Coronavirus - how has the UK done? (Part 2)

          This is part two of a blog on the result, the outcomes as best we can measure at the moment of how our government has responded to the developing Coronavirus pandemic. If you haven’t read the first part, this may make little sense. By way of an introduction, I’m considering the outcome of the decisions made against a very singular metric – how many people died in the first 5 weeks of the crisis. More information on why has already been covered. But before you go any further, there should be some warnings around limitations of data. I have compared the UK as broadly comparable to 4 other countries on this metric. But no two countries are identical, although they are all developed European economies with similar social structures and demographics. Additionally, I am using the best statistics available to me. These are not perfect and in the future better understanding will come of the comparisons. But that won’t be reported in the news.

            Now I have got that out of the way, what does the metric show us?

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks
UK	0.38
Spain	0.37
France	0.29
Italy	0.26
Germany	0.05

            On this basis, the UK has had worse results than other European neighbours in dealing with the virus. I have already looked at two areas that governments could impact: Health service capacity and resilience; and speed and scope of social distancing measures. In both cases, mistakes were made. Those mistakes have almost certainly cost lives. But the other things I want to consider in this blog were provision or Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and testing strategies for Coronavirus.

            Provision of Personal Protective Equipment

            As previously mentioned the UK had planned for an epidemic such as Coronavirus and how our healthcare system would cope. It was called Exercise Cygnus and took place in 2016. The results of the exercise have remained classified. However, at the time some information did come out, via we must assume approved news, from the Chief Medical Officer. They were stark warnings. In the event of a flu pandemic the UK would be short of three things: ventilators, PPE and capacity to dispose of bodies.

            This led to a lot of planning by NHS England. Top of that list was that NHS Trusts needed to be better prepared. We needed more PPE. We needed more ventilators. We needed a better way to properly look after those who died. In order to put this in place the NHS needed something that was becoming increasingly short. It needed the money to buy these things. No extra funding came from the government. NHS chief executives were left with an obvious choice really. As budgets became more and more restricted due to austerity and government set targets were missed and services and trusts started to fail financially. Use the budget you already have to try to keep services running now to the best of your ability OR spend that budget on the possibility of a future pandemic. Which would you do?

            Coming into this crisis we did not have enough PPE. This was because the Conservative government of the day chose not to provide any more funding. Interestingly a lot of media outlets sympathetic to the conservatives have tried to blame this on NHS executives. I find this hard to swallow and incredibly low. What were they meant to but it with? Hope and charm?

            PPE is incredibly important because, as Italy found out very swiftly, without doctors and nurses you can have a surplus of ventilators but no-one to run them if they too have caught Coronavirus. In this country we are rightly proud and protective of our NHS. It is truly a shining example of socialism working. In fact since the start of UK lockdown measures we have had a weekly round of applause for our NHS workers. Everybody feels and knows it implicitly in this country. We rely on and owe the NHS and its staff so much.

But this must include that we owe keeping them safe where possible. Even for those who don’t believe in the NHS it is a simple equation in a time of pandemic – fewer healthcare professionals mean each of us is at greater risk. Therefore PPE to keep them safe must be paramount. What did the government do when they knew more money was needed to pay for PPE a WHOLE 3 YEARS AGO? Provided no additional funding. Who have media outlets tried to blame? NHS executives. In June of last year a governmental body again warned the government that there was no stockpile of PPE and this left us open to the threat. The government again did nothing. We should be rioting in the streets over this betrayal. Once it is safe to do so, obviously.

What is just as heinous is the handling of this shortage by the government of today. It may be the same party, but you can possibly see the argument of “it was different ministers then”. As soon as this happened our government should have done everything, and I mean everything, in its power to source additional PPE. Surely at least they have done that?

On March 25^th, when the howls of outrage were starting to really wing out and hit the politicians in Westminster, Boris Johnson said this:

“On the personal protective equipment the answer is by the end of this week.”

That is the sort of bold, definitive promise that we all want to hear from our politicians. Measurable, reassuring, no nonsense. More media coverage followed to reinforce this determination. And by the way, this promise was not JUST that the NHS would have the PPE it needed. This was a promise that care homes as well as the NHS would have all the PPE needed to keep staff safe. In fact Matt Hancock was able to trumpet that 997 MILLION items of PPE had been handed out. Outstanding delivery.

Except, of course, that the target wasn’t met. The truth is that a survey by the British Medical Association (who know a thing or two about healthcare and PPE) on the 18^th April – 3 weeks later found that half of doctors working in high risk of infection areas reported a shortage of PPE. The situation is far, far worse in the overwhelmingly privatised care sector. The Royal College of Nurses has told members that as a last resort if there is insufficient PPE they can refuse to treat a patient. Just pause and think about that scenario. 

And it is not as if getting PPE right now is an easy thing. There is a worldwide shortage. Every country is trying to source PPE of the right type. Well, every country except those who planned in advance and built a stockpile when told to by medical experts, obviously. We, along with other countries need billions of items of PPE. And PPE covers a wide variety of items. It must be the right PPE for the right use.

