Inept Government Or More Nefarious Reason?

It was early March, after watching the Covid-19 Virus tear through Asia and mainland Europe, that the British Government began planning for what was obviously coming our way and one strategy mentioned was 'herd immunity', where enough of the community become infected and develop a resistance to it, therefore slowing the spread.
The Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, defended the approach and said that building up some form of herd immunity, by having potentially 60% of the population contract Covid-19, was one of the 'key things we need to do', it was only when other science and medical personnel did the maths and came to a shocking death toll of 250,000, that the Government changed tack and denied that it was ever a real policy. 
When we look at the tack the Government changed to, they seem to have been behind the curve every step of the way, being one of the last nations in Europe to lock down and close schools, continuing to allow large gatherings and then reopening too soon without a reliable app or a working track and trace system in place and we have just put it down to the actions of a very inept Government but there could be a much more nefarious reason.
Boris Johnson warned the country that, as a result of Covid-19: 'families are going to lose loved ones before their time' yet he took very little immediate action to stop the virus spreading, it was weeks later that he began introducing measures, once the virus had truly gained a foothold in Britain.
The aim, we were told continually, was to flatten the curve and slow the virus’s spread so that fewer people need treatment at any given time so that the NHS could cope, it was never said they were looking to eradicate the disease, just control how many people had it at any given time which brings us spinning back to the idea of herd immunity, allowing most of the population to ultimately become infected but instead of an immediate massive spike and death toll, the curve is flattened out to spread the spike out across the next 12 months.
We are currently standing somewhere between the Government grim death toll figure of 44,830 and the Office of Natioanal Statistics number of 55,873 and now the Government have announced masks are to be made mandatory, again many weeks after everyone else and not for another 10 days rather than immediatly.
Taking it all into account, i do find myself wondering if the Government have not been as slow and inept as we first thought and despite the strong denial of herd immunity, they are allowing the disease to systematically rip through the community in some cold-blooded experiment in social engineering and rather than protect it's citizens, it's just stringing out the 250,000 figure and the herd immunity over a more acceptable time.