Systems problems but no systems thinking or systems management

Supply chains, energy, stockpiling, deja vu all over again in No10...

In spring 2020 I and officials started work on a) generally improving crisis management and b) specifically looking at supply chain issues including energy markets. The country is in another mess because after the Vote Leave team left this work was downgraded by the PM, there remains no institutional locus for systems thinking/management, COBR remains totally inadequate, and the PM is trying to be his own chief of staff, head of policy and director of communications with predictably disastrous consequences. Some pundits are asking ‘where’s HMT?’. Remember a) HMT does not control the centre’s crisis management structures and b) the PM has deliberately frozen HMT out of many discussions because he sabotaged relations with the Chancellor.

Immediately below is a passage I wrote on 28/9 (in LKY notes) re: supply chains, energy, No10. Skim or skip if you read before, I include for future reference.

I then jot a few more things about these problems.

Finally some health advice: if you’re over 40, take Vitamin D supplements over winter to strengthen your immune system because the public health experts do but health communication is such a shambles they don’t tell you this.

I’ll write on state of the parties tomorrow and LKY Friday. Next week, Tolstoy and various ideas on regime change…

I’m reading the new von Neumann book, The Man from the Future, a book about China’s strategy, The Long Game, and I’m going to start re-reading Anna Karenina and Closing of the American Mind.

Monday 20 September