What about the almost 1 billion items distributed? Well, it turns out that of those 1 billion items, 50% of them were surgical gloves. So that leaves 500 million items to cover masks, gowns, eye protection etc. Oh, and the gloves were not pairs. They were individual gloves. Now, unless Doctor Richard Kimble was on to something and there are a fuck-load of one-armed men running around the NHS individual gloves are a mis-counting by any standard. Still, ignoring that the Secretary of State for Health tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the public on that particular topic, there must be a reason we are doing so badly.

For many of us, we would possibly focus on supply chain problems. 36 individual companies, many of whom are specialist manufacturers of PPE, have complained that they have approached the government but been ignored. This is not that surprising for people who have had involvement with government procurement. The government didn’t sign up to a European-wide initiative to buy PPE because, using the official language, of a “communications error”. How much communication is involved? “Would you like to join?”, “Yes please”. But as it turns out, if you believe the government’s own line there is another culprit.

The focus for the Secretary of State’s commentary on the shortage? That doctors and nurses are using too much of it. Yes, that is right. It is not the fault of a government that failed to stockpile despite being told twice to do so. It is not the fault of a supply chain that everyone knows is failing in lots of places. It is the fault of the same doctors and nurses who Conservative politicians are out on their doorsteps applauding every Thursday night. The same NHS staff who have lost over 100 colleagues to Coronavirus. How many of those would still be alive with the correct PPE?

Testing for Coronavirus

At a press conference in front of the world’s press on the 16^th March – 5 days before the UK went in to lockdown – the Director General of the WHO made it clear. The most important tool, in their view, to arrest the spread of the disease was:

“Our key message is: test, test, test”.

Now, that is easier said than done. For a start, that means that you have to have the capacity and capability – including the right resources – to actually perform testing. Quite simply, the UK had never needed to have that capacity before and was unprepared. It would be easy to accept this as an obvious rationale for why we didn’t test more. I am not a scientist or healthcare professional. I can’t tell you what chemicals, equipment and laboratory space is needed to perform these tests. Not many people are. Of course, this explanation falls down when you look at a very close comparison.

Germany, who had cases around the same time as the UK, were able to implement track and trace testing and target community transmission. They were able to ramp up their testing from none to 500,000 tests a week in the first two months. Not only that, but they used a system of track and trace. Anybody who tested positive was isolated, their contacts ascertained and isolated and tested. Any who were found positive - their contacts ascertained and isolated and tested etc. etc. By focussing on positive tests and then targeting outbreaks in this way Germany has managed to have, based on the measure I have used, had far and away the best outcomes. Similar results have been seen in other countries who have taken this approach. South Korea is a good example – but they had suffered because of the MERS outbreak a number of years ago. They had experience and new what to do. Germany copied their approach. For some reason, we didn’t.

To put into context the differences, by the time Germany had capacity for 70,000 tests a week, the UK had increased capacity at the same time to 5,000 a day. Hardly comparable.  Not only that, but on March 13^th the government made the decision to stop testing for Coronavirus outside of hospitals. Consider that for a moment. At a crucial point in the battle, when we had evidence to compare from different countries on which strategies worked best, we chose to stop following the most effective one. In fact even the Chief Scientific Officer, Deputy Chief Medical Officer and the Security Minister have all accepted that this was a mistake and we could have had better outcomes if we had ramped up testing much more quickly. The question that must be answered then is why? Why didn’t we increase testing capacity when other European countries were able to? Why did we stop track and trace when we did? Even Italy – who were held out as an example of what not to do – had managed 2.2 million tests by the end of April – 1.5 times what the UK had managed.

The Prime Minister himself appeared to understand how important testing and testing capacity was when he promised in early March (when testing was around 5,000 per day) that this would be ramped up to 25,000 and then 250,000. Of course, he never gave a timeline for this but this shows clear intent. Does this mean it was ineptitude rather than ignorance that led to our woeful testing regime? I would hope that any inquiry would look at that – but I wouldn’t hold your breath for an inquiry to hold a Conservative government to account. If you are still able to hold your breath that is.

Obviously, the government would need to explain this. On March 31^st the daily government press briefing made it clear what the problem with increasing testing was. There was a global lack of the chemical reagents needed to perform the tests. This was hampering the UK effort. Which makes me wonder – why didn’t Germany have the same problem? What had they done that we hadn’t? After all, they are only a short hop over the North Sea (or Nordsee coming the other way). What did we fail to do or what did they succeed in that we didn’t.

As the clamour and cry got louder, and the original target from the Prime Minister was forgotten, a truly unusual and remarkable thing happened. The government set a target for the number of tests to be performed, with a deadline attached. The target was that 100,000 tests per day would be delivered by the end of April. This sort of thing – a government giving a way to be held to account – seems like a novelty. The politicians we have had for 30 years or more have been far too clever and sneaky to do this. Was this finally some honest politics?

It would be refreshing to think so. Unfortunately, I think this has been the very opposite. And at the time, it must have seemed a very astute thing to do. Matt Hancock gave himself 28 days from the 2^nd April to get the number of Covid19 tests up to 100,000 a day from 10,000 a day at the time. Increasing our testing ten-fold over the space of a month. A definite and gargantuan effort that would be admired when it was achieved, surely? Or does it raise more questions and hide a multitude of sins? Firstly, why 100,000 tests a day? There is no scientific basis for this, no magic limit we must pass as a country to get back in control. Even that capacity would be only 20% of the testing capacity Germany had mustered to get in control of the disease.

