Andy Richardson: The real brains behind the operation is revealed

And yet the blonde bombshell – that’s Pollard, not BoJo – was the brains behind Mr Johnson’s address to the nation on Sunday.

As all around the UK, workers, employers and unions struggle to get to grips with what they should and should not do, we can exclusively reveal that Pollard had been giving BoJo tips.

Her initial advice was this: Go to work, don’t go to work, stay at home, don’t stay at home, get public transport, don’t get public transport.

BoJo, the nation’s leading Winston Churchill Tribute Act, channelled his inner Vicky to deliver an address that created more questions than it answered. As the Government produced a graph that was wrong – I could explain why but most people switch off when you use the words ‘inverse’, ‘R number’ and ‘flawed axis’ in one sentence – the nation sighed and asked itself these questions: What does it mean? Are our building sites, factories and offices fit for physical distancing? Is the coffee machine safe?

‘We’re being led by the science’ has been our Government’s mantra since the outbreak of Covid-19. No they haven’t, they’ve been led by Vicky Pollard. But it’s probably worth assessing what the science tells us.

More Covid-19 coverage:

• Updates from across the Black Country & Staffordshire

• Updates from across Shropshire & Mid Wales

Dr Ami Jones, an Army Officer and medical consultant from Wales, has produced her own graph. Unlike the Government one from Sunday, it’s correct. It shows that the UK has 6.6 deaths per million from Covid-19. Another scientist, Sir David Spiegelhalter, says the real figure is higher as not all deaths are recorded. That places us on top of the world – or, if you’re an NHS worker, care worker, victim or one of the tens of millions facing a grim lockdown, at the bottom of the world.

We have a worse death rate than the super-liberal, let’s-take-no-precautions Swedes and are three times ahead of the so-what Brazilians and their BBQ-loving, hand-shaking, waterski-riding, Trump-Lite leader Jair Bolsonaro. Yikes.

The British public has been remarkably forgiving of the Government as it has succumbed to the world’s worst outbreak of Covid-19. That mood of forbearance and forgiveness is unlikely to last if they get this next stage wrong. It’s in our ambit to avoid a second wave. There’ll be no excuses if we don’t.