Very important point here. The reason why it is fair to ask Johnson about the detailed regulation in each area of England is precisely because his government - in a centralised way and with very limited democratic scrutiny- makes those regulations. The buck stops with him.
(If someone had asked him about the detailed rules in Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, his answer would, rightly, have been: “ask the 🏴 or 🏴 Ministers about that”.)
The burden of centralisation is that you are accountable for all the decisions taken centrally.
One aspect of that is that when those decisions profoundly affect people’s lives, they expect you to be on top of all of them. Johnson’s well-known lack of interest in detail makes him vulnerable there.
But the problem is more systemic than that: it’s that centralising critical decisions like these, involving endless detailed judgements which should be based on local knowledge and sensitivity to local needs, may well be beyond the centre’s capacity.
The relationship between the degree of decentralisation of lockdown regulation and countries’ success in dealing with this stage of the pandemic will be a worthwhile research project.
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