SKETCH: No pub, no club, no fun: hello life as a 1950s housewife

But the President of the US had done it, the Italian Prime Minister, and Scotland’s First Minister, too. The French President was about to do it in a few hours.

For now, in London, it was Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s turn to grip a lectern and give it to us straight about the virus crisis.

Mr Johnson has been here before. Just last week in fact. This time was different. The politician so keen to avoid the media glare during the General Election campaign that he fled into a freezer, had promised to give daily press conferences and this was the first.

At 16.30, Ready Steady Cook was whipped off the stove and Huw Edwards appeared, welcoming viewers to a BBC news special. News at a funny hour: another sign it’s either Christmas or something bad is occurring, like Brexit (oh, happy days!).

After some padding, Edwards cut to the wood-panelled surroundings of Downing Street. As previously the PM was not alone. On the left of the screen was the chief medical officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, and on the right Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser.

The PM referred to them as “Chris” and “Patrick” and the informality did not grate. Given what he was about to say he could have gone further and called them “Uncle Chris” and “Uncle Patrick”, so in need were we of reassurance.

Without drastic action, said Mr Johnson, the UK was looking at a doubling of cases every five to six days. He then proceeded to outline that drastic action. In doing so he conjured up a vision of life with no visits to pubs, clubs, restaurants, cinemas, all those good time joints. Everyone, in short, was going to live like housewives from the 1950s, staring out the window at life.

Worse, whole families would be stuck at home with each other for a fortnight if one of them was ill. Thoughts of Christmas bubbled up again.

The most vulnerable faced the prospect of not going out for 12 weeks except to exercise.

The PM called this process “shielding”. It sounded more like house arrest. “This is far more now than washing your hands,” said the PM. If the understatement of the year competition is open I think we have an early winner.

It was time for questions. Shouldn’t the UK be going further? When was testing going to be stepped up? What if people refused to comply with advice?

Time and again, Mr Johnson stressed that he did not believe compulsion would be necessary. We were a grown up, liberal democracy, he said.

There speaks a man who has clearly not been to a supermarket this weekend.

The Herald’s Westminster editor, Michael Settle, was next with the microphone. The cameras stayed trained on the trio at the front so you could not see the journalists. In some cases this was a blessing, but obviously not in the case of our Magic Mike.

Given the importance of clear communication and instilling trust, he said, would the UK Government be trying harder to be in lockstep with the Scottish Government? “Very good” point said the PM, adding there had just been a “very good” discussion at Cobra with everyone on the same page. Very good. We shall see how long that lasts.

After more than an hour, Mr Johnson said it was time to wrap things up. There would be plenty more opportunities to ask questions in the days to come, he added. I think we are going to need them.

“I’ll see you all tomorrow,” said the Prime Minister. This was no “good night and good luck” sign off in the manner of the American broadcaster Ed Murrow, but it might as well have been.

The news bulletins scrambled to assemble their health reporters and politics correspondents in a bid to make sense of it all.

Outside on a rainy Downing Street pavement, ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, said he had been told that if in a few weeks’ time the advice was not being heeded, criminal penalties would come into play.

It was a perfect moment to throw your hands in the air in despair and head to the pub.

Dang.