B oris Johnson and Matt Hancock “ignored warnings from scientists and lost a crucial five weeks in the fight to tackle the coronavirus”, claimed The Sunday Times. This is a serious allegation, of failings that the newspaper said “may have cost thousands of lives”, and it goes with the grain of public opinion, which supports the government’s measures but thinks they should have happened sooner.

But is it true? Ministers were certainly furious about it, and Hancock posted a point-by-point response on his department’s website. This was unusual enough, but what was striking was the tone of this document, which read in parts like an angry blog or a Twitter thread.