The State We’re In

• 13 June 2020
• Farzana Aslam

I first came across Will Hutton’s seminal book about the State of Britain when it was first published in 1995.  I was a junior, somewhat idealistic, Barrister at the London Bar.  I recall admiring how audacious the author was in both his damning critique of the structural flaws that underpinned the British economy, and his call to arms for a ‘moral economy’, an appeal to Keynesian economics and stakeholder capitalism which puts fairness, justice and accountability at the centre of decision-making.

In 2001 I left the Bar to take a job in Hong Kong, a place I remained for 18 years, returning to England with my family 2 years ago.  On the surface, the England I returned to is culturally, economically, politically and socially very different to the one I left, and yet two recent events – the UK government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, and its response to the #blacklivesmatter protests –  highlight that some systemic problems haven’t changed at all, remaining as relevant today as they were when ‘The State We’re In’ was first published.

The UK Government’s Response to Covid-19

As often as the Downing Street daily briefings by the UK government tell us that it is difficult to compare statistics across countries, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the UK has emerged as one of the countries that has failed in an epic way in its response to the pandemic. As of today’s date, the number of recorded cases in the UK stands at 292,950 and the death toll 41,481.  The nation has been in lockdown for almost three months with devastating consequences for the economy.  Latest figures show that the economy shrank by 20.4% in April, the first full month of the lockdown an data published this week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest that Britain’s economy is likely to suffer the worst damage from the pandemic than any other country in the developed world, assuming a single peak of the virus.

Why has the UK fared so badly compared to other countries?

The UK government was slow to take the threat of Covid-19 seriously. The government had no crisis management plan in place for a public health emergency of this magnitude and its  response was led by resource constraints rather than guided by public health principles and practices.  When measures have been put in place they have been too little and/or too late.

It is not that the government has been unwilling to throw money at the situation.  The resource constraints I refer to exist at an organisational and institutional level, exposing the fragile foundation upon which our country’s wellbeing rests:

• From the outset the UK’s response to the crisis was plagued by a shortage of personal protective equipment (‘PPE’) for frontline NHS staff and concern over a lack of ventilators for patients in intensive care.
• There was no widespread testing of frontline workers at the outset of the outbreak. The government appeared unable to source a supply of tests from overseas and justified its limited testing capacity on the grounds that the UK ‘doesn’t have a diagnostics industry and so had to develop a test from scratch’.  Wider availability of testing for people displaying Covid-19 symptoms only became available towards the end of April.
• The elderly living in care homes have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus –  according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) deaths within this population have spiked by 61% during lockdown.  A lack of testing in this sector meant that many cases were undiagnosed – the ONS estimate 13,000 excess deaths were linked to coronavirus.  The UK has a largely privately run and decentralized system of social care for the elderly (only 3% of care homes in England are owned by local authorities or the NHS), which relies upon care workers who, while serving on the ‘frontline’ like NHS workers, are not directly employed by the NHS, and typically work under conditions offering less pay, less job security, less training and less recognition.  For weeks following the initial Covid-19 outbreak care homes and care workers were not included in the government’s plans to provide PPE or testing.
• The public was encouraged to wear face masks in crowded and enclosed spaces, but it was not made mandatory to do so.  Unlike countries such as South Korea, Japan or Hong Kong where the wearing of face masks is customary and commonplace, for most Brits it is an alien and awkward experience, and so the practice did not become widespread.  In any event, the government insisted that ‘the science’ did not support the need to wear face masks in public.  This policy appears to have been led by the fear of a run on the limited supplies of PPE.  Months later, the government’s latest position, which comes into effect from 15 June, is to make the wearing of face coverings compulsory for people using public transport in England, as well as for all hospital visitors and outpatients. With effect from the same date, hospital staff will be required to wear surgical masks at all times in all areas.
• The government did not enforce either social distancing or a lockdown until weeks after it was first advised to do so.   The government claimed this measure was ‘science-led’, but the decision to impose a lockdown came at a time when there appeared to be a fear of the NHS being overrun – hence the government slogan ‘Stay home: Protect the NHS: Save lives’.
• The government’s claim that the recent easing of the lockdown has been ‘led by the science’ is equally dubious.  The easing measures are not supported by all members of SAGE (the medical advisory group that the government claims to rely upon), and came at a time when the government was desperate to deflect attention away from the public outrage surrounding the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings’, failure to follow the spirit of the lockdown rules.
• Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak airports in the UK have operated as normal, with no temperature checks, no testing and no questions being asked of passengers about where they are traveling from or may have travelled through.  It is only months after the outbreak, with effect from the beginning of June, that the government is requiring all travelers into the UK to undergo quarantine for 14 days.  British Airways, Easyjet and Ryan Air, Britain’s three biggest airlines are bringing a judicial review claim against the government claiming that the “disproportionate and unfair” and “ineffective”measures come too late to stop the transmission of coronavirus and will kill off any prospect of a recovery in their industries.  In its response to these criticisms the government has again appealed to ‘the science’ as if this is an objective, uniform, and uncontested reality that we must all accept.

