Obviously you'll remember I was in the camp against excessive Covid restrictions. I think that reacting to something that came out of nowhere, well then you have to make short term decisions. It doesn't preclude having a long term strategy too. For example, there was I believe a national pandemic strategy. Clearly it was poor, because we didn't have stocks of essential equipment or masks for example, so that strategy was next to useless (who came up with it, who managed it, what were they actually paid to do in the years before Covid hit?)
What about energy - is there a national 50 year energy plan? If not, why not. If there is, what's in it, who came up with the options, who is making the decisions and on what basis? Were the risks apparent yet we did nothing, or were the risks not recognised or passed off as too unlikely. No-one knows.
What about the NHS. Our most prized institution now struggling with backlogs. Where is the 25/50 year plan for that?
We don't get the scrutiny, instead we just get mud slinging at PMQ every Wednesday when they don't ever answer the question being asked in the first place.
On climate - the issue is its politicised I think, and there is so much noise in all the comms/data that people can't really be blamed for turning away from it. There is no joined up national strategy on recycling - every council does something different. There is no real plan to move to EVs other than passing a law banning petrol cars and hoping it works. Why are we still rejecting onshore wind when almost everyone supports it? Also - people have problems at being taxed more to solve these types of problems - it is stick rather than carrot and just annoys people. Give positive incentives instead and you'll get more buy in.
