Yesterday I watched a series called This England about the government’s response to Covid. Cummings thought the slow response was due to the government’s structure. I would certainly be in the Remain camp and think eventually the UK should rejoin but I found some of Cummings’ ideas interesting. On the other hand, some of his other ideas are really bad. For example, the Leave camp also ran an ad camp about saving £350 million weekly for the NHS by leaving the EU. It was again proved to be a mere slogan, an effective one to persuade voters and nothing more.
He sometimes connects the dots to the simplest and nearest solutions. For example one of the main reasons he supported the leave camp was immigration. He said leaving the EU would reduce the problem to a less critical issue. It’s now clear that the root causes of immigration are much more involved and complex. During the turbulent time of the Iraq war, he again connected the simplest dots and concluded the entire Islam was to blame and published a cartoon in The Spectator. The root causes of extremism are much more complex than that. I’ll be very glad to convince him he was wrong about Islam.
His experience with the government’s functionality and response during COVID-19 can be very valuable for fixing structural issues to tackle future problems.
UPDATE 1:
When I wrote this post I wasn’t aware of today’s gatherings in support of Palestinians in the UK and elsewhere. As mentioned before, the solution is not to side with any of the two parties involved. Instead, there should be a third front that moves toward sustainable peace.
UPDATE 2:
Delay in the ceasefire generates more and more anger which will make achieving the future sustainable peace more difficult. Ordinary people are paying the price and they are the ones who will develop peace. Years of conflict have shown that the war between the two parties involved will never end. It is wrong to think delaying the ceasefire will cause irreversible damage to Hamas. It will only cause profound emotional wounds in ordinary people. Freeing hostages in return for an immediate ceasefire is the only solution.