Johnson loves science when he can crow about Britain. When it demands facts, he’s less keen | Rafael Behr

He claims he wanted to be a scientist. One shudders to think what his fraudulent character might have unleashed in a lab

This time last year there was no Covid vaccine and none was imminent. Today, about 43 million Britons - 80% of the UK adult population - have had a dose. The ordeal is far from over, but this will be the crux of the story when future generations narrate Britain's pandemic: the virus brought fear and death; science replied with vaccines and hope.

The associated political debates will go on in the margins. The jabs may have transformed Boris Johnson's poll ratings, but that reflects a feelgood factor, which is not bankable. It cannot be deployed later in the year if voters feel bad about something else. The significance of the smooth vaccine rollout to the prime minister's longer-term reputation depends on whether it is a late bloom of sustained administrative competence or, as seems likelier, a fluke, to be followed by a resumption of 2020-style disarray and prevarication.