The UK experience is a clear outlier when compared to other countries such as Japan, Singapore, Sough Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.  Perhaps the starkest contrast (and the closest to home for me) is the experience of Hong Kong which, despite being one of the most densely populated territories on earth, has recorded 1,108 cases and a total of 4 deaths. It achieved this without going into full lockdown.  While there is much that can be said about the current political landscape in Hong Kong, one thing is clear: the Hong Kong government, its healthcare service, and its people have managed its response to the Covid-19 crisis with efficiency, resilience, cooperation and success.

The experience of Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government required people to practice social distancing and wear face masks outside of the home.  It took this step in immediate response to the first signs of the outbreak and despite the political embarrassment of having to do an about turn on its policy of outlawing face masks – a measure that had been brought in to quell the riots that had been taking place in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government required everyone entering Hong Kong from overseas to undertake a test for Covid-19 before they were allowed to leave the airport. It put anyone testing positive into a government-run quarantine. It required people entering Hong Kong who tested negative to quarantine at home for 14 days, and enforced this through a GPS-equipped tracker that had to be worn for the duration of the 14 days. On March 23rd, it closed its borders to all visitors and transit passengers. The ban on transit passengers was lifted on June 1st, the ban on visitors extends through September.  Hong Kong initially closed its schools and upon their re-opening required all children to have their temperatures taken as they enter school and to wear face masks whilst at school.

It will be interesting to learn whether and to what extent Hong Kong or any other jurisdiction was consulted by government ministers during the crisis.  Did British ministers have the humility to ask, listen or learn from their overseas counterparts?  Comments made by Professor John Ashton, a senior public health expert, imply otherwise:  “”Our lot haven’t been working openly and transparently. They’ve been doing it in a (non) smoke-filled room and just dribbling out stuff … behaving like 19th-century colonialists playing a five-day game of cricket.” (The Guardian, March 12th).

As the UK approaches its twelfth week of lockdown it is clear that people are becoming increasingly anxious, restless, and defiant.

The UK Government’s Response to the #blacklivesmatter Protests

The protests taking place across the UK in support of the #blacklivesmatter movement have brought matters to a head.  The protests came after the killing of George Floyd, an African-American man and father of five children, who was killed in the course of being arrested by white police officers.  The incident was captured on social media.  It showed Mr. Floyd pinned to the ground face down with one of the police officers kneeling on his neck for an interminable 8 minutes and 46 seconds, unmoved by his motionless but breathless pleas of “I can’t breathe”.  The oppressive and inhumane nature of his killing struck a raw nerve with people around the world sparking mass protests against police brutality and racism. The protests in the UK came at a time when the number of coronavirus related deaths were approaching 40,0000, and in the same week as publication of a Public Health England report which found that people who were black, Asian or from a minority ethnic (BAME) group had between a 10% and 50% higher risk of dying from the virus when compared to white British people.  It concluded that BAME communities are likely to be at increased risk of infection because they are more likely to live in urban areas, in overcrowded households, in deprived areas and have jobs that expose them to higher risk.

