Time on Our Minds.

A quick note – I wrote this item before the lock-down that we are all experiencing. I think that some of the things I mention might be interesting for us all to consider. I have therefore made additions in italics since we have all been spending more time in our homes.

I’ve been fortunate to have a bit of time recently. I have been lucky to have had the time to consider what I have learned so far from working life. I have been thinking, as well as adding to my knowledge. Reading, and re-reading some great books and ideas. Re-discovering that the greatest gift society gives us is the ability to read, if only I had seized more of the opportunities to do so over the last 30 years.

In addition to improving my knowledge the biggest confirmation that I have come to (clarifying what I expected to be the case) is that I am master of my life. Everything has been my responsibility; my agency is the most significant in my life. This is really empowering. We have the power to change anything in our lives. The past is not the future, whatever we can perceive we make it so.

I have been thinking that perception is the key for most of the things that happen to us. How we perceive, how we are perceived. Perception seems to me to be heavily influenced by communication. How, and what, we communicate is a fundamental foundation for success. Important to all this is how we model the human world we live in. This is built upon a foundation of the data we allow into our minds. This data is both immediate – what we sense at the moment from our surroundings; people, words, actions; and what data we imbibe that is transmitted across time, i.e. what we read, what we watch and listen to in our spare time, along with courses we take. How we assimilate these things is also important. I have recently been reminded of the influence that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has played in how I have worked in the world to date; also the idea (I think I get this from Covey) of a Prism distorting how you perceive truth/facts/data, and how prisms affect how we process truth. I have recently been thinking that there are things such as “Universal Truths”, that seem to be common across human endeavours.

It also seems to me that balance is a very important concept, the idea of constantly weighing up options and then charting a best course, and that there is no one constant course/balance to strike. That we always need to be vigilant for changes in our environments that alter balance. In this sense balance is constantly wavering like the pole of the Tightrope Walker. Wobbling isn’t the concern, staying on the rope and continuing forward is.

Additionally, our model of our world needs to be dynamic, allowing for constant movement. Embracing of change and allowing for the unknown, that which surprises, and error, and, as Kipling would say; coping with these imposters just the same. There is something to be learned from all our experiences. We should grow as individuals from every one of them.

I have started to notice how I do things. When I am looking to recruit someone, I do the thing I have done when picking a player to play in a side I’ve captained. I look for Character. Character in the popular sense is synonymous with being funny, exuberant, loud. What I look for is how the individual holds themselves together. How they hold their, Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, together, and judging how they may do so in trying situations. I have been strongly thinking for some time that it’s not the scores in, nor the combinations across scores in each personality category, but how the individual holds them together. I also feel that it is important to bring individuals onboard, not only for the box they need to occupy now (the role they will fulfil now), but also for their future potential.

I love sport, in particular, I have always been drawn to team sports where, for example, the captain is required to make decisions during the game. Unsurprisingly therefore I am a big fan of Rugby and Cricket. Maybe they resonate with my character most, where I expect in my life to take responsibility for the decisions I make, take questioning as an opportunity to explain and, even when I’m wrong, taking it as an opportunity to learn. I think it is very significant that sportspeople constantly say they learn more from failure than success. To illustrate my character (to explain why I like the leadership/responsibility element of these sports) even as a five-year-old I thought that a team needed a leader.

I learnt my football in Germany. My father was in the forces, so I played with other British kids in a team that played local German youth sides. One day the coach sat us all down to speak to us. It was clearly an important conversation and I sat in anticipation of what he was to say.

He began, “Now boys,”…… Ok I thought, this looks really important, “if we are going to have proper football team”, my hand shot up, because of course we needed a captain, someone to be up front, encouraging everyone to win, to play harder……”we need a”, I stretched higher…… “Goalkeeper.” Now I didn’t want to look foolish, so I stubbornly kept my hand up. I therefore said when asked, yes – that I would be the goalkeeper. I was a miserable goalkeeper; I must be honest. I wasn’t good enough; I nightmarishly remember letting in 8 goals in one game! A lesson in listening before acting if ever there was one!

