The UK has done some things well, but most things badly in response to Covid. "Neoliberalism" is far too vague as a cause of the bad, we need a more specific account. Here's my version: 1/x https://twitter.com/sahil_mahtani/status/1346411004096339968

the UK has done well at responsively testing (i.e. testing where the demand comes from people), at sourcing and procuring vaccines, so far at vaccinating the population. what do these processes have in common? 2/x

they are (organisationally) simple processes which involve distributing a number of small objects between a limited number of organisations - on a massive scale 3/x

all are supported by the vast majority of the population. all are managed by a simple chain of command. they don't involve much negotiation between different organisations. in none is there much scope for non-logistical challenge 4/x

the UK state has been terrible, by contrast, with anything that involves coordination between different political and administrative agencies; which involves value-based decision-making; & which require the consent of the population to be actively sought 5/x

e.g. the government is good at running a testing programme in which a kit is sent, returned and processed in response to 'customer' demand. it has not been able to organise a test, track and trace programme which involves much more complex coordination 6/x

the government's "management of multiple centres with autonomous power and legitimate leadership" ( @JYDenham's phrase) has been catastrophic, as the proliferation of approaches and conflict with local authorities illustrates 7/x

these failures of communication and coordination have resulted in chaos, and massive non-compliance with the complex and ever-changing Covid restrictions 8/x

to find out what a government sees as important, listen to its metaphors. for decades we've talked about "delivery". and Covid has proven that the UK is good at delivery in the most literal sense 9/x

but Covid also demonstrates there should be a lot more to government than delivery. it's about leadership over and coordination of the independent actions of people and institutions - something the UK government is very bad at 10/10

to summarise - we have a government of people who imagine they are postmen not politicians