here, but we will if we have to, but we probably won’t”. By the time nightclubs have been blamed for a spike in cases amongst the young, they’ll be reminded of their obligations to behave responsibility – or face revenge when licences need renewal.

There’s a lot more politics at play here than even I first realised…