I have always been interested in the nature of leadership and teams, which is why I love history. History is the greatest telling of the greatest leaders and teams through time. My reading of history has led me to believe that just as Sun Tzu has been used by business, that a wider understanding of warfare as a human endeavour can give insights for how we organise ourselves, and act, in the business world. Leadership in a military context has been galvanised over many centuries, as being success critical, the more so because human life is at stake. By extending theories, in this instance Leadership, to the extreme helps you validate what you are looking to do. Understanding warfare has wider value for business as well as other human activities, it being an extreme (deadly) form of human activity.

Leaders such as Field Marshals, Wavell and Slim, and Admiral Cunningham constantly refer to the physical capacity of their staff to do their work. There comes across a feeling that they understood what their people were capable of doing in a day. Compare that experience you may have had of managers taking time to understood that capacities have been reached. By the time a capacity need is recognised damage has already been done, and still the business needs to wait for the recruitment process to work it’s course. Recruitment might be truncated resulting in a less than optimal person being found to fill a gap, rather than a person well suited to the needs of the business. Let alone a person that can grow as the business grows. I have always believed that there needs to be 100% achievement of targets at 80% effort. This capacity allows for long term work and short term bursts of 100% effort when rarely required.

I enjoyed watched the England Rugby team’s documentary about the 2003 World Cup. I love Martin Johnson’s dictum, “Getting everyone’s noses pointing in the right direction”. It felt similar to the military “maintenance of aim” tenet. Perhaps, to misappropriate Clausewitz, sport is “War” through other means? Thinking about this has wider implications for business. Are you confident that the methods you have chosen are sound? Do you know what you should be doing? Are you confident enough to stay the course, maintain aim, and keep everyone’s noses pointed in the same direction?

I am often interested in what a person is reading. I sometimes ask this as part of an interview. There is something very important to reading long form discussions, fiction included. There is some evidence that people who read fiction have more empathy than those who only read non-fiction. I have taken an awful lot from authors like David Gemmell, Bernard Cornwell, Frank Herbert, Asimov, Tolkien, to name a few to illustrate. In fiction writers are communicating ideas that are born out of their foundational education, reading, as well as their own understanding of the world. Although there are story archetypes, if you understand them, they bring a whole new dimension and pleasure to our own understanding of the stories. If you start to understand archetypes you have a chance of perceiving, all be it opaquely, underlying truths that might help your interaction with others consequently improving your performance at work. The bottom line is read books and bring what you have learned with you.

After 30 years of work, nearly 20 of them with leadership responsibility it has been time to heed Plato – it has been time to examine my work life. Over this year I have been surprised to find that I have learnt things that others already knew. I have been acting in ways that agree, for example, with Lean Six Sigma, and many modes of thought that for example, John Lewis Gaddis brings together in On Grand Strategy, Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations and many more. Finding resonance in what I have been educating and re-educating myself is helping me clarify what my work experience has been all about and will help me move forward with a sounder foundation of being.

This enforced opportunity to spend even more time with books affords us all the chance to come out of isolation, stronger than when we went in. I for one am going to try and seize the days ahead.

The Covidian Religion and the Gospel of R

The Covidian God is “The Science”, the founding tenant for their devotional – Lockdowns – is the Gospel of R.

Nearly a year ago I put together a simple spreadsheet based on what we were being presented as “The Science”. I thought I’d play a little bit more having not said anything for some time – I’ll no doubt write a bit about what has happened to me in the interim at some point.

All of this mucking about with numbers was initially sparked by half remembered knowledge of the speed of the doubling of cells from Biology GCSE and a half remembered ancient story of an engineer from India who did such a service for his king that he was offered anything in payment. He asked that the king place one grain of rice one the first square of a chess board. To then double that on the square next to it, and double each time for each square until all 64 were used. By the time the last, 64^th square had been reached there would have been more rice that exist in the whole world.

The key, as with most things; it’s not the accuracy of remembered facts but the useful application of the lesson. This is why experts are useful, but not for deciding.

Given that we were told R(0) = 3 I notionally thought that this could mean large numbers very quickly. In any event I thought I’d plug in some crude estimate into a spreadsheet. Having done this early last year (May 2020) I thought I’d have another play:

Let’s agree with the Government on the following terms:

1. Lockdowns reduce R.
2. Prior immunity does not exist.
3. Asymptomatic transmission exists.
4. Seasonality does not exist.

