Boris Johnson will be judged on the next four weeks. That prospect should frighten him | Jonathan Freedland

The British public are being patient over the coronavirus crisis, but they will not forgive governmental confusion for ever

Boris Johnson and his government are on probation, watched by a public whose mood could turn rapidly and brutally. For now, and on paper, Johnson has the people with him: his poll ratings have surged north of 50%, a feat last managed by a Tory government at the height of the Falklands war nearly 40 years ago. But the wisest heads in Downing Street will not be turned by those numbers. They know that there's always a "rally around the flag" effect at moments of extreme crisis: when citizens are frightened, they want to believe their leaders have got things under control. That's why incumbents around the world, even useless and immoral ones such as Donald Trump, have enjoyed an initial corona bounce in their ratings, almost regardless of their actions. At the start of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 Jimmy Carter saw his approval numbers leap from 32% to 61% - only for him to crash to defeat a year later. Johnson will know that one day, and perhaps quite soon, he, too, will be judged.

He can point to some concrete achievements. The opening today of what is a giant field hospital in east London's ExCeL centre, constructed within nine days, is the prime example. Those who drooled with totalitarian envy at China's ability to throw up a hospital in Wuhan within a week were adamant that a western democracy like Britain could never match that accomplishment, and they have been proved wrong. Rishi Sunak's promise that the state will pay 80% of workers' wages has won plaudits around the world, even if the chancellor has had to return repeatedly to his economic rescue package, tweaking it to catch those groups he left behind first time around. And the government has imposed a national lockdown that has been largely observed, one that might even see a flattening of the infection curve in the next week or so.