I wonder how noisy backbenchers would cope in the hot seat

With imperfect information, the government is having to delay choices that impact our lives without being able to give the public the full workings out, writes Salma Shah

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s motivations are being questioned (Getty)

Once we have shelter, running water and a consistent food supply, the thing we humans need most is certainty. We have spent millennia endlessly trying to form our world into predictable patterns of behaviour that we can manage and understand. The alternative would be to acknowledge the extreme chaos of the universe in which we are born. This is too much for our little human brains to comprehend, so we create narratives, rules and practices to tame what is a deeply uncertain world.

It’s one of the reasons cabinet indecision this week about further Christmas Covid restrictions is so infuriating. Many of us have been left to endlessly doom scroll on social media in order to regain a sense of control, despite it being completely counterproductive. Instead of gaining certainty, we are ingesting a diet of unchecked opinion, misinformation and agenda-driven content – a maddening combination even in normal times – that is sending us spiralling.

The government has rightly had its fair share of criticism in recent weeks. Self-inflicted incompetence is the worst kind, especially when it breaks the contract of trust with the public, but there is something that we need to understand about the current situation: no government can confidently make a definitive decision on anything. Action or indeed inaction, as is the case now, is all based on probability, which is imperfect and uncertain.

We are revisiting the reality of the economic situation, which is as scary as getting the virus itself. The long-term impact of even a short lockdown, which will need to be funded, removes the treasury’s flexibility in the future, stalling hopes for tax cuts and continually stamping down on the little growth we are depending on. In the short term, hospitality and entertainment is suffering as a result of people changing their behaviours to control their Christmas outcomes. A patchwork approach is always messy and uneven but costs the government a lot less.

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While there is good news about the reduced severity of the Omicron variant, the increased transmissibility means it still has the ability to overwhelm the NHS, partly thanks to the unvaccinated who don’t have the protection the rest of us do against this strain.

We can breathe a sigh of relief for our individual circumstances, perhaps, but for ministers the prospect of a winter NHS work plan will be a daunting one. Are they going to make the frontline staff march all the way to the top of the hill only to march them back down again? All of which entails cost, not only to the public purse but the morale and wellbeing of a depleted service.

This is a fine balance. With imperfect information, the government is having to delay choices that impact our lives without being able to give the public the full workings out. It’s why it’s so amusing to read the opinions of backbenchers and armchair experts with definitive advice on how to act in any given situation. Would they genuinely pursue the same course of action if they were in the hot seat? It is doubtful.

The motivations of the government are being questioned and the chaos at the top is driving the sense of national hopelessness. The lockdown parties, rule-breaking and naval gazing create uncertainty in a system where strategic predictability is the root of stability. We are desperately trying to regain control of our world but until we do it’s probably best to switch off the screens and hope that somewhere, someone is going to take a definitive decision soon.

Salma Shah was special adviser to Sajid Javid, from 2018 to 2019. She was also a special adviser at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport