Watching New Zealand's v bungling UK

Announcing a lockdown on 23 March, Jacinda Ardern took a firm line, telling the country that the worst-case scenario of thousands of deaths was “simply intolerable” and that her government “will not take that chance” https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jan/05/watching-new-zealands-covid-success-from-britain-has-shown-me-nations-make-their-own-luck?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

“It was a marked contrast to Boris Johnson, who, in a recorded televised address 10 days earlier, had announced that “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time”.

It starts with a question of values.

But another thing has struck me about it all.

It is the ambition in the NZ/ Finland/ Denmark/ S Korea/ Vietnam and Taiwanese approach that drove a determined effort not to let the virus best them.

Compare that to the British Gov approach.

For all their talk of “world beating” Brits it has been the Government’s singular lack of organised, project driven ambition with the Ardern aim in mind that really is quite strik8ng.

It is almost as if their starting point was “Can’t Do” not “Can Do”

And that has infected their response. Repeatedly .

Instead of bold ambition backed by dedicated and determined project planning they have replaced it with a gambler’s hope.

That combined with a rich bloke attitude of slinging money at the project in the hope that mates can dig them out without telling on them when they see the mess they are in due to lack of preparedness.