How the table works:

The table starts at the beginning of February 2020 when we were told we had the first identified Covid-19 case. Each reproduction cycle is assumed to be 4 days which may be short but each month is only 28 days long which hopefully builds in capacity. The global population is a low estimate as a reference point for the numbers generated in the columns to the right.

We were told to isolate for 14 days to keep others safe. My understanding therefore is by this time our immune systems would have dealt with any infection. As this was later arbitrarily changed to 10 days and suggestions that the requirement might even be shorter, I have assumed that after 8 days an infected person is no longer infectious. Those infected counted in any given cycle drop off the infectious after 2 cycles.

The three columns to the right illustrate three different R rates R(0)=3, R=1.5, and R=1. We were told that R was 3 without any Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs). Having assumed that Lockdowns work I am showing that in cycle 15 the effect of Lockdowns in reducing R is being felt and so I transfer the calculations to R=1.5. Again, in cycle 22 R=1 due to Lockdown.

Numbers in red show numbers greater than the UK population (estimated at 79 million for this purpose).

Conclusion:

1. Given the assumptions above by the end of May 2020 over 240 million people had been infected with SARS CoV 2 in the UK alone … even if Lockdowns work.
2. Of course, you can legitimately argue the accuracy of this and change the assumptions I’ve made, but as the number is so large you would have to show significant shifts to be able to argue that we have not all been exposed. Especially when you consider, at the time of writing it is 20^th March 2021, we have had over 1 year of this. As most of us have not been ill, many of the rest of us have had symptoms but have recovered without medical intervention, our immune systems must have coped with the deadly threat remarkably well as a population whole. Our Antibodies and T-cells have dealt with this. Therefore R science is no longer relevant.
3. The Gospel of R has been used to scare, but in actual fact is a remarkable story of success. The success of us al in defeating this health threat. Our bodies, largely, are remarkably robust, if they are robust, i.e. healthy.
4. Even the mainstream, government and TV, narrative does not stand up, even on their own terms.

“The Science” is a false God and the Gospel of R needs to be reinterpreted as a story of population fortitude, not fear.

Intelligence ≠ Virtue

We have had this view for many years that intelligence is virtuous and that the scientist is impartial. I am coming to the view that intelligence merely has potential value for society, but that the scientific mind is trumped by the political mind of the scientist. The scientist is never objective and like an historian you must be mindful of their biases, their prejudices, and that they are just as venal as the rest of us. Evil people are the more deadly when they are intelligent, plenty of scientists were (are?), Nazi, Fascist and Communist in their outlook. All human’s even you clever ones, will lose reason with the manifestation of fear. Courage is a personal virtue and, whether un-reasonable (David Icke?) or not, you ought to recognise the courage it takes to step outside the comfort of group think. Whilst the value of the information might be extremely low even the village idiot might warn of danger. You need to cope with perpetually imperfect information all the time, even gravity is a theory, all be it not one that we think likely not to be disproved, but a scientist ought to accept there is a chance, hence all information has some value however miniscule. Due to the volume of information available to us you have to work with your inadequacy in being aware of everything, that’s why we outsource our trust (not totally blindly?) to, our doctor, journalists, politicians, and that is the proper order of things. When you notice that the integrity of these pillars is compromised, that’s when the audit flags need to be identified and addressed.

Don’t assume that the best rise to the senior positions in their professions – most eminent scientists do not appear as government salaried people, they continue with their work. How many Nobel Prize winners on SAGE? Be careful of consensus, when consensus cannot address Nobel Laureate dissenting arguments with reasoned facts. I use SAGE and Nobel Prize winning as yardsticks against which at least you can measure this assertion.

Analogies are auditor flags that might be very important. Whilst you should treat these sources with care, if you treat them as such and corroboration starts to be observed then the trends they speak of need further investigation. Don’t dismiss information out of hand, evaluate the value of the source and treat accordingly as you add it to the tapestry of your world template. I recommend assigning a value to information sources and then placing the information in a hierarchy of relevance expecting that the hierarchy will change because you “know nothing” but you might be perceiving something. What might that be?

This is slow thinking and it is tiring but if you are going to decide that radical changes to your world are necessary then, for fear of making deathly errors (i.e. you will die if you make one), perhaps it would be wise to conduct oneself accordingly. There is no disinformation that can infect you if you conduct yourself in this way; there is only information to “diss”, being respectful and polite to apply this to the information and not the person. Do that “reason-ably” and there is a greater chance you and your loved ones won’t die. If you have the ability reason (“fear is the mind killer”), then we all might be better off. If however if you shut down discussion because you find it too difficult to be open to being wrong, then perhaps adopt the stance of constantly seeking error in your reasoning from others, enjoy being wrong, we humans learn most from defeats the key is not expiring with them.

