If there’s one leader who should recognize the historic gravitas of the moment and rise to it with stirring rhetoric matched by action, it’s the man who modeled his political career on Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson.

Instead of offering “blood, toil, tears and sweat,” however, Johnson has sounded more like the Grim Reaper.

“Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time,” he said in a televised address on Friday, insisting that his government has “a clear plan.”

Trouble is, the strategy underlying that plan, dubbed “herd immunity,” appears to have unnerved more people than it has reassured, fueling fears that Johnson has no plan at all.

“The realization has struck No. 10 that Britain has lost control of Covid-19, but it should at least look as though it is doing something,” the Sunday Times concluded.