We don’t need Covid passports or rules that make no sense — we just need our PM to trust us

AS lockdown begins to lift, we get an idea of what the post-Covid world is going to look like. 

And as this strange new world emerges, we all have to work out what we are willing to put up with — and what we are not.

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This week has seen a good test case, with the row over so-called .

Over recent months the Government have gone back and forth over whether we should need any such thing to go about what used to be our normal lives.

And the political struggle is not just between vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi and the Prime Minister.

There seems to be a struggle going on within the Prime Minister himself.

For Boris Johnson is clearly deeply torn over what kind of society we are going to be as we emerge blinking into the light.

Will we be a country in which the citizenry have to produce evidence of our Covid-cleanliness before going about our daily lives?

Or will we be a country in which people make their own calculations about risk?

The liberal in the Prime Minister clearly wants as few restrictions as possible. The pragmatist wants to do whatever is necessary to get businesses up and running again as soon as possible.

As a result, the Government are veering wildly.

In February, Mr Zahawi said the UK is not looking at a vaccine passport for activities within our country, which he said were “discriminatory”. 

While admitting that some kind of document might be needed in order to go back to foreign travel, the minister concluded: “We are not planning to have a passport in the UK.”

SOME OBVIOUS AND FUNDAMENTAL FLAWS

But then the Government changed. Not only were vaccine passports within the UK being considered, the spectre was raised of whether or not we would need a vaccine passport for the most basic enjoyments.

Would we need one to go to a restaurant? Would we need one before being allowed to buy a pint in a pub?

Surely not. It seems impossible to imagine. A Britain with airport-style scanners at the entrance to the beer garden?

Sure enough, last month it seemed that pub landlords would indeed be able to turn customers away if they did not show the right documents.

Now, after a backlash, the Government have announced this will not be the case, and that we will be allowed to go to pubs and restaurants without showing evidence of our vaccine status.

Yet even as things are meant to be getting clearer, they become as murky as a bad pint.

There seems to be some emerging agreement that we should have to provide evidence of our vaccine status before we are allowed to travel abroad. And that seems fair enough.

Other countries will want to make sure British holiday-makers are not carrying Covid into their countries, just as we will want to know that people coming to the UK are not bringing old or new variants of the virus here.

This is not new ground. Many countries already require a certificate of vaccination against yellow fever.

But what will the rules be inside our country as it opens up? At present, the Government are considering passports as a requirement for entering large gatherings, concerts and football matches, for instance. 

Yet little of this makes sense. Putting aside the numerous issues about what those who, for whatever reason, cannot have the vaccine will do, there are some very obvious fundamental flaws.

You do not want to give the Government any new ideas here, but how do people get to football matches or stadium concerts? They go by public transport.

And currently no one is talking about people being forced to show their documents before getting on a bus or a train.

So everybody could be packed on to a train going to the match, only then to be forced to show their papers when they get to the stadium. Where is the sense in that?

Clearly the Government only reversed their pubs and restaurants decision because of the backlash from the public, as much as from landlords.

And again you do not want to give anyone any ideas, but what is the difference in risk between, say, a tightly packed pub and a sparsely filled stadium? There are plenty of terraces that are less packed than the local pub.

These are just some of the oddities in what the Government are now considering. And it falls apart on any analysis. There will just be too many inconsistencies. Too many things that don’t make rational sense. And as a result, the public could well lose trust in the whole policy.

These are fine judgments for any government to make. But the best passport back to a normal life is simply the vaccine itself. 

This country has had a great success in the rollout. And after the vaccine has been made available to all the vulnerable groups, we have to be allowed to trust ourselves again.

The world is full of risks. And as we go through our lives we all work out what level of risk we are comfortable with. Covid will become no different from these.

The Prime Minister should not just trust his own instincts. He should trust the British public. We can take it from here.