If you are able to reason a value and place in your hierarchy for analogies, that is being rational, you might bring value to the world, however small yours might be. Being fearful and emotional means that you are unable to be rational. Rationality means apportioning value. Look up and play to world that you see in front of you, recognise your own flaws as well as other people’s and then evaluate the information you are receiving. Then formulate what it all means, decide, then act with as much integrity as you can. If you make a mistake be aware of it as quickly as possible, evaluate, apologise, change, and move forward accordingly, remembering that what is correct now might change with more information. Not all information has the same value, be clear on the values you are assigning to each (and every piece). No information is valueless, certainly none is negative, if you think any is then you are increasing your risk of error.

What would you do?

What has been really bugging me is how the decisions were made that got us here. Let’s review where we find ourselves today: 18^th May 2020.

We have a government – let’s define it as, “those that we have placed above us to act timely in our interests” – whose narrative has for a long time been incoherent, is now stating to fall apart. The incoherency has been succinctly outlined by Lord Sumption.[i]

Now let’s tell a story:

Suppose you had a position of grave responsibility. (I have always been fascinated about how words we speak and read, especially when they are contained in clichés like “grave responsibility”, are understood, but it a surface level rather than at more of a definition level. Noting the word “grave” and the morbid importance of it – this is a serious word and conveys real meaning to the nature of what is being talked about, yet we often don’t mentally acknowledge it at that depth.) Let’s say you are actually the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as such you are charged with responsibility the lives of your citizens.

You are presented with a danger to the health of the entire population, emanating from a country from which much of what you are hearing cannot be trusted due to its authoritarian regime. You know from your history that authoritarian regimes breeds hierarchies that are motivated to lie within themselves. Indeed you know that early on in the SARS-CoV-19 outbreak in Wuhan local officials did lie to higher authorities and that for face saving reasons the Chinese regime were motivated to lie about human to human transmission in their reporting to the WHO, and potentially about the extent of infection and mortality. So you are presented in this meeting with reason to doubt the numbers China is telling you, especially with regard to undercounting mortality.

You are then presented with a report from Imperial College that projects ½ million deaths if nothing is done. You know that the NHS has been running at well over 80% capacity for some time due to budget constraints. There has been a personnel problem for some time in the NHS which is why successive governments have been recruiting health professionals outside even the EU to fill gaps. So there is a capacity issue in the current healthcare setup there would be even in any circumstances with a projected ½ million deaths. In addition you are told of the 2016 wargame, Exercise Cygnus, that played out the impact of a pandemic on the NHS – in which the NHS was overwhelmed.

Your political advisors don’t need to tell you that anything like ½ million deaths, means very challenging optics in the media that would mean political suicide for the Government and perhaps the Party. You feel that you ought to be “like Churchill” and that you can rise to this challenge, rather like what happened during World War 2. This is another reason for not wanting to have to deal with this.

Chinese data (for what it is) already suggests that the age cohort over 70 years old are at the most risk, along with other members of the population being at risk. You know that the population aged over 70 years old is over 5.3 million people[ii]. These people also voted in large numbers for your party at the last election.

Perhaps you are then presented with a reasonably credible Intelligence report that opens the possibility that the safety regulations at the Wuhan Bio Lab, which you are told was handling Coronavirus, was less than optimal. Therefore, this virus could be weapons grade.[iii]

What would you do now?

Would you ask more questions to understand the sources of the information you are being presented with? Is your interest in history merely the enjoyment of the story and myth, or does it include an understanding of the study of history i.e. dealing with the bias of sources?

Will you understand that in 2005 that Neil Ferguson predicted 200 million could be killed from bird flu – 282 people died between 2003 and 2009. In 2009 he predicted that swine flu had a cas fatality rate of 0.3-1.5% – the government based their calculations (using a recurring phrase “reasonable worst-case scenario”) that the disease would lead to 65,000 UK deaths – 457 dead died at a rate of 0.026 of those infected. In 2002 Ferguson said that between 50 and 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE rising to 150,000 if there was also a sheep epidemic – 177 actual deaths.[iv] What weight would you therefore give to Professor Ferguson’s pronouncements? Would you seek additional opinions from Professor Ferguson’s peers? Indeed, has Professor Ferguson’s paper been peer reviewed? (Had the previous ones been before they had been pronounced?).

