| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 09:05 - Aug 12 with 1471 views | Steve_M |
It covers everything so should catch most people's priors. I'm not sure I agree with absolutely everything here but it's well worth a read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-cor
From my perspective, it stands to reason that spending a decade hollowing out the state for ideological reasons is going to have a detrimental impact, as is packing a cabinet with people selected for their ideological conformity rather than intelligence and competence.
The imbalance in the UK economy between a wealthy southeast and many poorer peripheral reasons remains a major problem, one unlikely to be enhanced by Brexit, indeed London and the South East will probably cope better than elsewhere, relatively speaking of course. And that's before considering the lack of attention being paid to the end of the transition period in December.
Still, look over there:
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| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 10:11 - Aug 12 with 1387 views | monytowbray |
Whenever you raise these points the bar is continually lowered to justify it by their supporters.
We laugh at MERICA but we have our own political cult who love to defend anything the Tories do as justified or out of their control.
It’s funny as most these people I’ve encountered could justify someone on minimum wage being sacked for lesser cock ups. |  |
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| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 10:20 - Aug 12 with 1364 views | hype313 |
What an outstanding, thought provoking, sobering read.
It just echoes the issues we have faced for many years, in that our successive governments are only interested in the 5 years they are in power for, rather than long term structural change.
Polls, think tanks, MSM are all attributing to our Achilles heal which is many departments across the board need complete overhauls. We are not the best when it comes to many things and the sooner we wake up and realise this the better.
It's well worth grabbing a coffee and spending 15-20 minutes reading this, thanks Steve. |  |
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| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 12:20 - Aug 12 with 1285 views | Darth_Koont |
| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 10:20 - Aug 12 by hype313 |
What an outstanding, thought provoking, sobering read.
It just echoes the issues we have faced for many years, in that our successive governments are only interested in the 5 years they are in power for, rather than long term structural change.
Polls, think tanks, MSM are all attributing to our Achilles heal which is many departments across the board need complete overhauls. We are not the best when it comes to many things and the sooner we wake up and realise this the better.
It's well worth grabbing a coffee and spending 15-20 minutes reading this, thanks Steve. |
Agreed. A very important piece that touches on many areas of concern.
In Covid-19's own terms, we're an elderly, weak country with significant underlying health issues that couldn't shield itself. That we have significant wealth in the country (but largely nominal wealth as it's not actively used in society) makes not a jot of difference to the virus.
The short-termism and the lack of a plan is as you say central to to the problem. I'd also add that's been made possible by our ridiculous obsession with looking at real-world issues through the prism of politics as we are wont to do in the UK and US in particular.
I think we've gone way too far with blanket news coverage of politicians' and pundits' utterances on every aspect of society. Often those utterances are really about other things entirely i.e. more political/ideological positioning and the underlying issue is obscured or misrepresented as a result.
I always think about the Toyota Production System principle of Genchi Genbutsu - which is to ensure that when you look at a problem or opportunity you're looking at the real thing and the real facts before making a decision. As much as anything so that you can get consensus that it's the right way to go.
As a government and society, we seem to run on a politically inspired "feels not reals" basis so it's little wonder that we're not properly prepared for reality, don't handle it well when real stuff happens and don't know where we're going with it. But after one or two terms of government it's normally someone else's problem by then so who cares?
That's possibly where I disagree most with the author as there's a suggestion that more political leadership from Johnson would have made the situation better. And that there's a progressive aspect to that politics that wants to reform and repair society. I think he's over-egging that massively. Johnson, his advisers and their politics are as hollowed out as the society that elected them, which is where a slavish devotion to the game of politics leaves us all. |  |
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| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 14:30 - Aug 12 with 1213 views | Swansea_Blue |
I can't remember where it was know, but there was an interesting piece early on in the lockdown at how the culture of efficiency stripped us of the ability to cope. Efficiency savings started decades ago, compounded by a brutal Tory austerity period of the last decade, stripped away all our spare capacity to deal with the unexpected. And more lately also stripped away our specific preparedness for pandemics.
It's a perfect storm really: years of underinvestment, contingency planning stopped/scaled back and then bodged management/messaging when the virus hit.
I'll have a read of that article now, cheers. |  |
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| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 18:49 - Aug 12 with 1133 views | eireblue |
| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 14:30 - Aug 12 by Swansea_Blue |
I can't remember where it was know, but there was an interesting piece early on in the lockdown at how the culture of efficiency stripped us of the ability to cope. Efficiency savings started decades ago, compounded by a brutal Tory austerity period of the last decade, stripped away all our spare capacity to deal with the unexpected. And more lately also stripped away our specific preparedness for pandemics.
It's a perfect storm really: years of underinvestment, contingency planning stopped/scaled back and then bodged management/messaging when the virus hit.
I'll have a read of that article now, cheers. |
One analogy that may sink in, I was watching a while back one of those programmes on special forces.
The British forces were basically having a laugh/go at the Americans, and there ability in the field when things went wrong.
The Americans were all very ripped, just like in the movies, the British forces were carrying a few extra pounds, a bit like midfielder, that likes his food, after a long summer break.
The issue being when stuff went wrong, and the troops had to do a bit of more running about for longer than expected, the American forces couldn’t keep up.
In-efficiency is the spare capacity that you may need.
Reducing in-efficiency through privatisation is giving money to people that won’t solve a crisis. |  | | |
| Good long read on Britain's failures over Covid-19 on 19:30 - Aug 12 with 1102 views | Dubtractor |
Well that has depressed me. Cheers Steve. |  |
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