Why then? 100,000 a day from 10,000 a day. Amazing. Of course one of the other things that a statistic like this and a target like this does is focus your mind. But to focus you on one thing means that you are no longer focussed on other things. Even if they are more important. This target meant that people no longer focussed on the number of people tested IN TOTAL. Or on which groups got priority testing. That means that the news isn’t reporting on the fact that by the 28^th April the UK had still only tested 763k people IN TOTAL compared to Germany’s 2,547k – or one third as many. Or that we had carried out less tests than Italy, Spain and around the same as France on 724k. So whilst we were focussing on tests per day, we were still falling behind in total. One problem with this measure you might argue is obvious – that those countries have different populations. Actually, if anything, that makes it worse. If we rank order countries by number of tests performed compared to population and add it to the table above:

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks	Tests per 1,000 population by 28th April
Italy	0.26	30.6
Germany	0.05	29.1
Spain	0.37	28.9
UK	0.38	11.2
France	0.29	11.1

100,000 tests per day. It may feel like a bold target. But just perhaps it was a clever distraction tool. Of course the reason that politicians very rarely give such targets is simple – if you miss it you might be held to account. But with 28 days surely we would achieve it. According to the government we did. On the 30^th April and the 1^st May the government proudly announced that we had performed over 100,000 tests on each of those days. Well, kind of met it. Because what the Department of Health and Social Care had to do, in order to even meet the target for those two days was not only count tests actually performed, but include tests sent out in the post to people.

Some might argue that this was a reasonable measure. Certainly government ministers were willing to stand behind these figures as evidence of meeting their target. I don’t believe the vast majority of people see it that way. For most of us a test for a disease does exactly that. It isn’t that you have received a test kit in the post. It is that something has been carried out that will tell the person taking the test whether they are infected or not. We don’t give qualifications to people because they are in the exam hall. They must be tested. Once that target had been set, there was no way that the government could miss it. No matter what, they would find some way to be able to say they had. I expected to see queues of military personnel that day lined up to be tested. Nice to know that the government found a cheaper and easier way to lift the tests performed figure of 80,000 above their magical threshold.

Even if you are convinced that the government met that target – it was for two days only. Since that point it has failed for 5 consecutive days to repeat it. Quite simply, anyone who would believe they hit that target and it had an impact has been conned. The language of the latest announcements is all about the targets for testing “capacity”. But having capacity and actually testing are not the same. I have the capacity to reach a million readers. The fact that it is more like 300 is a much more telling statistic. This is another broken target.

Looking at the metrics on number of deaths, where does that leave the assessment of how we have done? It isn’t great. We now have the highest death toll in Europe as of the 7^th May – even though other countries have tested more so should have higher confirmed deaths than us. In fact we have the second highest death toll in the world – behind the USA. Of course, that is if you accept that China is reporting the correct figures. Even if they aren’t – that still makes us the 3^rd highest. With 1 & 2 having many multiple times our population. When you look at the levers and controls our government had, and how they were deployed, it isn’t hard to see why. Looking at this crisis it appears that at every step the government have been more focussed on looking good rather than doing good. We can only hope that they pay for that at the next election.

Coronavirus - how has the UK done? (Part 1)

          If you are a conservative politician, particularly PM or a cabinet member, then today must feel like a victory. Finally, managed to hit a target in relation to Coronavirus. One set only a month ago. Surely this shows that this government means what it says and now Boris Johnson PM is back in charge everything will turn out alright? As a voter who wanted them in power, who thinks that a Labour government would have been far worse, this must feel like vindication.

          Well, if you believe that, then I have a genuine Picasso to sell you, guvnor. Honest. Boner Fidey it is. What we have seen during this crisis is some masterful propaganda. Genuinely a masterclass in managing the public perception. Because, based on what information we have at the moment, we have fared worse than almost any other country in terms of our response to the challenges of Coronavirus. This is not just based on opinion or preference or political leanings. We, as a country and as a society, have lost far more people, suffered more death than we ever should have done according to the latest death tolls.

          That may seem like a bold statement, but it is based on the available statistics. Ultimately if we are going to compare countries, then this needs to be based on the outcomes – how fatal or damaging this virus has been. That is a really difficult thing to measure, but the consensus appears to be to use fatalities from Coronavirus (whilst we wait for the data to be considered in more detail over a longer period). The obvious comparisons against the UK are other European states. Proximity, similar socialist outlooks (i.e. healthcare, schools, sick pay etc.), access to world travel, genetically, social / ethnic mix, etc.It is worth saying up front - the data is not complete yet. Nor is it all directly comparable. In fact no two countries are the same in their demography or how they collect and report statistics. In time, there will be long statistical and research studies performed that will produce that information. But by then it will be ignored. The only limited defence that I can use is this - if we compare against 4 other countries that the OECD (and others) regularly compare us against as being similar, this should mitigate some bias. The changes of all 4 being incorrectly reported IN THE SAME DIRECTION are vanishingly small. 

