Thread by @AdamWagner1

I think many would be forgiving of the "tear up the rule book to get results" approach if the results didn't so obviously demonstrate why the rule book matters in a crisis - it prevents government contracts going to donors/friends and profiteering

https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1421859053526032385

Have been thinking about the term "profiteering" for a bit - seems so apt to some of those PPE contracts. Doesn't seem to be illegal in the govt procurement context but would be in consumer law (blakemorgan.co.uk/law-in-a-time-…)

Very interesting debate in Parliament on this 102 years ago! api.parliament.uk/historic-hansa…

The Cummings tweets remind me of the thread I was writing at around the same time he was telling the PM to tear up the rule book

Perhaps it is the lawyers' role to advocate for the rule book, and the rule-busting maverick with the PM's ear to argue against them. But that disregards the central principle of the rule of law - everyone is subject to the law, even those who make it.

Ultimately, the disregard for the rules (or, perhaps more accurately, the disdain for them applying to giants such as those in charge) is what undid Cummings, Hancock and others and also may have made the public jaundiced about following rules at all. Lethal in a pandemic

The idea that it's better to break rules and worry about losing a Judicial Review later isn't a great approach to democratic government - though I suppose history would be kind if the approach had indeed made for better results. I'm not sure it did

If you want to read that full thread which began in Feb 2020 it is here

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1239152936493744128

I turned the first part into a @NewStatesman article newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…

I don't imagine @Dominic2306 paid much attention, me not being on his lawyer charlatans list

Thinking this through a bit more - because I actually am pretty sympathetic to the extraordinary, terrifying challenges of pandemic policy in Spring 2020 (and saw a bit of this up close) - I think that if you are going to ride roughshod over usual rules/norms then (a) you better

hope the decisions produce results (I suppose that is a bit of luck/quality and experience of leaders who happen to be in charge when the crisis happens), but also (b) you have to be extra scrupulous to show you/your friends aren't personally benefiting from the rule breaking

But I do think that (b) becomes harder over time because as perhaps the Hancock affair showed, if you encourage a culture of rule breaking justified by the "public good" then you may end up thinking the rules aren't for you at all.