AFTER 25 days in the second lockdown it’s welcome news that the virus infection rate has dropped by 30 per cent. Who’d have thought it?

Well, actually, SAGE scientists did as far back as September 21 and Keir Starmer did in the first week in October when he urged our hapless Prime Minister to instigate an immediate lockdown to include a two week half term break in our schools.

But Bumbling Boris described that plan as “absurd”. He insisted that his rule of six and three tier system were all that were needed. In a repeat of the debacle in March he delayed taking the science led correct decision by six weeks and the virus roared through the nation to the extent that, according to Michael Gove, we now face the possibility of the NHS being “overwhelmed”.

We’ve had the whack-a-mole strategy, the moonshot initiative, the Isle of Wight app failure and we are now waiting to see if the cavalry really are going to come over the hill armed with a vaccine to save us.

Even before the ink is dried on his latest revamped three tier plan, the PM is backing down in the face of backbench opposition to put an end date on the programme regardless of the outcome.

We’ve always known that Johnson is more driven by popularity than policy. The problem is that we face an ongoing pandemic, the biggest economic crash in history and the impact of the so-called oven ready Brexit deal and popularity simply isn’t good enough to address these crucial issues.

This country needs leadership but what we have in its place is a vacuum.

Dave Anderson, Middleton-in-Teesdale.