Government ministers initially downplayed the domestic relevance of the protests.  The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock’s said: “Thankfully, this is all based in response to events in America rather than here.”   Although the protests are being held in direct contravention of s.7 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations, which restricts freedom of movement and freedom of assembly by prohibiting outdoor gatherings of more than 6 people, Mr Hancock was careful not to condemn the protests as unlawful but urged the public not to attend large gatherings, including demonstrations of more than six people.

A further statement made by Mr. Hancock  expressed his support ‘for the argument being made for equality and against discrimination’ and again urged protestors, “please don’t spread this virus”.   When asked the direct question whether he thought the UK was racist Mr, Hancock responded:  “I don’t, but I do think there’s injustice that needs to be tackled and I’ve spent my political life fighting for equality.”

The fact that disparities and inequalities exist across all sectors of public life is undisputed.  The government’s own data from the Race Disparity Unit reveals this across all sectors of public life  – education, housing, healthcare, transport, access to public services, employment, pay and work conditions.  Data relating to the criminal justice system show lower levels of confidence in the police among Black communities, and especially among younger Black adults.  Data for 2017/2018 (England and Wales) reveal that Black Caribbean people are 9.6 times as likely to be searched and 3.8 times more likely to be arrested as White British people.   Disproportionality is even more acute in the youth justice system.  In the year ending 2017, 45% of children sentenced to custody were BAME.

So yes, it is irrefutable that injustice and inequality exist and need to be tackled, but these do not exist in a vacuum.  They exist because of racist ideology that has either directly dictated or indirectly permeated and influenced the UK’s institutions over centuries. By failing to explicitly acknowledge that racism is still an issue in the UK, Mr Hancock missed an opportunity to acknowledge the current lived experience of the BAME community and the depth of pain and passion behind the protests.

The way in which the government has mismanaged the Covid-19 public health crisis and misread the recent protests in support of the #blacklivesmatter movement reflect an inflection point in our history, and are a consequence of the systemic and structural failings of our political, economic and social institutions.  Successive governments have continued to underfund and outsource the UK health and social care systems.  Successive governments have also failed to adequately address the institutionalised racism, social injustices, inequities and inequalities affecting the black community in the UK.  The government of the day is facing a crisis that goes deeper than one of mere credibility.  The fact that hundreds of people across all races and ethnicities have taken to the streets in defiance of government regulations restricting movement and gatherings, and at risk to themselves and their families in order to protest against racism in the UK sends a clear message: it is time for change.

Towards a Moral Economy

If Britain is to adequately care for the health and welfare of its people, and to right the historical wrongs and current influence of racism it must have the courage to move  towards a moral economy, namely one that examines social and economic policies by reference to principles of fairness and justice, and measures their success of by reference to their effect on people’s lives.

This requires areas of public and civic life such as healthcare, welfare, education and vocational training, housing, access to justice, and job creation to be adequately funded, accessible to all, and accountable to government.  In a moral economy there would be adequate care and welfare for the vulnerable, and support for people experiencing the volatilities of modern life.  In a moral economy our institutions would be run by and for the diverse population they serve.  In a moral economy our institutions and our workplaces would have zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or bias.

These are lofty ideals that require disruption to be achieved.  I do not condone the tearing down of public monuments, but the metaphor is a powerful one.  It is not a call for anarchy or for socialism, it is a call for the tearing down of long-held prejudices, beliefs and ideologies that no longer serve the diversity of people who live in and contribute to the UK.  It is a call for a modern form of capitalism that moves away from the shackles of free market economics and its attendant fascination with consumption to and reflects growing public awareness and concern around issues of sustainability, climate justice, social and economic justice, and the eradication of racism and racial bias.  It requires an acknowledgement that problems exist, and that we are not ok as we are.  It requires hard, messy conversations and cross-party cooperation, the support and engagement of forward-thinking companies and financial institutions, activism and engagement from all actors in society.  We all have a role to play and we should not be afraid to engage in the debate – we all have a stake in the outcome.