Somebody on the meeting might say that the reason that these doomsday predictions were averted was due to actions taken. Someone else might then point out that at no point in any of these circumstances was society purposely shut down, which is what the Imperial model advocates.[v]

How have you built the team advising you? How many do you disagree with on their views? How many are willing to “speak truth” to power? Are you in thrall to clever i.e. is there a member of the team that nobody feels able to dissent from, even you? What I am asking you is – who is on your “Red” team?

Taking the principle that source bias ought to be understood so that you can apply appropriate weight to its evidence, what other intelligence would you ask for? Would you ask for more detail on the volume of use of the hospitals build in Wuhan? Would you assume, take clever at face value, and reach for the heroic opportunity? Would you find it necessary to push for consensus in a divided room, just so you could claim group decision, or would you take the burden and accept the responsibility of weighing counsel and deciding for yourself?

If one was trying to be reasonable, by assuming a reasoning decision making process, one might say, “But they didn’t know lots of things!” Yes, they probably didn’t but there are numbers that they should have known when the Imperial College Report was seen.[vi] These suggest that the rate of infection was already declining before Imperial College reported. Given Professor Ferguson’s background of “success” why react in locking down society? Separating family, friends, and workplaces. Basic enquiry and logic would seem to be absent.

Now what would you do?

Who are your go to people in the room? Do you keep in mind their individual agendas as you receive their counsel, or have you been mesmerised by their cleverness?

Being “in the room” is quite an exciting thing, even it being a board meeting that is seeking to decide the future development of a small start-up. Being amongst peers, arguing and debating your case and the issues, and professionally implementing what is agreed into the wider organisation. Quite self-actualising. However, if you are the lead in that environment you have to make sure the right questions are being asked. You have to weigh counsel including where you understand those giving it are coming from – their bias. You ought to incorporate this into your self and that must include your acceptance of full responsibility.

With the fragments of information that we have it seems that the actual, as opposed to the optimal, operation in this fictional meeting were pretty far apart. Were you, Prime Minister, even in the meeting?

Given what seems like an error in shutting down society, would it be feasible for politicians to, with ever increasing desperation, be scrambling for their own political survival? Would that fit a politician’s profile?

Have they strayed too far?[vii]

[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j129QQ and https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/jonathan-sumption-a-response-to-my-critics-on-lockdown .

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom

[iii] Quoted in Lockdown Sceptics; “In short, I strongly suspect the pandemic is due to very embarrassing cock up at the Wuhan lab. Dictators a la Chairman Xi do not like to be embarrassed, so don’t expect this to ever be disclosed. My suspicion is intelligence agencies had wind of COVID-19’s origin in a Wuhan lab, and were consequently more fearful of it than they might have been of a coronavirus without a relationship to a biowarfare research establishment, and this fear may have influenced the massive overreaction of global responses.”, https://lockdownsceptics.org ,

Latest News, Toby Young, 16 May 2020.

[iv] This whole paragraph leans on The Spectator article of 16 April 2020, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked

[v] For example, “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand”, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, 16 March 2020, P16.

[vi] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgNzr2mTwPY for suggestions of numbers available at the time.

[vii] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-government-advisers-lying-to-support-regime-with-collapsing-credibility-says-lancet-editor/ar-BB12UmAC?fbclid=IwAR10-9_sZumyd09SSvZ60ChzpxzaJv3BHDE946E1zxTHnaq9VVlc1w551GU

Life is a Tightrope Walk

Tightrope walking is what life is about:

Imagine yourself standing on a rope. You are balancing through extended arms, or with a pole. You know that to live your life you must continually move forward. You instinctively know that moving forward is a responsibility and has consequences.

Your extended arms or a pole is necessary for you to balance better on the rope, and it will inevitably wobble as you move forward. Wobbling is necessary and inevitable as you walk forward on the tightrope of your life. Wobbling is necessary for moving forward, too much wobble is the danger.

