A triumph of hope over experience
It seems that the UK government was warned by a whole host of experts that putting a border down the Irish Sea would mean border checks at the border. There was clue in the word ‘border’ but the government is apparently shocked at the resulting border checks.
This doesn’t seem to be so much a case of “we’ve had enough of experts”, as we asked the experts, they told us in detail, it was perfectly clear common sense advice a child of five could follow but even so we decided to totally ignore the advice; as we knew better. Not only that but “we are now surprised that they were right but hey, who could have known?”
This is also set to continue, the government is now perplexed that the EU actually expects the UK to stick to a six month old deal. Its own experts must be telling it that this is what the EU always does, was expected to do and is doing; but apparently the government just didn’t see this coming either.
The government’s policies are therefore not so much a triumph of hope over experience, more hopelessness over expertise. A dose of reality would be very welcome, but you really can’t see it happening anytime soon.
https://jonty.substack.com/