There’s no one quite like newspapers to try and create a sense of optimism where little exists. Take a look at this front page today of the Metro. “FESTIVALS ARE BACK” screams the front page loudly. Hmm.

I wrote about this yesterday and also on Monday. I’m deeply sceptical that all restrictions will have been removed and that people can gather in big numbers once more. I would obviously love to see it happen, but there is an astronomical amount of work to do between now and then for it to.

Some of the festivals have made the judgement call that they’ll be right. I hope they’re going by their own intuition on this, and not the intuition of the Johnson administration. Johnston said a while ago that he thought we could turn a corner on coronavirus in 12 weeks time.

That was in March last year. Over 11 months later, and only now is palpable progress being made. So when Johnson says big gatherings can resume in 16 weeks, do not meekly take him at his word…