Despite having slept on it, I still can't quite believe that the PM has incinerated his own & his government's moral authority at a time of grievous national crisis, when moral authority is the single most effective weapon he has in the fight to bring the crisis to an end.

What messages now on how we should behave to combat the virus will the Government be able to put without people sniggering at them?

I've really sought to be fair to politicians who have been struggling to handle a crisis that I know, if I were responsible for it, would leave me paralysed by indecision, panic & exhaustion - but it feels like the Prime Minister has sawn his own government off at the knees.

There've been incompetent governments, who've done incompetent things - but I can't think of any government that has taken a blowtorch to its own credibility quite like this. And at a time of such crisis! The worst mistake I can think of by any government in my lifetime.

(I just hope I'm over-reacting.)