No government has ever or will be completely uncorrupt or efficient. Thatcher bent various rules for her shady son. Labour arranged all those dodgy PPI deals. Humans will be human. But in my 54 years on this planet and living in the UK I don't remember a government being anything like this corrupt or inefficient. Everyone politician with a brain, spine or conscience was fired and replaced by Brexit 'loyalists'. And here we are. One of the worst responses to the pandemic in the world and I don't know if I will even be able to get fresh veg in January. So much for British exceptionalism.
I live in Japan and the response by the government here was and is in sharp contrast to that in the UK (a super soft lockdown that ended before the summer is one example), yet it has been akin to comedy show from the beginning, before it hit the UK.
Still, there has not been the same hit from the disease, which only underlines that the differences in effect that are seen worldwide are about differences in population and geography - being overweight, having a very low friction of movement (e.g. excellent transport links, many borders), and not being low in vitamin D etc - far more than they are about government response.
I'm not saying the UK government has done well but it's striking to me that, from a distance, the criticisms of the UK and US I see coming from my friends are very similar, very parochial, and seem driven by media headlines rather than anything objectively sound.
In short, I'd give it another few years before you judge them more harshly than the government that brought us the Iraq war, for one.
