Has the pandemic changed the message – as well as the medium of politics?

Whatever complaints may be made about Boris Johnson – and there are many – he is an adept and effective communicator, writes Mary Dejevsky

The configuration of the two houses of parliament, with government and opposition ranged against each other, is akin to the confrontation of two armies (Getty)

As the UK moves towards the end of its latest – and, it is to be hoped, its last – lockdown, you can hear two conflicting views about what awaits.

One is that life will never be the same again; the pandemic has changed everything, forever: we will be warier, less tactile, more family-minded, more inclined to live in the moment. The other is that the strangeness of the past year – good and bad – will melt away; if not overnight, then far more quickly than now seems feasible, and life will soon return to what we remember as “normal”.

Probably, it will be an awkward and unforeseen mixture. But there is one area of life where the prospect of a past gone forever is already being discussed with what seems a special trepidation – and this is our domestic politics.