We all need a lifting-of-lockdown timetable

If Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, thinks it's ok to start talking about how lockdown might be lifted, why on earth is the government south of the border so adamantly opposed to doing any such thing. The UK government has come up with its five-point plan - why are all government plans five-pointed? - which basically stipulate what criteria have to be met before any restrictions can be lifted. But that doesn't give us any idea or any hope of when things might get better. Sturgeon has grasped the nettle, saying that we are all grown-ups and need to be told what is planned so we can start charting the rest of our lives. I think that is sensible. But Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, who has got the toughest job right now, has cast aside the Sturgeon approach. It's wrong, he says, because it's too early to raise people's hopes. But that is exactly the point, Mr Hancock. We need our hopes and expectations raised. Not in three months time but now, today. He is scared at the thought that if he and his cabinet colleagues - and Boris once he is back in Downing Street - talk too early about coming out of lockdown in, say, mid-to-late June or by July, and a second wave of Covid-19 snatches thousands of more lives, they will be blamed. Well of course that's a risk. But we cannot rely totally on the advice of the government medical and scientific advisers because on the whole they are all so cautious they would prefer us to stay locked in our houses for another year or two. That can't happen. Apart from the irreparable damage to the economy and our living standards, a really long lockdown willl destroy everyone's spirits, harm marriages and make grandparents weep for their grandchildren. So Nicola Sturgeon is right. Give us some hope, Matt Hancock, and stop listening so devotedly to those doing all the worst-case scenario computer modelling. Boris is cautious too which is understandable because he had a horrid personal experience and is still recovering. But Boris is basically a bold sort of politician and now we need his boldness more than ever. Give us a Sturgeon-like timetable.