Wobbling is us being inaccurate, at worst getting things wrong.

Being wrong isn’t the problem so long as we maintain the humility to correct it. It’s the correction that is of paramount importance. Too much correction and you risk falling off the other side. If you watch how correction happens there is always an over-correction as the walker pulls the pole up from one side, but you’ll notice that the optimal effect is one where a slight over correction followed by relatively small oscillation around equilibrium as you continue onward. Like the walker, if you find yourself starting to over balance, pause and correct before moving on with courage.

Beware – balance shouldn’t be regarded as a state of equilibrium or equity. Although equilibrium is a state that can transitionally exist whilst balance is maintained, equilibrium should not be the goal. I think of equilibrium as static, stultifying, stasis.

Balance is what you see as you hold the pole and walk forward in life, with constant vigilance for the need for adjustment or change.

Balance is about staying on the rope. Life, and living, is about continuing your journey along the rope – keep moving forward.

And all the while the wobbling of your progress describes beautiful patterns for others.

What is Our Current Reality?

Well I’d like to use “the science”. We are being told that R₀ for Covid-19 is 3. Just for comparison and context I have clipped this table from Wikipedia. Always being aware of source faults and bias. What follows is crude and a gross approximation, however as with most of us I struggle to understand “exponential” calculations and so I thought I’d use a simple tool (Excel) to see what it looks like.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

I have made several assumptions.

• What I am trying to find out is how many people have possibly been infected according to one “fact” we are being told.
• That when someone is standing at a podium and they state something that is verifiable, for all sorts of reasons they will not lie although they may try and distort. I am taking R₀=3 as a reasonable approximation for the spread of Covid-19. Although I will add smaller approximations for comparison.
• R₀ has a timescale assumption included as part of the formula. I do not know what is being used for Covid-19 so I have assumed a 4 day cycle. Every 4 days an infected person will infect 3 others.
• Because there have been some reports that Covid-19 was present in France in December and that possibly it was present in China from November, I have started the count from the beginning of December 2019.
• I have intentionally used 28 day months to build in inaccuracy in the timescales.
• In the first 4 day cycle I am assuming that only 1 person was infected.
• I assume the population of the world to be 7.5 billion people.

The table below shows the month and 4 day cycle numbers on the left up until the end of March 2020. Next, I felt it important, once I saw the size of the exponential growth, to include a crude number for the population of the world for comparison. In the columns following I calculate R₀ at 3.0, 2.5, 1.5 and 1.25, respectively. Red numbers in these columns show when the calculation passes my number for world population.

Some observations:

According to these crazy numbers by the end of March:

Given (N@Cycle 28 / World Population) then;

R₀=3.0 gives 2,401,919. This suggests that EVERYONE in the world has been infected/”come into contact with” Covid-19 2.4 million times EACH, by the end of March 2020!

This is surely ridiculous! What am I missing? The UK’s lockdown started on the 23^rd March 2020. These numbers suggest that the spread was over some time before then. Some have tweeted out this table (I can’t verify the source):

If the infection ratio totals above are a crude, but workable approximation of what has happened i.e. Covid-19 had been dealt with in the population before March. (Remember we were being told that most of us would show no symptoms.) Then the tweeted graph might have something to it. Given the sparsity of tests everyone is estimating at best.

The table, if it shows Covid-19 contact approximations, it might also suggest that immunity already exists in the population and or that Covid-19 is an irrelevance to most of us.

Why the continuation? Why the need for an App?

Has the Government and top “Scientists” got themselves into a hole? That they haven’t got the humility to admit that they were over cautious to begin with and that we should have our rights restored?

Leadership isn’t knowing. Waiting until you know kills. Leadership is reasoning judgement with imperfect knowledge such that decisions you make (being led by others is obfuscation) are reasonable. This might also kill, such is the gravity of high office.

Is our current state reasonable?

KBO

I believed and I trusted at the beginning of this. I believed in, or at least trusted in the potential of, the deadliness of Covid-19. In spite of this, believing that I would be putting myself in danger by merely going to get our household groceries, what did I do?

I offered to help others.

According to what we were being told, 80% (this is a recollection and perception that I have retained so consider this as my reality for purpose of this missive) of us would probably not even notice being infected. So I could be in a queue with someone infected, or glance a surface that an infected person had. We were also being told that this with heart conditions were likely to be at greater risk.

