If Monday’s Downing Street press conference had been a jug, and the tortured metaphors had been water, the cleaners at No 10 would have needed to get the mops out afterwards. Here’s a selection of the most strained analogies served up by Boris Johnson and the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jonathan Van-Tam: Johnson We have talked for a long time, or I have, about the distant bugle of the scientific cavalry coming over the brow of the hill. And tonight that toot of the bugle is louder. But it is still some way off. Van-Tam This is like … getting to the end of the play-off final, it’s gone to penalties, the first player goes up and scores goal. You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does is it tells you that the goalkeeper can be beaten. Johnson Mass testing and the vaccine are vital arrows in our epidemiological quiver. Van-Tam We’ve seen the swallow but this is very much not the summer. It would be a colossal mistake for any of us to relax at this point. Johnson I remain buoyantly optimistic about the prospects of this country next year. I just don’t want to let people run away with the idea that this development is today is necessarily a home run, a slam dunk, a shot to the back of the net, yet. Van-Tam This, to me, is like a train journey where you’re standing on the station – it’s wet, windy, it’s horrible – and two miles down the tracks, two lights appear and it’s the train. And it’s a long way off. We’re at that point at the moment. That’s the efficacy result. Then we hope the train slows down safely to get in to the station. That the safety data. And then the train stops. And at that point the doors don’t open. The guard has to make sure it’s safe to open the doors. That’s the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], that’s the regulator. And, when the doors open, I hope there’s not an unholy scramble for the seats. The JCVI [joint committee on vaccination and immunisation] has very clearly said which people are going to need the seats most and they are the ones who should get on the train first.