Getting to the top of the class

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One of the politer descriptions of yesterday’s ‘discussions’ between the UK Government and politicians in Manchester was ‘absolute sh*tshow’, as various details emerged. It seems that the government’s attempts to shift the blame for lockdown restrictions onto local politicians bully local politicians into accepting new restrictions failed mightily when those politicians – including all the city’s Tory MPs – pushed back. It was a strange type of unity with Tories opposing any restrictions on principle (apparently they’d prefer to allow more people to die of Covid than infringe the freedom of others to infect them) and Labour demanding proper financial support for businesses forced to close and their employees, but unity was had nevertheless.

It finally provoked the English Health Secretary into firm decisive action. But not to stop it being a sh*tshow, nor to prevent future sh*tshows from happening. No, instead of either of those things, he announced that he was setting up a leak inquiry, to find out who told the world about this particular sh*tshow. The problem, it seems, is not the government’s numerous and repeated failings, it’s that people are revealing them. We see the same regularly from his leader (a term which can only be applied very loosely to Boris Johnson), when he berates the opposition for drawing attention to the problems instead of wholeheartedly backing the government and taking their share of the blame for government actions. To the world king, the job of the opposition is not to scrutinise, let alone oppose, government actions and policies but to support them enthusiastically and heap world-beating praise upon him.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Wales has thrown his own twopenn’orth into the debate about travel restrictions, claiming that it will cause confusion and division. He seems to be one of those Tories who fully support devolution and the right of the Welsh government to make its own decisions, subject only to the proviso that it makes the same decisions as the English government. I find it hard to see what can possibly be confusing or divisive about a simple requirement that people living in an area of high Covid prevalence subject to restrictions on what they can and can’t do should be temporarily prevented from travelling into an area of low prevalence, potentially carrying the infection with them. It’s what most of us would call ‘common sense’. Then I remembered that we are dealing with a politician who is easily confused. I seem to recall him having some difficulty understanding the difference between Al Qaeda and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In fairness to Mark Drakeford, drawing up regulations which will not confuse even the wilfully obtuse is an impossible ask.

We do indeed have a world-class government in London at the moment, but it’s in the remedial class. It’s unrealistic to expect any government to be best at everything, so any government has to choose its specialist subject. Incompetence is a very brave choice, but it may not be as daft as it looks. It’s easier to come top if there's less competition.