3 ms·

I am convinced that this cannot be the whole story. The 'West' construction is not a mess because of bureocracy. It is a mess because of contractor disease and

I am convinced that this cannot be the whole story. The 'West' construction is not a mess because of bureocracy. It is a mess because of contractor disease and hollowing out of skills. First come the contractors - UK government needed to do contract tracing, and has contracted a private company to get medical proffesionals to call travelers that were diagnosed with covid. The private conoaby has no expertise in anything other that writing bids and proposals for government contra ts, they subcontracted someone else. Those subcontracted a call center that has people with no experience or understanding of medicine reading from a script and earning minimum wage while 4x their salary is pocketed. I see this all over the place, there are like 5 layers of subcontracting you must travel though before you find actual work being done. Second consider alck of long-term planning - uk has not been building nuclear power plants for decades, then started hincley point C. There was noone in the coutry with the experience requires to run a nuclear project of this scale. Then the project will be complete, with difficulty and delays and people train in the job, and the people will be lost again. The financing on that project was forced onto the company to keep construction costs off government balancesheet - they didnt want it to show up as debr for political reasons. So insted of government borrowing for 30 years at 0.3% interest the conpany has to borrow that money ar 3% interest, more than doubling the cost. I frequently see evidence of China and other asian nations being more technically skills and agile, for instance they were desinfecting their busses with UV-C before UK managed to figure out hand sanitising stations. We have done nothing to sort out ventilation in schools, we are removing masks even though they don't hurt anyone, and we are forcing peolle back into central london to prop up the commercial real estate bubble.

glitchcrab 5y ago
Whilst I agree with a lot of your post (I am British), most of it was just a rant about the government's inadequate response to covid. It has pretty much nothing to do with this article.
- makomk 5y ago
  It was an inaccurate rant about the UK's response to Covid too. The only part of calling up people with Covid to find their contacts which was contracted out was recruiting and employing them, fairly directly by the government, and of course medical professionals weren't used - those were busy giving medical care, and contact tracing was outside their area of expertise anyway. And the big reason it seemed inadequate is that the British press, quite frankly, outright lied about how well contact tracing worked in places like South Korea and about the downsides of their approach, which would not have been at all politically acceptable in the UK.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    > of course medical professionals weren't used - those were busy giving medical care I have no expertiese myself, but all the literature I have read on contact tracing was very clear that you should not use random people on minimum wage, it recommended retired medical proffeshionals, or people who worked in a related industry, so that they have a basic understading of the subject matter and the questions they are asking. Also private eye reports that there was a wide gap between the skills and wages government thought they were buying, and what was provided at the other end.

glitchcrab 5y ago

Whilst I agree with a lot of your post (I am British), most of it was just a rant about the government's inadequate response to covid. It has pretty much nothing to do with this article.

makomk 5y ago
It was an inaccurate rant about the UK's response to Covid too. The only part of calling up people with Covid to find their contacts which was contracted out was recruiting and employing them, fairly directly by the government, and of course medical professionals weren't used - those were busy giving medical care, and contact tracing was outside their area of expertise anyway. And the big reason it seemed inadequate is that the British press, quite frankly, outright lied about how well contact tracing worked in places like South Korea and about the downsides of their approach, which would not have been at all politically acceptable in the UK.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  > of course medical professionals weren't used - those were busy giving medical care I have no expertiese myself, but all the literature I have read on contact tracing was very clear that you should not use random people on minimum wage, it recommended retired medical proffeshionals, or people who worked in a related industry, so that they have a basic understading of the subject matter and the questions they are asking. Also private eye reports that there was a wide gap between the skills and wages government thought they were buying, and what was provided at the other end.