Our broken kingdom and broken government must be fixed now

This top-of-our-risk-register coronavirus crisis will have taken a dreadful, and largely avoidable, human toll by the time it fades away or we have learnt to live with it, as we do with seasonal flu every year. As I wrote in a previous article, the long-term social and economic repercussions of this global pandemic will be on a major war scale of impact. 

Some potentially good news to offset the gloom is that coronavirus may turn out to have saved the Union and to have instigated a root and branch rebooting of our crisis management machinery of government, which has proved to be woefully unfit for 21st-century purpose.

Just as we have needed to come together in an unprecedented, combined effort to fight this viral invasion, we have witnessed some appalling teamwork between Westminster, the devolved nations, and various cities regions. Some politicians have milked the crisis for their own political ends and in some cases, and with effective public communications, have put up two fingers to the common good. 

A former, very senior, military commander told me “I dare not even think how we might deal with a real crisis, watching the panic and shambolic reaction to this situation”. Our world is getting more dangerous. War, conflict, natural disasters, as well as new viruses are on the increase. It is therefore urgent and imperative that we transform our crisis machinery of government and learn from the numerous lessons that coronavirus will have taught us. A useful historical analogy is the reforms put in place following the disasters of the Boer War, which so fortunately prepared the Army and the whole government machinery of war prior to 1914.

The overriding pattern of our government level response, to date, is to be slow to grasp the likely course and impacts of this dynamic, fast-moving emergency and to implement decisive action in time. As many experts and commentators have said, we need to go from being always behind the virus to getting in front of it.

The 10-point plan below will be my first input into the post-Covid Royal Commission enquiry with reference to the machinery of government. Had I been asked for my recommendations in September this would have been my “To Do List”. If it turns out that we are not – as we all hope – in the final sprint of the Covid marathon before the vaccines release us from lockdown around Easter time, then my advice is to “Action ASAP”. 

1. Declare a temporary state of public health extreme national emergency and unite and mobilise “all necessary resources” across our four nations in order to suppress and get ahead of the virus.
2.  Shift to bespoke public health/wartime machinery of government to mobilise all the available thinking power and to improve and harmonise decision-making and get every level of government and the bureaucracies coming together.
3.  Bring Keir Starmer into the Covid (“war”) cabinet for the duration of the emergency to demonstrate that “politics as normal” is temporarily suspended and to give the clearest signal that no stone will be left unturned at this critical moment.
4.  Activate the Joint Ministerial Committee at leader level (chaired by the Prime Minister) and get the four nations and major cities working properly together in emergency mode; make a much needed change of culture to harmonise decision-making and public messaging.
5. Above SAGE and underneath the Covid cabinet establish a high level multi-disciplinary Net Assessment Committee with permanent core membership to include, for example, a former chief scientific adviser, a respected elder statesman, a former chief of defence staff and temporary “as required” membership from across the relevant scientific disciplines and sectors of the economy.
6. Set up a Covid Essential Business Advisory Committee and networks so that the CEOs of key businesses and major sector stakeholders can be involved and consulted in emergency and fast-track decision-making.
7.  Establish a Covid Innovation Committee to root out the best ideas and brains and help accelerate game-changing ideas and products, such as much more effective face masks and air conditioning filters.
8. Do the really difficult and unthinkable thinking and forward planning. Government and key departments seem to have lacked the bandwidth to do all the necessary forward thinking. In the health department leave the Secretary of State to deal with the current Covid wave and normal day-to-day business and bring in a big-hitting deputy to drive future and potential worst case planning. Task the Chief of Defence staff to “red team” across the whole of government UK’s Covid performance reporting directly to the Prime Minister, and integrate military planners, logistic and others experts into key positions as required.
9.  Mobilise capacity to get ahead of this virus and to be prepared to face further worst case developments. Appoint a mobilisation ‘supremo’ and shift gear to emergency volunteer recruitment and training of 50,000 auxiliary nursing and medical support roles. Place the emphasis on under-30-year-olds and incentivise them with advantageous full career opportunities. Implement similar schemes for care staff. Draft in thousands of former teachers who will volunteer part time to give extra tuition to children most in need. Develop much more effective partnerships across the private and charity sectors and make more imaginative use of the vast army of citizens who have volunteered during this crisis.
10. Give Tony Blair a big role. He has been the stand-out elder statesman of this crisis, fizzing with good ideas. His leadership, experience, networks, and willingness to serve should be grabbed with both hands.

If this Government is to salvage a reputation for competence in its handling of this health pandemic and social and economic catastrophe it has to get on the front foot. Muddling on in normal machinery of government mode for too long has proved disastrous.

The big departments of state are staffed mainly by policy-makers and administrators. They do not have the people, training, or experience to flick to rare extreme crisis mode. Even the Ministry of Defence recognised its limitations and established an operational joint headquarters to run all its operations and crises a quarter of a century ago. Hence, we need a mix of the new permanent and temporary bespoke crisis machinery bodies and networks outlined above.

A root problem is that the Government has continued throughout to see this crisis as a short-term issue. It is not. The public health and social and economic impacts of coronavirus make it a major long-term problem. If we had gone onto a war footing and united and mobilised all resources from across our four nations at the outset we might have avoided this largely self-induced catastrophe. We must now be brutally honest and learn from many of the Covid lessons so painfully learnt, so that akin to after the Boer War analogy, we can rebuild the team and become match fit for whatever other crises and extreme emergencies come our way. 

We have to become more resilient to face a more dangerous future. A four-way split of our Kingdom, which has risen higher up the ladder with Covid, would turbo-charge the risks and costs involved. A re-imagined new federal Union that delivers the sum of the parts across our four nations will provide much greater resilience in future extreme emergencies, war, and pandemics.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.