Inertia: Seasons Change but Decisions Stay the Same

Henry talks about how the lack of proactive decision-making in Westminster will have disastrous consequences.

Aug 21, 2025

I was recently reading The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano, and he tells a story:

“Sixto Martínez completed his military service at a barracks in Seville.

In the middle of the courtyard of that barracks was a small bench. Next to the small bench, a solider stood guard. No one knew why the bench had to be guarded. The bench was guarded round the clock, just because: every day, every night, and from one generation of officers to the next the order was passed on and the soldiers obeyed it. No one expressed any doubts or ever asked why. If that’s how it was done, and that’s how it always has been done, there had to be a reason.

And so it continued until someone, some general or colonel, wanted to look at the original order. He had to rummage through all the files. After a good deal of poking around, he found the answer. Thirty-one years, two months and four days ago, an officer had ordered a guard to be stationed beside the small bench, which had just been painted, so that no one would think of sitting on the wet paint.”

And I thought of Westminster

Every morning I wake up and days pass. I watch leaves blossom and fall but see the same decisions keep being made over and over again.

So I had a rummage through the Westminster files to see what I could find. One example is that black women’s mortality rates in child-birth are three times higher than that of white women’s and even after a probe discovered a “cultural and ethical bias” contributed to the death of a pregnant black woman in Liverpool, there is still a denial of structural racism from within the NHS.

Compare that in 2020 when the government opened an illegal “VIP Lane” for suppliers to provide personal protective equipment (PPE). £14bn worth of PPE was distributed through the VIP Lane where access was gained from political connections. Despite contracts being as high as £200m, no one has been jailed from the scandal.

The system can be efficient when it wants to be. Don’t be surprised if you feel like a guard at the bench - politics is protecting the interests of the ultra-wealthy and that’s how it always has been done.

So the anxiety from inertia crawls up the spine.

Most of the country feel it and they don’t want to guard the bench anymore. They want a change of orders and who’s selling it? Nigel Farage and his bunch of Brexit buccaneers, ready to fire away at what’s left of Britain’s sinking welfare state. Come 2029, Farage and 50p Lee will be sailing into the sunset with a booty of bargain public sector assets. Our promised £350 million a week extra for public health, a distant dream.