{"id":7391,"date":"2020-04-27T11:05:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T11:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7391"},"modified":"2020-04-27T11:05:22","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T11:05:22","slug":"let-the-women-take-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7391","title":{"rendered":"Let the Women take charge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Angela Merkel\/Junge Union Deutschlands<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the lines of discussion currently raging nearly as\nstrongly as the pandemic itself is the issue of how in the majority of cases\nthe countries with women leaders have managed \u2013 at this stage \u2013 to have\ncontrolled Covid-19 relatively successfully in their respective countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angela Merkel is one such woman leader. While our ineffective chaps bleat from a wooden lectern at no. 10, apparently making numbers and targets up as they go, darling Mutti has, as ever, worked from a completely different rule book. Fortunately for Germany, they do not have representatives from a highly dubious \u2018Nudge Unit\u2019 influencing their life or death decisions on how best to look after German citizens. Instead, Merkel has used her scientific background to make policy and practice that is consistent and has resulted in markedly fewer deaths than in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s wonderful Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Many years ago some close friends moved there from the UK to follow career opportunities. I did not envy them then, but I do now. Instead of paternalistic sermons along the lines of \u2018now do as I say Thompson, I\u2019m the school prefect and you\u2019re just a first year\u2019, the Kiwis\u2019 Prime Minister imposed a lockdown supported by testing and contact tracing. She gives briefings from her sofa at home, and with her you could really trust that \u2018we\u2019re all in it together\u2019.\u00a0 To reinforce that message, Ardern has opted to take a 20% pay cut so that she too is sharing the conditions that apply to her electorate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ardern closed the country\u2019s borders before lockdown. \u00a0At the time of writing here in the UK you can still arrive from anywhere in the world and head off without any follow up as to where you have come from and whether you just might be contagious..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving back to the northern hemisphere, take a moment to\nlook at Denmark\u2019s Mette Frederiksen. She also closed the country\u2019s borders before\ninstigating a lockdown. Now I know New Zealand and Denmark have tiny\npopulations in comparison with the UK, but to my pragmatic mind would that not\nhave been even more of a reason to control the flow of people? Just asking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nicola Sturgeon\/AP Photo\/Kin Cheung<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Actually you don\u2019t even have to leave the UK to find an\nexample of a woman prepared to treat people as grownups rather than children who\nmust be seen and not heard. Just the other day, Nicola Sturgeon spoke frankly\nabout the need to inform and engage the public in a mature, non-prescriptive\nway in the discussion about how the lockdown will be eased.  This is in marked contrast to the Government\u2019s\nexpressed assumption that if they even mention the concept of easing the lockdown\nwe will all rush out and form large shouty groups and do our level best to spread\nthe virus to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s good for the Scots, I say, is good for the rest of\nus. There is of course another fundamental difference between Ms Sturgeon and\nthe likes of Boris Johnson; the former had a good Scottish state education. The\nlatter went to Eton, that bastion of privilege where you are taught that you\nare intrinsically better than other people, know better than them, and certainly\ndo not need to treat them as equals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just hope that when there is an enquiry into the Government\u2019s\nhandling of this crisis that it is led by a woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

find an example of a woman prepared to treat people as grownups rather than children who must be seen and not heard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,270,69,132,276,56,159],"tags":[76,271,247,133,277,92,160],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7391"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7404,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions\/7404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}