UK coronavirus chaos continues as Johnson lurches from crisis to crisis

THE United Kingdom has long been known for competent, stable government with the "Westminster model" of parliamentary democracy widely influential round the world. Yet, the response of Boris Johnson's administration to the coronavirus crisis risks going from bad to worse, tarnishing the UK's reputation internationally in the process.

Even top Conservatives are furious with Mr Johnson's handling of the pandemic. Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill's grandson, for instance, said last month that the current UK Cabinet is the weakest in the almost four decades since he entered Parliament.

Most recently, the Johnson government's incompetence has been manifested in a fiasco over end-of-year student grading. In a different era, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is likely to have resigned after the government embraced a flawed computer algorithm to "predict" test results rather than relying on teacher assessments which, while imperfect too, are more suited to the task in hand in the absence of exams (that have been cancelled).