Personal comment on Be Careful What You Wish For

A re-run of pandemic decision-making

When Carl sent me the first draft of

Several ideas sprung up in my mind.

First and foremost, a Cabinet Minister is shooting from the hip. I doubt whether he had taken advice from anyone who knows anything about clinical medicine before opening his gob - it was so reminiscent of March 2020 and what followed.

Second, here is an example of a deadly syndrome called “a complex problem needs a simple solution”.

The simple solution - we are told - is to hire truckloads of staff (if you can find them) to intervene. Note the two aspects of the syndrome: spending more of our money and medicalising everything within reach.

Third, Wes Streeting must have access to hundreds of GPs, psychiatrists, and psychologists well-versed in the intricacies of the human mind. They also require access to PubMed, as Carl had to search for the evidence. However, all this mamby-pamby evidence stuff is superfluous. You just fall prey to the syndrome, do something, anything, and you will be OK. It turns out that the prop…