Government must galvanise population like in wartime, says Sheffield business leader

People accepted the loss of some privileges during the Second World War, such as the rationing of food

A country at the outset totally unprepared and under resourced . Many decisions made behind closed doors and democratic , consultative processes compromised , and many twists and turns initially of shock and ultimately fundamental change to society.

Of course large number of casualties but fortunately during the coronavirus in deaths not of WW2 proportions , but certainly in economic damage huge national debt that took decades to repay.

During WW2 there were many twists and turns and even votes of no confidence in Churchill’s leadership .

We now need to galvanise the population like we did in wartime , after many complicated and confusing mixed messages made by our leaders and compounded by them not being too inspiring or convincing when subject to media scrutiny.

Of course society today is different to that which applied decades ago , with much more access to information , ability to evaluate analysis from experts and of course able to more challenge and protest as they feel minded.

In wartime we had one aim to defeat our enemies , in the pandemic we even have sections of our society who do not even accept it’s existence or seriousness let alone supporting our responses.

So devoid of decisive leadership and even worse ever changing overly complicated communications , is it any surprise our responses to the coronavirus have lacked cohesiveness and universal support.

Of course as during the war mistakes were made that had serious consequences and with a new pandemic it was also inevitable that decisions made were seen in hindsight to require remedial action.

What is now required, as we are all fatigued with so many complicated and every changing restrictions , is the honesty to accept mistakes and most importantly to gain the trust of the populatIon in the credibility of new measures .

As in WW2 most of us are willing to accept common sense preventative measures if they are seen to save lives , protect jobs and maintain education etc.

The biggest lesson surely to our leaders is that nothing undermines our confidence in us having a winning coronavirus strategy is to over promise and under deliver.

It would be stating the obvious that this often applied to PPE and Testing .

As in the 40s if we have confidence in the measures being proposed however tough we will cooperate to beat the Pandemic.