          What do the available statistics tell us? Well in the UK in the first 5 weeks of Coronavirus impacting us (i.e. since we started recording 10+ deaths per day) there have been 26,097 reported deaths. From a population of 68 million. That means we have seen 0.38 fatalities from Coronavirus per 1,000 population. In Italy, over the equivalent first 5 weeks, that was 15,887 deaths against 60m (gives 0.26 per 1,000 population). In fact, if we look at number of deaths for similar size European countries, they are easily to tabulate. Simply put, we have seen a greater number of deaths than any country in Europe on that basis.

Country	Deaths per 1,000 population in first 5 weeks
UK	0.38
Spain	0.37
France	0.29
Italy	0.26
Germany	0.05

Based on information collated by Statista.com

         
          So, we can’t argue otherwise – we have the worst outcomes in the early stages of any comparable European country. Yes, statistics are tricky, and there may be under-reporting or other issues. But there is no reason to believe that these issues would unfairly treat us compared to 4 other countries all with the same challenges. Why? Why have we done so badly compared to other countries? Particularly given when we have, according to international comparisons one of the best healthcare systems in the world?

          There are lots of news articles calling out specific activities that did or didn’t happen that, frankly, I am going to dismiss. Whether your feeling is that Dominic Cummings should not have sat in on meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), or that Boris Johnson should have been present for the 5 Cobra meetings that he missed, whilst these may show the method of operation of this government, they really can’t account for the difference in death rates. In fact, many people would argue keeping Boris Johnson away from making decisions is probably helpful rather than a detriment. I instead think we should be focussing on 4 key areas that do seem to have made a difference to the success of different countries in reducing the death toll. They are:

• 1.    Speed and scope of social distancing measures;

• 2.    Ability to increase capacity of health services;

• 3.    Provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); and

• 4   Testing for Coronavirus.

I don’t want to spend time going in to why each of these is important in the fight. After all, since the start of this crisis the people who were previously constitutional experts on Facebook have re-trained as virologists it turns out. But the world over these 4 tools or levers (along with track and trace as a fifth in some countries) have been the available actions open to governments to use. I am going to consider the first two in this blog (part 1), and then look at the second two and the media management in part 2.

Speed and scope of social distancing measures

In the UK, by the 5^th March we had breached the figure of 100 confirmed Coronavirus cases (it was 114 on that day). It seems a reasonable starting point for comparisons to be taken against other countries. To put some context around it, by then we had seen Italy (which reached that milestone on the 23^rd February) in clear trouble with an explosion in number of cases that was already threatening to overwhelm their health service – by the 5^th March this had turned in to 4,000 confirmed cases. By the 10^th March, this had turned in to 10,000 confirmed cases in Italy (along with 631 deaths). Our government knew that this was a problem, and one that required urgent action.

It is both surprising and appalling then that we did not initiate the social distancing measures we now see until the 23^rd March. That is 18 days when the government failed to take action to implement social distancing that had been seen to work in other countries and that scientists were saying was our best action at that point in time. 18 days. In that time period alone over 3,000 more people had been CONFIRMED as having been infected in the UK – when the rate of infection was doubling every 2 days. 359 people died from it in that period. Quite simply our government acted too late.

There has been lots of speculation and accusation as to why that is. Certainly, interviews given in the early to middle part of March by ministers and officials suggest that at that point the government was working to a “herd immunity” strategy. This changed very suddenly around March 18^th – when this was dismissed by (amongst others) Matt Hancock MP – the Secretary of State for Health. But why the sudden (apparent) change? Because the whole concept of herd immunity was rubbished by the science. It wasn’t something you could aim for; it was something that might be a side effect of not acting enough and letting lots of people die. But this wasn’t new scientific thinking – this was always the case. 

A fair challenge then, is why are there no members of SAGE coming out to say that the government ignored their advice? Every government minister who has given press conferences or updates, from the very outset, has stuck to the line - "we are being led by the science" or "we are following the advice of the scientists". Surely we should be raging at SAGE for giving such bad advice? 

This ignores a fundamental and very important aspect of scientific advice. Scientists provide answers. What they don't do, in this setting, is ask the questions. It is quite simple really to use the questions to lead your response. If you ask "What is the best way to reduce deaths and keep people safe from Coronavirus?" to a group of scientists you will get one set of answers. If you ask "What is the best route to take to manage Coronavirus whilst protecting the economy?" or "What steps will we be able to implement quickly on Coronavirus without worrying the public?" or many other, well you get very different answers. It is a very clever way of deflecting the blame from yourself as a government. We are being led by the science. What you never add is that the science is being led by you. 

What questions the scientists were being asked to opine on can be guessed at. But we don’t know, and right at this moment that isn’t important. What does matter is that because Boris Johnson’s government left it so long more people have been infected, and more people have died.

