Yet more Covid dither and delay from Boris Johnson gets the New Year off to a bad start

New Year, old problem. Boris Johnson and his Cabinet still don’t get it, do they?

Making decisions on the fly, and changing them from one day to the next, may be OK when you’re a journalist writing columns for the Daily Telegraph.

But when you’re actually running an organisation — a school, business or government, say — it doesn’t work like that. 

What’s needed is strong, clear policies and forward planning.

In fairness to Boris & Co, the new variant of Covid is a fast-moving, slippery beast. 

It has totally changed the virus’s spread, and big policy shifts were required to cope with it.  

But it’s been with us for weeks now, and its power to spread and kill is clear. 

Yet the Government is still not getting ahead of it. 

While it is obvious to the public that the whole country needs to go into at least Tier 4 now, Boris offers more dither, delay and U-turns.

Yesterday, he was at it again, refusing to extend Tier 4, but hinting to those in lower tiers, with a nudge and a wink, that they’d be bumped up soon.

What help is that to businesses in lower tiers trying to work out how much stock to buy, or staff to employ, or financing to arrange?

It is a straight repeat of the mess made of the pubs and leisure industry before Christmas when firms were misled into buying festive foods before being slammed into Tier 4. 

There’s little doubt that the cashflow hit in that sorry affair will push many smaller operators to the wall.

In failing to act sharply and fast now, Boris risks letting the new-variant Covid spread, while offering nothing but uncertainty to firms being allowed to remain open.  

That said, hopefully he will address yesterday’s fudge and be clearer in tonight’s press conference.

The markets are rightly pricing in a major recovery later in 2021, but Government dithering will make it all the harder getting there.