We can hope at least, we can hope

The Guardian tells us that:

The public’s confidence in the government’s ability to handle the coronavirus crisis has fallen sharply in the past fortnight, with less than half of voters now having faith in decisions made by ministers, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

Given the performance so far this is not, perhaps, all that much of a surprise. The Guardian, of course, thinks that this is a bad thing. We think that it could well presage a cause for celebration. With perhaps a slight edit:

The public’s confidence in the government’s ability to handle….has fallen.

Our insistence being that government is not very good at doing things. There are, certainly, things that must be done. There are also things that government is capable of doing. Finally, there are things which only government can do. We insist that government should restrict itself to doing only those things which are all three, things which must be done, which only government can do and which government is also capable of doing. Even then we don’t think they’ll be done well as current events are showing us. Government, that is, is in our view something to be used as a last resort, when all else fails.

Having watched government attempting to do something the general view of the population is thus turning - and least we can hope it is - to our own view. Given that government isn’t very good at doing things we should be employing government to do fewer things.

After all, the finest argument in favour of minarchy is watching the State trying to do something.