Ability to increase capacity of health services

One of the most worrying things for anyone following the news during the early days of this crisis was watching the health services of European countries struggle and collapse under the pressure. Countries worst hit by this phenomenon were Italy, Spain, and Portugal. There are a number of connecting themes for these countries – that are shared with the UK. The specifics of the Coronavirus mean that to reduce death tolls (amongst patients) requires 3 things – ventilators (along with the specialist spaces in hospitals); doctors; and nurses to run those beds. It is really that simple. Because we don’t yet have a really effective treatment regime or a vaccine the only thing that health services can do is treat the symptoms. Beds, doctors and nurses.

The common thread that runs through those 3 countries is that they were all hit hard during the last financial crisis, and that they all suffered from long, drawn out austerity plans that reduced the capacity and capability of their health services. They are 3 of the 5 “PIIGS” economies that were most impacted (the other 2 were Ireland and Greece) and faced the deepest cuts. Quite simply government spending on healthcare had been slashed in those countries in the run up to the current crisis. In fact, spending had fallen in Portugal and Spain and kept flat in Italy.

Why then didn’t we see the NHS facing the same catastrophe? This is a mixture of a number of factors, some historic and some based on government actions. The NHS has seen – over the years of Tory austerity – a marked reduction in growth of spending on it. The statistics and budgets make it very clear that since 2009 the NHS has not had the same level of government support it had previously enjoyed. This is not a point that can be argued. Certainly, we now spend more than we previously have, and this rises every year. But it is not rising in line with the historic trend. Our government is constantly tightening what is spent on health services.

Thankfully, historically we have invested in health services more than other countries. This has meant that because of a higher starting point even though we have faced similar or greater cuts due to austerity our health service is still amongst the best in the world. And you get it for free – at the time of writing this. We haven’t yet been dragged down to the level of care that the government appears to be heading towards over the last 11 years. 

Additionally, one thing that the NHS did very quickly that other countries hadn't gotten right was to immediately limit the scope of all other services provided. In particular "elective" procedures. To give an example of an elective procedure, these include knee and hip replacements, removal of cataracts or fitting of leg-braces. I am not a clinician, and these decisions must be led by what is needed. What can be mentioned is that this decision has one other helpful effect. The government hasn't met it's target for elective procedures for the last 8 years (having previously met it or been close since the introduction). At least this time next year they have a reasonable explanation for it. Is it too much to expect that this will be the end of that measure?

In addition, the government was able to, at very short notice, set up additional centres to help deal with any overspill by utilising NHS and military (along with civilian contractor) resources. The speed at which these were made ready and operational is a testament to the excellence of our armed forces and the NHS. Thankfully the planning for this sort of threat had been done well in advance. In 2016 there was a 3-day exercise on how the UK would cope with a flu pandemic. The findings from that exercise were stark. And unfortunately, many were not listened to. We have known for a number of years that we needed a stockpile of ventilators and PPE. But the government never spent the money to acquire them.

We did have the plans drawn up to increase the number of available beds. In fact, these plans were immediately put in place. The army and NHS managed to set up the Nightingale centre in an unbelievable amount of time due to their hard work. It has so far treated 51 patients in it’s 4000 beds. It wasn’t needed in the end, because the NHS in London worked brilliantly to manage the surge in numbers. Time may yet tell, and this may be a prescient decision. We may face a second surge in cases. Or we may face a double crisis when the flu season starts if we haven’t gotten a vaccine. As a much wiser man than I said “I would rather be looking at it, than looking for it”.

In addition, it made excellent news when it was opened, and really, isn’t that all that matters? Again, what was needed, much more than the beds themselves, was a good media story to placate the media. When this is over, hopefully there will be an enquiry – one aim should be to understand how the NHS pulled off the seemingly impossible, and another should be to work out why the hell we didn’t implement the learnings of our disaster planning exercise.

That doesn’t finish this blog – in fact this is only halfway. In part 2 I want to cover PPE, testing and media management. Because it seems that a lot more time has been spent considering media management than any other aspect.

Pick a side - will you continue to press the button?

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. That is how buttons work generally. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

So yet another attack has taken place by a hate-filled extremist on people going about their daily business. This time around it took place in New Zealand. A right-wing Australian with guns and hate massacred unarmed unsuspecting people going about their regular business. A few days later an attack on a tram in Utrecht appears to be people being shot by a suspected Muslim terrorist with guns and hate. Just this week we hear that devices have been placed on railway lines by Brexiters.

We can add these to the list of atrocities committed by many different individuals. Manchester concert bombings, the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, London Bridge, Finsbury Park. When you start to research these atrocities often a motive is given for the attack – Anti-Semitism or Racism or Right-wing Terror. I think it is a lot simpler than that.

Often when I write I compare events or opinions or arguments and look at them side by side and explore the differences. Lots has been written about the New Zealand attack – how it was out of the ordinary, how it has driven an immediate response in New Zealand, profiles of the attacker asking what went wrong to bring him here, how the attack was carried out.

What saddens me is how obviously similar it is to all of the other attacks mentioned above. And that we will face many more of these. The script, the background story always seems to be the same. Lone individual, possibly some contact with hate groups, obtained weaponry and attacked at a time / in a way designed to create maximum outrage and fear.

