We have another round of debates in the UK about coercive measures to enforce lockdown without discussion of whether the UK has the state capacity to enforce the kind of coercive measure other states have used during lockdown

If the UK had the policing means to set up roadblocks to control movement in and out of communities it would have done so already

The UK state is not doing certain things to enforce lockdown because of some deep malign plan. In some cases it is not doing certain things because it does not have the personnel or resources to do them

You can't suddenly hire and train an additional 40 000 police officers, or set up a national gendarmerie and civil defence force in 8 months

The UK struggled badly with TTI because it had to basically set up a lot of new state structures from scratch overnight. It will do OK when it comes to mass vaccination because it can build on state structures for vaccination that have existed for 70 years.

It is legitimate to bash and incompetent government for being incompetent. But if state crises are to be avoided in future it is even more important to identify and over time correct the long term structural factors that enable and amplify a government's incompetence