Meanwhile the Welsh and Scottish authorities tried, as is often their inclination, to bounce the UK government by making statements about their policies for easing lockdown. I've had a quick look at the Scottish statement* and, while it's refreshingly clear that we won't return to the old normal for a long time, it uses a lot of words to say not very much. Oh there's plenty of stuff about the principles they will apply but the only bit of meat I could find in there was this:
We are likely to require that gathering in groups, for example in pubs or at public events, is banned or restricted for some time to come. And good hand hygiene and cough hygiene must become fundamental habits. We cannot afford to have exceptions. Each one of us will have to adapt to this as the new normal, at least until we are sure that we can be more protected by a vaccine or treatment.
Wow, tell us something else we hadn't already long since figured out. I was surprised this announcement didn't produce even more frustration than the UK government's studied silence. It gets a raspberry from me, but then everything Nicola Sturgeon says usually does, while accepting that she is a formidable political operator.
Which is more than I can say for almost any of the Welsh politicians. There have only been two in the five years I've been paying attention who have made any favourable impression on me. Carwyn Jones, who was first minister for 9 years, always came across as competent and assured, until the knives came out after the suicide of Welsh Assembly member Carl Sargeant. Jones was accused of mishandling allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Sargeant. It's never been clear to me that he did anything wrong but it was the first time he ever appeared rattled. The other? Vaughan Gething, the confident and apparently competent Welsh Health Secretary who blotted his copybook the other day by failing to mute his mic and being heard swearing at a Labour colleague in a virtual Welsh Assembly meeting. As the gist of it was "what the ****'s the matter with her?" and it might well have been a stupid question (most of them are) I am hoping he will survive. After all if you've got a problem with Raab, Hancock and Gove you want to see and hear the bunch of underwhelming prats who run Wales.....
Anyway the Welsh administration also mooted that it might make some "careful and controlled, small changes" to the restrictions. Again they didn't say what they might be - they had more questions than answers. Literally, as they posed seven questions to consider before decisions are made:
- Would easing a restriction have a negative effect on containing the virus?
- Does a particular measure pose a low risk of further infection?
- How can it be monitored and enforced?
- Can it be reversed quickly if it creates unintended consequences?
- Does it have a positive economic benefit?
- Does it have a positive impact on people's wellbeing?
- Does it have a positive impact on equality?
Leaving aside the last point as being empty virtue signalling (after all, if it helps most people then should it matter if it doesn't have a positive impact on equality?) there's nothing wrong with this list of questions except, per Monty Python, that they are all statements of the bleedin' obvious.
So the only interesting thing in the Welsh pronouncement for me was personal. It included the concept that the restrictions would be eased in stages "like a traffic light in reverse". The first, red, phase would have few restrictions removed, the amber zone would see more relaxation and only at green would we reach a situation "much more like the lives we had before the crisis hit".
The reason this was interesting for me was simple nostalgia. The "traffic light" red-amber-green concept has become widespread in public and business life, for example in food labelling. It was work colleagues of mine who first persuaded the government to adopt a traffic light system for categorising risks back in the 1990s. As the company provided consultancy and advice to the defence and environment ministries (and probably some others as well) I can't remember what the specific application was though I remember the people. I think they chuckled when I suggested a traffic light approach to some management reports and, when I looked askance they reminded me where it came from. They weren't claiming to have invented the concept - though they would have been in the vanguard of it - just to have promoted its deployment. But as the earliest references to traffic light systems on Wikipedia date from around 2007 and this conversation was definitely several years earlier (I think 2001 and I'd left the company by 2007) I don't doubt their version of events.
While there isn't anything wrong in the Welsh administration's approach, as usual it just doesn't add any particular value. The performance of most Welsh (and I think Scottish) public functions lags England which I suspect can be explained by competence more than scale. The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is responsible for the north Wales NHS and has just distinguished itself by contributing to a blip in the covid-19 death statistics in Wales, having retrospectively reported 84 deaths apparently after realising that they were still reporting monthly rather than daily. This is only the latest in a long line of failings by a body that has been in special measures for 5 years. The best thing that could happen for the Welsh NHS would be for it to abolish itself and hand responsibility to the English NHS.
Anyway, in preparation for deploying its traffic light easing, the BBC reports that Wales has just tightened its restrictions on exercise. It has reverted to discouraging people from driving "any significant distance" to exercise, the English guidance having been clarified as a drive much shorter in time than the period of exercise. If they just want to keep the English out, why not close the border? They say "busy places like parks should be avoided" when the UK government has encouraged local authorities to keep parks open. The point that caught my eye, however, was for cyclists. The Beeb says they should only go "a reasonable walking distance from home" noting that why isn't spelled out but "the rules say an accident a long way from home could put more pressure on the NHS". Eh? If you need to call an ambulance why does it make any difference whether you are near to your home or not?
This is bananas. Personally, having been buzzed many times by cyclists on the dual use north Wales coastal path who seem to feel social distancing doesn't apply to them and often approach at frightening speed from behind, I'd be more worried about cyclists doing laps of their locality. I watched a lady older than me and walking towards me nearly jump out of her skin the other day when a cyclist going in the same direction as her sped past at around 20mph at less than arms length. Motorists are told cyclists are entitled to their wobble so surely walkers are allowed to change direction and go across the path (good job she didn't). Cyclists often complain about motorists buzzing them. What's sauce for the goose....
The Scottish and Welsh administrations seem to spend as much time trying to justify their existence as doing what they were set up to do. They do not bring greater local accountability. Many people in north Wales feel the Cardiff administration is remote and generally irrelevant. And on occasions harmful. The husband of a former Conwy MP died of covid in hospital recently having been admitted to a general ward. His first test sample got lost and he was dead by the time the the result from the second came through. His widow is campaigning that samples should be sent to Liverpool (80 minutes away) rather than Cardiff (4 hours).
We had - still have - a perfectly good method for local government and accountability without devolution and the regional assemblies: they are called councils.
But perhaps the oddest development was the news last night that the government is planning to establish a series of regular meetings with senior medical directors of the major sports in a bid to return to action as soon as possible. It was described as a "quickening of the pace" and intended to help sport resume within weeks "if progress was made". I haven't missed sport as much as I thought I would and I found this news almost depressing. We haven't heard of equivalent discussions in other areas of business and activity, though I accept that doesn't mean they aren't taking place. However, if that's what the government think is most important, we are in real trouble.
* https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/pages/7/
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