Snowball
Liner notes
This -- on the face of it -- is about Mr Johnson and COVID, but in reality it's about any number of politicians prioritising easy wins over difficult structural change. The title came from a podcast I got hooked on, and there's a deserved nod to Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales in the middle.You saw the snowball coming and you figured it would miss
You'd only take precautions in proportion to the risk
Projections and predictions, you might as well say "guess"
You had a thousand other things more pressing to address
You promised your assistant would add it to your list
You saw the snowball coming and you figured it would miss.
You saw the snowball coming and you thought you'd wait to act
You didn't want to panic before you knew the facts
You knew you ought to do the work and check it was benign
Important but not urgent, you deferred it every time
You hardly bust a gut to get the details that you lacked
You saw the snowball coming and you thought you'd wait to act
You saw the snowball coming and you saw it coming fast
Of course you knew the stories of distasters of the past
They told of devastation on a horrifying scale
But you need exaggeration for a cautionary tale
These things are never quite as bad a doomsayers forecast
You saw the snowball coming and you saw it coming fast.
You saw the snowball coming but you didn't trust your eyes
You asked all your advisors what precisely they'd advise
There was no clear consensus on the level of the threat
And everybody grasped for what concessions they could get
If it turned out badly, you'd just have to improvise
You saw the snowball coming but you didn't trust your eyes.
You saw the snowball coming, you saw it closing in
Nothing to be done, you'd have to take it on the chin
You gave a rousing speech about resilience and nerve
Hoping beyond hope for an eleventh-hour swerve
You hunkered down and made a plan for how to save your skin
You saw the snowball coming, you saw it closing in.
[crash]
You saw the snowball coming and you didn't run away
Others would have cut and run, you tried to save the day
People tried to blame you but you argued the reverse --
If it wasn't for your leadership, it could have been much worse
You claim you were heroic, staying put on judgement day
You saw the snowball coming and you didn't run away.