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From 24th July it will become compulsory to wear a face mask in shops in England. It is clear that a mask helps to contain the dispersion of the Covid-19 virus and so will help to suppress

the rate of reinfection. But why has the government waited until this moment to produce a regulation that’s enforceable with a £100 fine? Since lockdown ended, No 10 has seemed happy for

people in England to walk around without masks. It has even allowed pubs to re-open, a place where wearing a mask is practically impossible. But we now face the absurd situation in which

pub-goers are not obliged to cover up, but people in supermarkets are. The unavoidable conclusion is that England’s new rule has come into force too late. Spain, Germany and other countries

— including Scotland — already have strictures in place about face coverings. No 10 is playing catch-up again. It was one of the last European governments to introduce lockdown, holding out

against the inevitable, when other countries were taking precautions. That decision to delay lockdown cost thousands of lives. And now No 10 has been late again over face masks. The Prime

Minister’s chief aide has managed to build himself a reputation as a visionary, forward-thinking type. But in actual, practical terms, it seems that Dominic Cummings is unable to think very

far forward at all. The decisions that have emerged from No 10 have been those of men caught in the headlights of circumstance — ill thought-out and, in the case of Covid-19, lethal. But

slowly, Cummings and Johnson have caught up with global opinion. As a result, the government has now moved from ambivalence about face masks to arguing that they will reduce the risk of

infection and will save lives. In which case, why not introduce the rule immediately? Why wait ten days? And if masks do offer such a degree of protection, why wasn’t the rule introduced

weeks if not months ago? George Eustice, the Environment Secretary explained the delay in an interview with BBC Breakfast, arguing that advice from the WHO on masks had been “evolving”. It

was an answer so weak as to be almost meaningless. Does the government really maintain that there was scientific equivocation on the efficiency of masks in protecting people from Covid-19?

If so, why did it spend such colossal sums on protective equipment for the NHS? Everyone has known all along that masks are effective and yet No 10 has held off making them compulsory

presumably for the same reason it dithered over introducing lockdown — the Prime Minister is a pathological optimist. He never took the threat seriously, and thought a healthy dose of

bullishness would see Britain through. But Johnson was wrong. It didn’t work like that. What was required then is also what is required now — not a blithe dismissal of the threat, but a

clear-headed willingness to confront circumstances as they really are. This is a bad rule, poorly thought-out, introduced months too late by a government that has no idea what it’s doing. It

will apply to people shopping in Tesco, but not to those in the pub, or the Costa, or the chippy. Quite simply, the obligation to wear a mask in one place is made pointless by people’s

ability to go bare-faced elsewhere. The back bench rebellion over Huawei and its role in our national infrastructure makes clear that Conservative MPs are not afraid of No 10. Johnson may

well have a decent majority, but he won it in a contest with Jeremy Corbyn — hardly much of an opponent. The economy has shrunk 24.5 per cent since February and the government is starting to

drift towards a no deal Brexit. The facemask mess is a sign of that drift and indicative of a government that’s losing its grip.