Time For Some Instinctive Leadership?

 

It seems as though the Government approach to the Covid Pandemic is to stalk the problem using every conceivable cover.  A letter in the Telegraph today from Mark Raynor, posing the question, “what’s the verdict: too much, too little, too late, too soon?” He then says, “there’s a professor out there somewhere who will support any position you wish to take.”

A reasonable observation, I’m sure you will agree.  But who was it once said that he had had enough of experts: experts who cannot stomach the possibility of a chance event and who procrastinate and hedge their bets in order to preserve their intellectual reputation at all costs.  Stephen Bayley, writing in Standpoint about intellectuals, references Einstein who believed that intellectuals merely solve problems whilst geniuses are able to avoid them in the first place.  Perhaps now is the time after so many announcements and counter announcements on Covid for the other side of the coin, some instinctive leadership? I remember in a VC10 air-to-air refuelling tanker almost towing a fuel-leaking Jaguar towards Scotland, observing the total fuel gauge depleting at an alarming rate and saying to the Navigator, “ how long can I continue heading East before turning round and landing at my diversion in Iceland with the minimum permissible fuel?”  “Hang on,” he said, “I'll tell you exactly in a couple of minutes.”  “No,” I said, “tell me approximately now!”