What brings these individuals or small groups to this point? A point where they decide that the only way to make an impact to further their views, to achieve success is to go out and kill people they have never met and have no connection to, on the basis of whatever motivation they wish to give? Some of these attackers have left their thoughts – either in the form of videos or manifestos or even Facebook posts. So we can state their ideologies and way of thinking with a bit of certainty.

Firstly, they all seem to believe in absolute groups. Us and them. Whoever the “them” are doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. They could be Muslims, Immigrants, Jews, Non-Muslims. It is still very fresh in the memory that Jo Cox was murdered by one of these attackers. Her “them”? She was a remainer. Just imagine that. The line that separated people who should live and have rights and people it was acceptable to kill was which way they voted in a referendum.

These lines don’t exist. These separating lines that split us into definite groups are not real. But we do it all the time. We align ourselves to others of the same religion, the same political party, family, country, football team and use that alignment to see Them as somehow different. We have far more in common with other people, no matter how little we think we do, than we have that is different.

Secondly, They have either done some unfairness or injustice to us, or are going to and we should do something about it – because nobody else is. This is the deep-rooted belief that the threat / unfairness is obvious, that everybody sees it, but that the authorities are ignoring it OR are powerless OR weak. This is either that immigrants are taking over our country, that Jews are pulling the strings to control government, trying to steal Brexit from us, invading our countries to steal our oil / power / influence. Whatever It is that They have done or will do, It is obvious from the messages / communications / inputs the attacker sees. They are all equally guilty of It too, because they are one group solely defined by one characteristic.

Again, we have to call bullshit on this thinking. And we see it all the time. Not all Muslims are terrorists or paedophiles who trade young girls. Not all Westerners supported various invasions. Not all immigrants are trying to steal your culture and your land. What I find really scary is that often when talking to otherwise sensible people they have been conned into looking at one example and extrapolating that risk across the whole They, and unless you can refute that single example that is proof They are all like that. We have to be better than that.

Thirdly, that they are acting on behalf of the rest of the Us. They are doing it in Our name or Their name. Depending on which side of their invented line you sit. This might be the act that wakes Us up, shows Us what to do, and scares Them into stopping / giving up. It will ignite / unite Us in taking action – because we are all just waiting.

How do they get to this point? Where do these ideas come from? That they have support for their actions, some sort of reward awaits them? They’ll be seen as some sort of hero? Whilst their worldviews may be coloured by the mainstream media, or religion, or groups, and this is where their “motivation” comes from, this belief that they are supported and believed seems in almost all cases to come from social media interactions. This seems to be the only place they could possibly take the belief that there is a legion of support for what they are about to do.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We know from the writings of Anders Brevik he took most of his motivation and ideas from other people writing on forums and social media. ISIS regularly use facebook, twitter and youtube to get their message across because they know these lone wolf individuals take succour from it. During the recent attack in New Zealand the perpetrator live streamed it on Facebook. Over and over these vile individuals take their comfort, their support, their motivation from posts of other people on social media.

It’s also important to remember – the people who do this – they think differently from us. For the vast majority of us the idea of getting so angry that we decide to attack, injure and kill people is abhorrent. More so in cold blood. But none of them are picked up in advance. They suddenly follow up on their decision making. Often family and friends are aware of their views – but not that they are dangerous or genuinely considering this action. Until somebody is dead. I am not a psychologist – I have no training to say who will behave like this. Maybe we are all capable. But I don’t know which of my friends, family, readers of this blog, and colleagues are capable of turning. Neither do you.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We have to choose a side. Are we the person who presses this button or not? This week as an example videos emerged of British Army soldiers shooting as an image of Jeremy Corbyn. If you support this – can you be certain that won’t be seen as a message to someone to take out his old service revolver and do it? After all Darren Osborne (who attacked Finsbury Park) was looking for a way to kill Jeremy Corbyn. That post decrying Tony Blair as a war criminal who got away with it? Posting videos calling remain supporting MPs traitors? Linking Leave supporting MPs to violent racism? Do you really know the impact of the language of hate on people around you? Perhaps you do. Strangely I reckon the families and friends of the people mentioned as carrying out these attacks felt comfortable sharing hate, and bile, and anger. I wonder if they do now.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

The importance of appearing in control and how not to do it (when in opposition)

I started out this particular blog post to try and suggest some answers as to why we have ended up in such a mess over the Brexit process (because the road to the decision is a strange and dark one, and I have talked about it enough. In particular to look at the behaviours of the two main political party leaders in the UK. They have, in my opinion, both shown a lack of leadership and this is at the heart of the situation we currently find ourselves in.

            I have already spent a lot of time on the first part of this blog considering how Theresa May has fared against a relatively common set of leadership characteristics:

• ·      Integrity – not just being honest, but being seen to be honest, and doing the right thing even when you can get away with doing the wrong thing
• ·      Courage – in making decisions, even unpopular ones, with limited information, and willing to address difficult points
• ·      Impartiality and fairness – not pandering to special or favourite causes, identifying the fairest outcome for everyone from a situation
• ·      Good communication – in both directions, able to explain their message so others get it with clarity and conviction, and able to listen to others and hear their points
• ·      Flexibility and responsiveness – able to alter not only their plans and direction, but their style to achieve their outcome, and able to listen to other people’s ideas and use the best one, not simply their own

Against which time and again she has been found wanting, and badly ( https://unexpectedsocialist.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-importance-of-appearing-in-control.html ). But surely it is only fair to consider Jeremy Corbyn by the same yardstick? The great man of principle who is very much beloved of party members (if not entirely by his parliamentary labour party) must hold these qualities in spades?

