Process is the only thing holding government and the public sector together

You’re probably wondering why things don’t seem to be working as they should. Looking back at the Lockdown it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the government are in control of everything that’s been happening and that everything that has happened has been the result of reasoned decision making at the highest levels.

Look more closely and you begin to see the mistakes. The errors in judgement. The key milestones when decisions were taken that have resulted in things for us all taking a turn for the worse.

Without fail, these are the points where decisions have been made where there is no history to reference, where no precedent has been set, where none of the members of the Government have ever had reason to tread or cast a view before.

Where everything else that has taken place has been concerned, the decisions have seemed easy, because there has been a guidebook, a framework, a way of doing things, or what is known as a procedure to address events of these kinds when they take place.

Events that fall outside the scope of procedure or where procedure is outdated or doesn’t cater for the needs of our 21^st Century World require leadership skills that our Politicians and the people that advise them simply do not have. That is where everything to do with Coronavirus and the Lockdown has began to go very wrong.

People who are or have always been insulated from the ways of the world and the life experiences of the governed should never be given the responsibility to govern. Yet that is how the broken British Political system works.

Earlier this week, one of the more in-tune MPs at Westminster, Tory Steve Baker wrote in a Tweet that ‘All our imaginations were unequal to the task of foreseeing the consequences of closing down a large proportion of our economy and society.’

Outside of Parliament and outside of the establishment, at least some were not so blinkered or deficient of the understanding and foresight necessary to know what the Government was about to unleash and how inadequate and destructive the financial remedies would be that like the Lockdown, the Johnson Government imposed by choice.

The reality is that if there had been a procedure in place to address a national crisis of this kind, the provision that was made may well have been better than what elected Politicians have put together when making choices that have illustrated that they are well and truly out of their depth.

As with the off-the-shelf test and trace strategy that they failed to implement, there would have been a risk that they would think better of using it in the heat of the moment. But one can certainly live in hope that that’s what they might have otherwise done.

Instead, the rise of movements of those disenfranchised by the Lockdown and inadequacy of the financial remedies such as #ForgottenLtd and #ExcludedUK illustrate only the tip of the iceberg that exists in relation to the lack of provision and support for people and businesses that were stopped in their tracks and the disparity that exists between what the politicians believe and what is actually going on for people in the world outside Westminster.

When politicians of the level and ability of Steve Baker are putting their hands up and opening admitting that they are not capable of living up to the responsibilities of the jobs which many of them long coveted, it is quite clear that whilst this political class continues to run the Country, as a people, we will continue to be well and truly damned.