"I know that some people will think we should give up, and let the virus take its course, despite the huge loss of life that that would potentially entail. I have to say I profoundly disagree. I don’t think it’s what the British people want. They don’t want to throw in the sponge." Sponge? Int it t'towel tha throws in?
Like yourself, it would in my opinion be downright irresponsible to just let the virus " rip" Orsen. Who has the right to make such a decision.? It could be argued that our Government has got some parts of the process wrong and whilst I could agree with some of their decisions, re- failing to anticipate the likely supply of PPE, their policy of sending infected old folk into Care Homes in deference to hospital, their procrastination over their track and trace policy and their failure to test as many people as they first pledged that they would, were to prove crucial in the eventual infection and death rates. I do however genuinely have some sympathy with the some of the situations that they could have possibly faced. As someone who has had first hand experience of the machinations of Central Government, I can understand why on occasions , they have been slow to react to the rapidly changing demographics of infections and moreover, I can understand why. For three years I represented my Organisation on a working group to attempt to establish a National supply agreement for all Local and Central Government departments to procure their requirements for Gas, Electricity, Coal, Derv, Petrol , Kerosine, Vehicle lubricants and lease cars for Petrol/Diesel and Electric vehicles on tendered National supply contracts. The fact that we failed was not down to the actions of any single individual. It is my view, that our efforts were not helped by the political interference and preference of some the Cabinet Ministers assigned to the task, who from the outset were never going to agree with their adversaries representing the Labour Party. Secondly, the slowness of the decision making process involving Civil Servants and the self interest and selfish preferences demonstrated by some of the delegates was in my view alarming. Given that Public servants should be impartial, as far as I was concerned, I became concerned at the doggedness of some delegates who insisted that their organisations current suppliers should feature in our final decision making process. I later came to understand one blokes insistence of having BG and nPower as two of his suppliers in the mix, when after our efforts were curtailed, he subsequently got an eight year custodial sentence for fraud. The final fault line in our procedure was that the leader of the project was not strong enough to lead our group and did not have a full understanding of what it was we as a group were attempting to achieve. We appear to have some of those elements present now in that those charged with leading the current Covid control project re- Johnson, Hancock etc don't appear to be up to the job and seem to be finding it hard to remember the daily changes and recommendations being agreed for the various parts of the country, which only leads to a lack of trust, confidence and genuine overall credibility in their leadership.
Wowee Donny! Interesting remarks, although I have to say I was simply quoting BS Boris and questioning his use of "sponge" when I think he meant "towel"! FWIW I agree entirely with your last paragraph. Legend has it that Boris was a huge delegator as Mayor of London (letting others do the donkey work) and lent himself purely to the high-profile PR aspects of the job, probably figuring it would do him no harm in his ultimate aim to reach the top. Clearly it worked. Thing is though, you can't run the country like that. The PM must be across all the detail if he/she is going to make any sense of the job. Probably Attlee was the best example of an effective delegator in No.10 but I'm sure he had a thorough grip of the minutiae - unlike Boris. I greatly sympathize with your experiences of the public sector. My part, under local control for much of my career was taken over by the Civil Service in 2005, the effect of which was like a creeping cancer until I was eventually invited to walk away in 2013! As you imply, the wheels that drive these things are slow-moving, highly politicized, and ultimately hugely costly to the taxpayer.