Its much harder to cover the entire process for the opposition leader. Firstly he has had very little (i.e. nothing) to do with the formal process. I will therefore focus on a few key points in the process where he had opportunity to show leadership. Specifically: in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result; the vote on Theresa May’s deal and calling and holding the vote of no confidence.

I remember after the vote itself being completely shocked, saddened and well, scared the following few days. This was a fundamental shift for our country. I had always been European as well as British and English, with family, friends and work colleagues across Europe and here from Europe. I’ve worked as an accountant and seen the millions of pounds of EU money coming in to areas of the North East desperate for regeneration. I’ve studied Economics and understood the absolute logic of being part of trade blocs.

This was a body blow to me and many others. We were dismayed and confused. What we needed was calm, a chance to re-group and get used to this. Instead we got a Prime Minister running away from the problem he had created and a leader of the opposition calling for an immediate invocation of article 50. There were two massive problems with this immediate approach.

Firstly, Corbyn had a long history of concerns over being members of the EU and expressing a desire to leave. He belatedly became an advocate for staying. Throughout the campaign he had stayed away from the main campaign to avoid standing with David Cameron (his reason). Calling for this so quickly immediately left his integrity open to question. It doesn’t matter whether he was being genuinely honest or not. Its whether people see you as being honest. This approach damaged his integrity. Coupled with repeated questions on which way he voted that he refused to answer, he was opened up by his detractors and across the press as lacking integrity.

Secondly, what we needed was calm and a chance to come back together as a nation after a referendum campaign that had been divisive and nasty. But it appeared that this opportunity to make political capital, and to put pressure on the conservative party was more important. It is really hard to see the fairness in that – putting party politics ahead of doing the right thing. Both of these issues stemmed from a man who was no longer listening to the pulse of the country, and a man who had failed to get out his message.

Of course many Corbyn supporters (and I class myself as a supporter) will point out that it is hard to communicate when you have large parts of the press against you. This hasn’t happened over night. There has always been an image of him portrayed by his detractors. It didn’t suddenly appear. The narrative he has been wrapped in is made to measure. But the reason it fits so well is that decisions he makes and how he communicates absolutely lend themselves to it. It sometimes feels like there is a conspiracy to ruin his credentials – and that conspiracy is made up of the Conservative party, right wing media interests and Jeremy Corbyn.

I absolutely get that Jeremy has painted his life as a man of integrity, and a man of principle. There can be no question that he has made difficult and unpopular decisions based on a strong moral sense of right and wrong. Once he has decided what he feels is the morally right thing then he sees it through.*

I absolutely get that Jeremy Corbyn is unwilling to change. He’s made a career out of purposefully choosing the other view – almost for fun. He makes a snap decision on evidence at the time and sticks with it come hell or high water. This “man of principle” is so addicted to being morally right that he can’t accept when he is wrong or things change.*

(*Delete as appropriate)

And therein lay the problem. Because his behaviour and the way he acts and delivers his message can be played both of those ways. In order to be an effective leader you must be able to communicate and be flexible. You have to be responsive and aware. Sometimes sticking to your guns and your tried and trusted methods because you have always been that person is actually the counter to integrity – not the embodiment of it. Jumping into the trap laid for you over and over again shows a lack of flexibility, responsiveness and communication skills.

We’ve seen this behaviour in the House of Commons over the last few weeks. In fact both Corbyn and May have been guilty of the title of this blog – wanting to appear in control rather than wanting to be in control.

When Theresa May lost, as she knew she must, the vote on her badly-won, self-serving, ill-communicated, cowardly deal she immediately challenged Corbyn to bring forward a motion of no confidence in the government. Everyone knew he had to. But to her mind this was her showing the world she was still in charge. If anybody other than May and Hammond believe she is still in control of events then please send them my way – I have a second-hand bridge over the Thames I would like to sell them. However it gave her a chance to remove the initiative from him.

When that motion failed, as he knew it must, Jeremy Corbyn immediately rebuffed May’s offer of talks without his pre-conditions were met. Again, this was an attempt to show he was now in control and would only meet on his terms. Whilst this has now proven to be correct, and that the talks were merely Mrs. May trying to sell her original deal, only in smaller groups and with coffee and biscuits, this was immediately played in the press as Mr. Corbyn refusing the outstretched hand. It could not have been more clearly a trap if the prime minister had read it from a card marked ACME on the back. Because it is how he is expected to react and unfortunately no flexibility or learning is allowed.

I do worry for Brexit and our immediate future. We have days left now until we crash out without a deal. The leaders of our political parties, whilst having very different policies, views and desired outcomes, appear very similar in their approaches. Once the referendum result came in, any opportunity for coming together as a country was lost. Both leaders have allowed their own personal views and animosity along with political calculations to stop them from doing what we need most. Which is actually lead.

