Government's not good at complicated things

This is one of those little problems with the very idea of government. For one of the things we use it for is to deal with those problems that are too complex for us simpler souls to either understand or deal with individually.

Well, OK, but for government to be that solution it is necessary that government be good - or at least better than we are - or even effective at doing those complex things. This not being something greatly in evidence:

The Government’s flagship passenger quarantine scheme risked descending into chaos after even a Home Office spokesman admitted it was “very hard to imagine how it would work in practice”.

Almost all travellers arriving in the UK from Monday are being threatened with fines if they fail to fill in an online form at ports of entry and then decline to self isolate for two weeks.

But according to a leaked Home Office document seen by the Telegraph, there is no method for Border Force officials to ensure if details submitted are ‘genuine’ and fines for inaccurate entries will only be issued if they are ‘manifestly false’ such as claiming you are called ‘Mickey Mouse’ and reside at ‘Buckingham Palace’.

All rather plans of mice and men.

Much else that has been recently done - say, masks didn’t work, do work, shouldn’t be used or should be but by medics only, are now compulsory and so on. It’s the ability to outwit a damp paper bag that is in doubt here. Meaning that sure, we humans do face complex problems and we do have to deal with them as best we can. It’s just that government isn’t often the way to do so.