With one voice?

Source:  BBC website 30th May 2020  www.bbc.co.uk/news





Students of emergency and crisis management will be familiar with the idea that we have reached the stage of consensus breakdown in the current pandemic.  This might be true of the government's relationship with the public and is a position that could have been predicted – indeed what else are such theories for?   However the same students and, especially practitioners, would point to consistency and clarity as the two essential requirements of crisis management.  This is easy to say, and in complex circumstances, like those we now find ourselves in, difficult to achieve.

One of the reasons it is difficult at the moment is that when the Prime Minister mounts the rostrum to announce the latest changes in pandemic policy he is, in reality, speaking as Prime Minister of England not of the UK.  No such post exists.  There is no English electorate and no constitutional niche that allows him to wear an English and a UK hat at once.  On first listening to him one could be forgiven for not understanding that his writ does not run as far as his title suggests it should.  His personal style belies his partial impotence.  A friend of mine describes him as looking like Lloyd George doing a Winston Churchill impression. Such a cutting description may have elements of truth but they are not relevant to this discussion.

The result is clear to see in the chart published by the BBC.  Clarity and Consistency?  No chance - just read the first line.  A virus is not interested in the historic and much disputed boundaries between England Wales/Scotland.  A barbecue in Carlisle must now be managed differently to one in Gretna.  Why? – for reasons of politics.  All politicians claim to be led by the science (with the possible exception of the so called leader of the free world), but advice requires interpretation and that is the job of leaders.  One option open to those in power in London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff would have been to agree to follow a UK (NOT an English) path but I suspect that there is much to be gained by promoting difference and by the flexing of devolved muscles. Some agenda are longer lasting than a novel virus.

The biggest crack in approach came with the adoption of the new STAY ALERT slogan in England.  This marked a parting of ways with Scotland.  It matters not which strap line is better (the Scottish one).  It is evidence of the divisions between two countries in the same union fighting the same disease.

Of course there has to be a flexibility to react to local needs, especially at this stage of the pandemic, but the definition of local in this context should be defined by the nature of the outbreak and not by concepts of nationhood.   The boundary between England and Scotland is as relevant to this crisis as the boundary between Hereford and Worcester.

How big is this issue?  I would say big, but not enormous (I have my own scale for such things).  There are plenty of things that are more important.  The newspapers may love the story of the golf course that straddles the Anglo-Welsh border but even in proportion Covid-19 has exposed the divisions that are growing in our island.

Perhaps one of the lesser lessons for the future is that in national (UK and NI) wide emergencies devolution should be voluntarily, and partially, set aside.  I doubt that there will be many supporters for this suggestion.  Indeed, future historians may chose this crisis as a milestone on the route to federalisation or even to the break up of the UK.  I make no comment about what the future should hold but I note the direction of travel.

Philip Trendall

31 May 2020

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not represent the views of any client of Scott Trendall Ltd. 

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