The importance of appearing in control and how not to do it

In the space of less than 24 hours we had 2 of the most unique, important and interesting votes that the House of Commons will ever give us. Most would argue that we have had enough drama of the sort we have seen to last us for a long time. Unfortunately, those votes and the debates and issues supporting them appear to really only be at the end of the beginning, not even close to the beginning of the end. The ongoing saga of Brexit has now dragged on for over two and a half years since the referendum itself. Legally speaking, as it stands, we only have around 10 weeks left to organise a withdrawal deal, or we crash out with No Deal.

            Nobody knows how this is going to turn out. Nobody knows, with absolute certainty, what is the best result for the UK and the EU. We can all choose to believe whichever experts, anti-experts or shaman most suits our views. Generally, that is what the overwhelming majority of use have been doing. My view, and one I want to explain, is that the biggest gap we have faced throughout the process has been the gap in genuine leadership – none more so than from the party leaders themselves.

            There are hundreds of lists of leadership qualities, and books have been written about the subject since we started recording history. I want to focus on a few of those qualities that appear across a wide range of them – it’s impossible to find some that appear in all of them. The most regularly repeating qualities for effective achieving leaders appear to be:

• ·      Integrity – not just being honest, but being seen to be honest, and doing the right thing even when you can get away with doing the wrong thing
• ·      Courage – in making decisions, even unpopular ones, with limited information, and willing to address difficult points
• ·      Impartiality and fairness – not pandering to special or favourite causes, identifying the fairest outcome for everyone from a situation
• ·      Good communication – in both directions, able to explain their message so others get it with clarity and conviction, and able to listen to others and hear their points
• ·      Flexibility and responsiveness – able to alter not only their plans and direction, but their style to achieve their outcome, and able to listen to other people’s ideas and use the best one, not simply their own

If we start by looking at how the negotiations process has been operated by Theresa May, and the strategy taken to those negotiations, it becomes very clear very quickly why she is not the right leader for the country. And most certainly not at this point in our history. Look at the strategy she has taken and it crumbles very quickly.

First of all, from the outset the decisions and approach have been her decisions and approach. She ignored every opportunity to reach out to other parties. She refused to listen to ideas from anyone outside her immediate circle. Throughout her career there are countless examples that point to her need to be completely in control. It is a unifying thread that runs like iron through it. How can you be impartial and fair if you are always right? Where is the space for responding to other ideas if you wont even hear them? This political change was the biggest we faced for at least 40 years – and arguably since the Second World War. Why not put in place a specialist commission? A government of unity? Citizen’s panels? No – Theresa knows what is best. Much better for her to go away, decide and then come and tell US what is right.

Of course she realised very early on in the process that in order for her to get away with that as Prime Minister, she needed to have as much personal power and mandate as possible. So whilst we had a backdrop of a clock running down, she called a General Election. Not for the good of the country, not for the good of the negotiations, not even for the good of her party. For her own benefit. And all after explicitly ruling out the idea. Because she believed she would win a landslide. Where is the integrity in that decision? Where is the impartiality and fairness of putting her wants in front of our country’s needs?

During the election itself, she showed herself again and again to have no communication skills. Strong and stable can not be the answer to every question. I imagine during that period if asked her how she took her coffee she would answer “strong and stable”. She ran scared of taking part in debates – sending other people to do them. Because she has all the communication skills and warmth of Buck Rogers friend Twiki, but without the warmth. Or communication skills. Where is the courage in being afraid to stand up without all of your lines safely locked down – taking no risks.

Having refused to talk to other parties, setting out her way of doing it as the only way, and having been embarrassed in a general election because she didn’t realise that the public didn’t want one, she then found herself weakened. The hung parliament that she caused meant that she then had to sell out some of her power to the DUP. This was at the cost of £1bn+ and additional red-lines. She used public money to protect her own position. She reduced her flexibility further.

Whilst all this carried on, Brexit Secretaries and other ministers led a constant stream out of her government because she wouldn’t listen to anyone else, and she kept coming back to the UK having given away more and more negotiating strength. Because she was right, and how dare anybody question or challenge her. She had to survive – she was the only one who was right. The single most important point, throughout this process, has been the survival of Theresa May. On average we have lost a government minister every month since she became Prime Minister. Nobody knew what the current deal was, until she deigned to tell us. No communication, no flexibility.

Where did this lead us? Her own party realised this couldn’t continue – and she survived a confident vote there. 117 of her own MPs – one third of her parliamentary party – wanted her to go. Did this change her approach or make her consider her position? Not for a minute. She not only led her government to be in contempt of parliament (for the first time ever), but she ran down the clock by delaying the vote on her deal. Not for any purpose other than she didn’t want to hear the truth – that she had gotten it completely wrong but couldn’t bear to hear it. She suffered the biggest governmental defeat in history. Only one third of parliament supported her deal – not even the £1bn bung could persuade the DUP. Did this make her consider her position? Not for a moment.

On the back of this she faced a vote of no-confidence in parliament. And I want to return to that point in part 2 of this blog – because we also need to consider the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in doing that.