COVID: Why Didn't Boris, the Great Delegator, Delegate?
Boris Johnson was editor of The Spectator between 1999 and 2005. As a regular listener to their
Coffee House Shots podcast, I frequently hear the magazine’s current political editor -
James Forsyth - describe Boris as the “great delegator”. He provides the light touch strategic direction at the top, with a bit of turning up late mixed with a limited understanding of detail thrown in for good measure. This great delegator narrative is the conservative fanboys and girls' interpretation of Boris’ aloof leadership style.
If only it were true. I believe a world exists where Boris could have worked half as hard and been widely viewed as a hero, or at least a highly competent leader. The trick? Depoliticising something that never should have been political and using the precision and discipline of the military to tackle a disease that requires both.
The far-right, the right, the centre, the left, and the far-left never talk about the inflation target or interest rates. I’m sure there are some fringe actors that do, but I have never seen the topics raised on a political forum or trend on Twitter. We just accept both as part of the apolitical background noise of life. A decision of a target rate and a strategy to achieve it set out and voted upon by a panel of highly qualified individuals to enable that aspect of economic life to function in a sensible space.
I see no reason why COVID should be any different. Just like inflation, COVID is not a political choice. Instead, it is an ugly and uninvited part of everyone’s reality. There are rates associated with it: the number of infections per hundred thousand people in an area and the associated R rate, and - like inflation - if these rates get too far out of line, normal life falls apart.
The great delegator could have viewed COVID in these terms and removed himself from the equation of early and late decisions. The UK already conducts wide-scale community sampling of COVID cases; these could have been scaled up as the central component of a localised rate managing strategy. If an area breaches the threshold [e.g. 20 cases per 100,000 population], clear scientifically grounded restrictions swing into place.
And if scientists were in charge, think how effective our restrictions might be at this stage. The UK led the world in discovering treatments for COVID [
Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug]. With scientists deciding on localised methods of COVID control we would no doubt have made progress through systematic experimentation. Perhaps a rapid closure of schools was the missing key, or perhaps it was not. We would know the answer to this question and many more, potentially providing the world with the gold standard of how to stop a localised COVID outbreak.
Those that sit on the inflation controlling Monetary Policy Committee have the powerful tool of interest rates at their disposal. The world of money requires little physical energy to control as it mainly exists in an intangible realm - on screens and in a bank’s computer servers. Because of this, a change of interest rates has a fairly systematic trickle-down effect with little manual effort required, nudging the UK back on course if it looks as if we are drifting from it. Those on my imaginary COVID Policy Committee have no such luck. COVID is a frustratingly physical problem. Invisible to the naked eye and down to every individual to manage themselves given the realities of their situation - e.g., housing conditions, job, family members to care for, etc. The COVID Policy Committee need a tool to use that fits with the tangible nature of the disease.
We have that tool and it is the British Army. Understandably there is always some resistant to using the army in peacetime, but I think there is a strong case here. COVID is a new and significant force that society has to contend with. It is an
excess force. Our traditional society preserving forces (Police, Fire Brigade, and so on) are used to dealing with a non-COVID world. It is not obvious that they have the capacity to manage the non-COVID world, that doesn’t go away just because COVID is here, with added COVID responsibilities on top. Adding a new force, the British Army, to our backdrop of daily-life forces makes sense when something as disruptive as COVID has been added too.
The army’s duty would be to enact and police the suggested methods of the CPC [COVID Policy Committee]. And they are the force to do it; being the most deft of all our national forces when it comes to achieving technically challenging outcomes in the physical world. The army could work with the NHS to
really track cases, and enforce
and support isolation efforts. Does your family need food?
Bam, it’s there. Sneaking out after a positive COVID test? Oh no, you’re not.
While there would be some that would abhor the army’s presence on our streets, I think it - combined with the scientifically led CPC - is the most politically unifying solution out there. The right love the army, its patriotism and its authority. The left and moderates love a sensible COVID minimising strategy. A reasonable balance of emotions from my point of view.
But that is not the world we live in. Instead, Boris, the delegator, is in control - the result being that it is no surprise that COVID in our country is out of it.
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