We should learn from the past

He is certainly more forthcoming about the challenges facing America than its current President, writes leader of the Labour group on Peterborough City Council, cllr Shaz Nawaz.

In the briefing on Monday, 27 April, Governor Cuomo listed a number of disasters including the San Francisco Earthquake and the Great Depression and showed what had been learned from each of these events. He raised an interesting question; what insight and knowledge are we gaining from our present troubles?

We had been warned by a number of sources that a pandemic was possible. For reasons which are yet to be clearly stated, these warnings were not heeded. Government and business were so focused on cost that they didn’t think about resilience. The delicacy of supply chains for just in time production have been exposed.

If China is knocked out, we lose a lot of components, and inputs, to finished goods made in the UK.

We also don’t appear to realise that in a complex nation like the United Kingdom, it’s difficult to manage everything from Whitehall. Local government has been so weakened by austerity that it’s having difficulties engaging as an effective partner to the centre. We can see the contrasting approach of Germany, which has a rigorously federal approach to governance. Although they have also been affected by the pandemic, their testing regime is far more well-established, and their death rate is lower.

We will need a “playbook” for future years if such an event occurs again. We’ve learned how to shut down an economy, for example, simply make it impossible for people to sell and spend.

Re-starting, however, is an altogether trickier operation, particularly if you’re trying to maintain social distancing rules. Some businesses, such as tourism and entertainment, are dependent on packing people to the rafters.

This will no longer be acceptable in forthcoming months.

We need to think about our online future as well. On Tuesday 28 April, it was announced that Tesco is going to add 200,000 more delivery slots; according to the BBC, it has achieved a growth in capacity for deliveries of 103%. This is just one part of our day to day commerce that has shifted online. I suspect that the aftereffects of lockdown will linger, and we will all be more reticent about shopping in crowded places. If we are going to do more online, we will need additional capacity to cope with it. Virgin Broadband’s recent network failure is unacceptable in the present environment.

Finally, and most importantly, we should rethink our values. We have had a stark reminder that it is those who work as doctors, nurses, postmen, binmen, porters, cleaners and other front-line professions that make society function. It seems scandalous now that many are poorly paid and inadequately rewarded.

Will we take advice from Governor Cuomo and learn these lessons? I hope so. We will see.