Since birth I have had a heart murmur. Not to over emphasise this because I can run around the block and last 80 minutes on a rugby field. Never-the-less the necessarily un-nuanced message we were receiving suggested, well, there are risks.

My parents are isolating based upon government communication as is my partner’s parents and my sister. So I was happy to step forward and get them their necessities. I have also been pleased to drop off items and help friends’ parents where I can. I believed, even with the deadliness of what we were being told, that if we all did a little extra for each other then we would all get through this that much better.

I am not saying that I was fearful when I stepped out to help others, I am more sanguine than that, but I will admit to being apprehensive standing in a queue at Tesco. Observing two meters distancing, with three lists of groceries in my hand. Conscious that, given the one-way system, and our natural British consideration for others, that missed items could mean missed meals for those I am trying to help. Not a casual thing.

The concern I have is that the fortitude shown by so many to patiently stand with their fellow human beings in queues. Smiling as we do what I have come to call the “Covid Tango” as we manoeuvre, with consideration, past each other in the aisles. This fortitude cache has a limit. When we notice that ICU occupation for Covid-19 has hardly exceeded 60% capacity in London and 30% elsewhere, I worry is this storm has been overstated.

What we all should be concerned about is what happens when a real storm breaks? Having spent the trust cache on this less and less of us will trust enough to react to a true emergency. The child crying wolf has lessons we should all take note of – me, as well as those that we have placed above us.

To try and be clear, I believe that the over 70’s needed to be cocooned and that other vulnerable members of our communities would also have needed help in this regard. However, for the rest of the age cohorts of our nation, we ought to have put our shoulders to the wheel and continued to keep our economy functioning so that we don’t pass unnecessary burdens to our children and grandchildren. The benefits we all accrue from a functioning economy are felt by all. Overstatement, and panic, rather than reasoned leadership is the issue here.

I think sometimes we can be captured by a drama that is actually far less dramatic. The idea that this is our time to shine. Our time to be hailed the hero/heroine. This is an important motivation to hold for the correct time, miss-applying it is narcissistic often requiring over propagandized statements to broadcast your achievements. Mostly life is about getting up in the morning and trying to keep oneself moving forward. I really believe that it is the multiplication of us normal folk, just “keeping buggering on” (as Churchill would say), that makes anything better for us all.

On 13th June 1944 a Ju88 torpedoed and sank HMS Boadicea off Portland Bill. There were only 12 survivors, only one of whom was and officer – my Grandfather, Harry Howting. He was career Royal Navy, joining as a 16 year old, training at HMS Ganges. He only ever said that he was truly afraid on the Arctic Convoys and he only ever spoke about the sinking once. The thing I remember most about his account is the image of him in a boat after the Boadicea went down seeing one of his crew mates lying face up in the water. My Grandfather reached out to pull him into the boat, but as he lifted him he saw that the back of his skull was missing. Grandad said, “Okay chum,” in goodbye as he released him back to the sea. Grandad always said that he wasn’t a hero – he didn’t win the VC although he was Mentioned in Dispatches. Grandad was one of his generation just doing his duty in times of real struggle. I was thinking about him this VE Day.

So what? You might say.

Governments needlessly evoking what I would say is our pretty powerful wartime achievements need to be careful spending the ordinary person’s cache before it is truly needed. This world has always been one with threats, being coddled through exaggeration now, I believe, makes us less able in the face of harder things that the future may hold. Life is tough. Thinking it is tougher than it actually is does not help us. KBO.

Our Government Update 1st May 2020

I think it is legitimate for the government to say that they are presenting evidence when they do this. How lengthy and turgid would the slide deck be if the mall print was combed through in detail? However, it is our responsibility to read what is being presented. We live in a representative democracy (for all the faults in any democratic system), it is therefore our role to understand and judge what those who represent us are doing. It is necessary for any democracy that we be active in it.

This slide was presented in our Government’s briefing of 1^st May 2020. I like to understand some of the detail, especially when there seems to be a lot in a footnote and I’d like to hear what you think.

If you look at the explanatory footnote highlighted regarding what they have counted as employment:

And zoom in:

It would seem that these statistics suggest that we are at universal employment, which I believe we are not. I my view you are employed then you receive money representing a compensation for time and (supposedly) the value of your contribution (based upon scarce resources) to the economy, via the business/organization’s perception of your contribution to it. I know there is a lot to criticize and unpack there, but lets just go with this for a moment, the point being – if you are not payed then you are not employed.

