'Over by Christmas'

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Given the latest statement by the PM that it will all be over by Christmas, this report on 19^th March (a mere 17 weeks ago) claiming that he had said that the virus would be “sent packing” in 12 weeks must obviously have been fake news. Either that, or it took place in an alternative reality (perhaps the same one which Matt Hancock inhabits in which the lockdown started on 16^th March rather than the 23^rd). But given his predilection for history, especially of the war variety, perhaps the PM has accidentally been almost semi-honest. The last time something was all going to be ‘over by Christmas’ it actually lasted another 4 years and cost 20 million lives, almost a million of them from the UK. With his, at best, passing relationship with the truth anyway, the allusion to the phrase ‘over by Christmas’ might just be an inadvertent revelation of a rather more ominous expectation.