Voting for the UK to return to a national lockdown earlier this month was one of the hardest choices I have ever had to make as an MP.

It must be stressed that we do not currently face a choice between lockdown or no lockdown. The choice in policy terms that faces us is whether to continue with local and regional lockdowns or move to a national one.

I wish I was writing about something other than Coronavirus, which I have touched on to some degree in each of my last few columns.

I entirely understand that many people are frustrated that over half a year since full lockdown we have heard much of that word again, at a time when many are understandably tiring of the situation.

In a matter of days something should be happening that has occurred at around this time of every year of my life, and probably every year of most readers’ lifetimes – schools throwing open their doors again after the summer break.

Until the Coronavirus lockdown I had spent my entire five years as an MP talking about unemployment going in one direction: down.

Regular testing for NHS staff

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing in this column about the need to ‘stay at home’ at the height of the pandemic. That was around Easter, as lockdown became all embracing, and even a vague sense of ‘normality’ returning seemed very distant indeed.

I appreciate that some readers may have been confused when the Prime Minister recently made his Sunday broadcast switching our principal instructive slogan from ‘stay home’ to ‘stay alert’.

On Tuesday I received an email of historic proportions from the Speaker of the House of Commons, informing me that we were likely to meet as a ‘virtual Parliament’ next week.