We’re making the lockdown sacrifices, now tell us how this will end - Andrew Vine

Come Thursday, the office blocks of our towns and cities will be returning to silent emptiness, and the streets to the unaccustomed quietness of the spring and summer months.

And at home, instead of being at work, there will be countless Yorkshire people wondering if they have a job to go back to at the end of this latest shutdown, and how long it is all going to last.

Today, in normal circumstances, our thoughts would be turning towards the United States, and its Presidential election, to anticipate – and maybe hope – that Donald Trump is on his way into the history books, and not on his way back to office.

But if we think of America, it’s with sympathy and silent thanks that, bad though our problem with coronavirus is, theirs is infinitely worse.

If we’ve got anything to learn from the US, it’s how not to handle this pandemic. The world’s worst death toll is testament to that.

The presidential election, though, feels a lot less significant than it usually would because of the uncertainty hanging over our own lives and livelihoods.

And that uncertainty is going to become corrosive to public morale unless the Government charts some way out of this new lockdown, principally by making the test-and-trace system work after months of failure.

I know independent business people swamped by despair at Saturday’s announcement from Boris Johnson of a month-long lockdown.

Some made it through the summer only by the skin of their teeth as trade dried up. The package of support from Chancellor Rishi Sunak certainly helped, but it could never be a complete answer.

As one hotelier who furloughed his staff told me, it kept their jobs alive, but didn’t do much in the long term to keep his business viable.

Only the ability to open as normal and welcome guests and functions such as weddings can do that.

The months since the first lockdown ended have been a lifeline, but now it’s been cut. He doesn’t know if the bookings he has for Christmas will stand, or even if he’ll be able to open.

There are going to be countless others like him, wondering as the year approaches its end if they are going to have a business left in 2021, despite Government help.

That’s why Boris Johnson has somehow to chart a way out of this new lockdown, and avoid it being extended again and again, as the first was.

Jobs in retail and hospitality, in particular, are at grave risk of being lost, especially if lockdown extends into December and the chance of a late burst of Christmas shopping or people going out for meals and drinks cannot be seized.

The test-and-trace system is key to this, but so far the Government’s promises to get it working on the scale necessary have repeatedly fallen short.

This just can’t go on.

Lockdowns only work if the public is on side, as it overwhelmingly was earlier in the year, and are scrupulous about observing the restrictions urged on us all.

But if people are to do that, they need to have faith that the Government is fulfilling its side of the bargain by making the system for quickly identifying and isolating people with coronavirus work.

It isn’t currently, and faith in Mr Johnson and his ministers appears to be ebbing away if polling that has found nearly two-thirds of people don’t trust the Prime Minister to take the right decisions is to be believed.

We all need to know that there is a road map for getting us out of this, which there wasn’t in summer.

For senior Cabinet minister Michael Gove to say at the weekend that the lockdown could be extended beyond the December 2 deadline announced by Mr Johnson just hours earlier was tantamount to an admission that the Government is not certain the measures it has introduced will work.

Almost a year into the crisis that has engulfed the country, turned lives upside down and destroyed livelihoods, there is still a worrying lack of strategy at the heart of the Government’s response.

Shutting everything down and hoping for the best isn’t good enough. There needs to be a way out, so that businesses can plan for what lies on the other side and do all they can to put measures in place to ensure their survival.

Without that, yet more jobs will go and the public’s observance of the lockdown could falter, as they understandably put earning a living above the risk of infections spreading.

It’s all very well for Boris Johnson to exhort us all to do our utmost. If that’s to happen, we need to see him doing likewise.

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