If there existed the definition as caveated our governments note above we all did unpaid work yesterday, today etc. For example, all those parents home schooling their children, hell the 24/7 care that parents provide for their children is work. Hell, also, I unloaded the dishwasher, hung out washing, shopped for and delivered their weekly groceries to my sister and parents, helped my partner with her business and cooked dinner! For all of which I was unpaid but could reasonably be considered work. NB I am not registered as a volunteer (re the grocery shopping I do for others) so I would not be counted in the voluntary category above, and I bet there are millions not counted against their definition. Which makes their definition nonsense.

So what? You may ask.

Well in an environment where say 750,000 volunteers have registered to help the NHS, and the economy is tanking perhaps the number of “employed” may be altered in the government’s favour by the use of their definition. The point is that  the “employment” number becomes arbitrary and subject to government whim. Whim’s are characteristic of tyrants, totalitarians and monarchs, in a democracy we have a duty (and at least in this instance the opportunity, if taken) to understand what is being said. It is our government and our data, we should pay more attention to what is ours.

Please note I am not claiming conspiracy here, I actually don’t think most of these people are cleverer than many of us at all. There is plenty of laziness, incompetence and error in every organization as there is in our ownership of our democracy.

10 NHS Tracking App Questions

Firstly, I think it is probably OK for the NHS brand to be used to encourage use of the new tracking app. So long as the trust being invested by citizens is limited by clear answers to the following questions. These answers are particularly important as what is being asked is the surrender of privacy. Please not I am not anti the suspension of privacy per se. The Covid-19 catastrophe would seem to be appropriate to avoid the wrong optics out of coverage of the pandemic. No-one wants to see triage happening in our NHS ICU’s, medics because there will be more death and pain, and politicians who have votes and public opinion at stake.

Another element to this process is the need for balance. Severe infringement of basic privacy, all be it willingly agreed, should come with severe punishment for those who abuse, or allow the abuse, or even allow the possibility of its abuse.  For example, I would suggest that all Cabinet Ministers should subject to, say, a 10 year gaol term each if it transpires that the intended purpose (which should be defined in Law) for the App has been infringed or exceeded. Life Sentences for those who order, or carry out the infringement or exceeding activity. If Ministers and Administrators are not willing to sign up to this, one would have to question their integrity and therefore the intent of actions.

We have 3 weeks to get the legislation done (i.e. the time Matt Hancock has suggested, 28/04/2020, that the App will be ready for deployment) – Parliament has already proven it can expedite this timescale.

• How does the App know you have symptoms of or have been diagnosed with Covid-19?
• Do the phones that your Bluetooth is detecting also have to have the App for the systems to work? The App downloaded and Bluetooth switched ON in the detected phone.
• What enforcement will be activated in the event of an alert being generated? (Obviously those that download and switch on are subjects more likely to comply with a suggested action.
  1. How is this monitored?
  2. What data is gathered?
  3. How will the gathered data be used?
• Which NHS employees will be employed to run the App?
• How many more new NHS recruits will be needed to facilitate this?
• Who else will be involved in the running of the App and why?
• What guarantees will be put in place that when (because we will get through this) the App is deleted there is no residual ability for functions to be activated nor data gathered?
• Will the servers and data be decommissioned once we are through this?
• Will this App be legally tied to Covid-19?
• What is your definition of the “when we get through this”? Might I suggest that this be when the overall death rate as measured by e.g. EUROMOMO, returns to a defined benchmark. Perhaps 2018’s death rate?

I think, unlike for example the Security Services requesting the monitoring or “tapping” of phones (for which I understand needs a case by case legal assent?), these questions need to be answered comprehensively due to the blanket nature of the functioning of this App, the potential for vulnerable people being affected, and the propensity for abuse, if not now, in the future.

Given where we are in the overall weekly death rate is this App really required? In 3 weeks’ time wont we be back to 2018 death rate levels?

To re-state, the suspension, in an emergency, of rights can be the correct thing to do for the benefit of our nation. Never-the-less the surrender should be understood and limits, regarding consequences in abuse of use, and limits to timescale, should also be clear.