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"We should not allow the number of the unemployed, or evidences of political, economic and social unrest to increase our feeling of apprehension and fear about the course of human events. We have bungled through, as well as into, many difficult situations. But some day, when we are less egotistical than we are at present, we shall appreciate the significance of the fact that "we are unexperienced beings standing at the first flush of dawn of civilization." As soon as our eyes are fully open we shall be eager to learn to manage the human machine, running it more efficiently, with fewer accidents, and giving it better opportunities to do constructive and creative work. We shall also feel the enthusiasm of youth, not of barbaric youth afraid to face the past, but of youth prepared to learn how to live wisely and well. In time we shall also appreciate that "the virtue of holiness is the divine virtue of intelligence." Inspired and sustained by new hopes and new ambitions and no longer disturbed, depressed and made aggressive by the memories of the intemperate, insane and belligerent thoughts and acts which disorganize and terrify prohibiting minds, we shall acquire the confidence and genuine self-respect that is essential to stabilize the life of the individual citizen and to ensure the progress of civilization"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

This article gives key reasons for the UK's tardy and confused attempts to react to the COVID‐19 pandemic. It explains very poor outcomes in the UK (in terms of the spread of the virus and high mortality, already striking at the time of writing), in terms of an initial lack of political will to prioritise public health, itself a product of a strong Prime Minister who made the "wrong call". It also highlights a failure to "follow the science", except in so far as the "science" had already accepted some dubious political judgements and the lack of capacity to test as the starting‐point.

AbstractThe garbage‐can theory of decision‐making (Cohenet al. 1972), has been adapted into a perspective on policy‐making, with adaptations of the approach placing notable emphasis upon the health sector (Kingdon 2006;Paton 2006). This article creates an adapted 'garbage‐can' framework to help explain each stage of the reform of theEnglishNationalHealthService (NHS) over the last 25 years.The emergence of the key idea and resultant policy at each stage of reform of theEnglishNHShas been arational and indeed sometimes irrational. Policy has reflected advocacy by policy‐salesmen (Kingdon 2002), proffering 'solutions' to ill‐defined problems and answers to unasked questions, and politicians' short‐termist responses at each decision‐point.Yet the garbage‐can alone is not enough: if arationality rules in policy‐making day to day, this does not mean that there is not an overall ideological context, trend or bias in reform. The article also posits that 'market reform' has derived from the ideological hegemony of a naive anti‐statism (hostility to a misleadingly defined and often mythological 'centralist state') in public services and enthusiasm for market competition rather than any evidence‐based application of pro‐market ideas to health policy.A question arises: how are these two approaches (short‐term arationality and longer‐term ideological bias) combined in explanation of how policy over time is biased in a particular direction while seemingly arbitrary and directionless at each messy decision‐point. The article attempts to combine the insights of a garbage‐can approach with wider explanations of ideological hegemony.

PurposeThe knowledge economy and the knowledge work that fuels it have created much debate in relation to the types of workers it requires and how they should be managed. The central issue is that "knowledge workers" are only valuable while possessing a body of knowledge to utilise in the process of their work. The management of workers with knowledge runs counter to the more mainstream Taylorist systems based on the assimilation of knowledge into the organisation. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically analyse the usefulness of Scientific Management as a management system for controlling knowledge work.Design/methodology/approachThrough a review of relevant literature this paper compares the main principles of scientific management with the theory of knowledge work in an attempt to understand their relationship.FindingsThis paper finds that: despite the need for workers to retain knowledge the main principles of scientific management can still be applied; and the application of Scientific Management to knowledge work will result in an increasing division of knowledge, as opposed to division of task, which compliments the trend towards increasing occupational specialisation.Originality/valueThis article proposes that Scientific Management should be considered as a useful tool to manage knowledge work. This view runs counter to more mainstream accounts where Scientific Management and knowledge work are seen as incompatible. This paper partially fills the gap in understanding of how knowledge workers should be managed and is useful to academics seeking to characterise knowledge work and practitioners seeking to manage in the knowledge economy.