It is not lost on me that, at a time when our country is in economic meltdown, our soldiers are dying on the front line, unemployment is rising at a phenomenal rate and businesses are going bust every day, our government is just not interested - Note: I have excluded ‘Swine Flu’ because this is just a convenient distraction for our government.
Instead, they are intent on squabbling like spoilt school children. Little wonder we are in such a mess, each and every one of them should be ashamed. Headlines no longer deal with the issues that concern the public, instead they are dedicated to those within the Labour party that seek to criticise or defend New Labour and/or Gordon Brown. Whilst I am all for the discredited New Labour machine going into self-destruct mode, I am concerned that it is happening whilst they are still in government, it is akin to sending a text message on your mobile phone, whilst travelling at over 100 mph on the motorway.
It is clear to me, that only now, have Labour diehards realised that their social experiment has been a failure, both in terms of policy and implementation. Instead of bickering, they should call a general election for the sake of the country and let the people decide who is fit to get us through this mess. But no, they couldn’t give a toss, they choose to fight each other rather than concentrate on what they were elected to do…run the country. Their selfishness clearly knows no bounds.
To save the party arguing the toss for the next 12 months as they desperately and unashamedly hang onto power, let me explain why they failed, in simple terms, that even children can comprehend. Now I will not get into the detail of whether or not the policies were right because this is neither the time, nor the place. However, the failure can be simply put, it is not about the plan, it is all about the implementation. New Labour came up with a vision, a plan for the United Kingdom and instead of placing the very best people in charge of these plans, they resorted to cronyism. The decision on who would be responsible for implementation of New Labour’s grand vision was determined on reward, not merit.
Government is not the place for ‘on the job’ training. Take for example Jacqui Smith, how can a background in teaching economics at a high school qualify her for the position of Home Secretary? Or Alan Johnson, before entering parliament, he was a postman and then a full-time union official, so how is this going to help him run one of the 3rd largest employer in the world, the National Health Service? David Miliband is now Foreign Secretary, yet before entering parliament, he was a researcher for the Institute for Public Policy Research. How does this qualify him as the best person to represent our interests on the world stage? Even the Chinese questioned Ed Miliband over his “qualifications” to lecture them on climate change, his response was that as a politician, he was in effect, charged with selling the concept.
Take Gordon Brown for example. Some may think that he had some sort of financial background, an accountant perhaps, or a financial analyst. But no, this man who was to become our Chancellor of 10 years, had no such qualifications, little wonder that he lead us into the biggest economic crisis in 60 years. Gordon Brown was a Rector of the University of Edinburgh, after that, he was employed as a lecturer in Politics at the Glasgow College of Technology. From 1980, until he was elected a member of parliament, he was a journalist at Scottish Television, later becoming an editor for current affairs at the same television station.
As for Tony Blair, his background prior to becoming an MP is so scant, it is not worth mentioning, so I won’t. Little wonder then that this government of ,very little talent, has had to spend £billions on consultants throughout their term of office.
It never ceases to amaze me how, in politics, ministers are offered position not based on merit, but based on loyalty. If the private sector were to resort to such cronyism, it would fail miserably, instead, with a few exceptions, the private sector employ the best people for the job, based on experience, knowledge and ability. No so ministers. If those in the private sector fail, they are fired and replaced with someone else that can do the job. Not so ministers, they are normally forgiven, occasionally moved, but rarely sent to the backbenches.
The internal squabbling of New Labour is lamentable, but it is also dangerous. The public are not stupid, they can work out that if the party, including government ministers are fighting amongst themselves, then they are not fighting for us. If the party had any sense of self-respect, they would admit that they had lost the plot, lacked any direction and had demonstrably failed the British public and in doing so, offer the people of this country the opportunity to decide on their future as well as our own. They won’t of course, because now, more than at any time in our history, MP’s of all parties are in denial of the fact that they are elected to serve, not rule. And chief amongst this philosophy and belief are members of the Labour party.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:22 am
In answer to your last point (and apparently this is particularly so of the current Labour Party), MPs are so often “little people”, intellectually, morally and in terms of ability, that “power” is really what they seek rather than anything else - so of course they want to rule rather than serve.
As to this whole post, excellent though it is, it implies that there is some kind of plan and that what happens to the UK is somehow intentional. How could that be true? Who in their right mind would deliberately behave the way these people do, or even organise the proverbial p*ss up in a brewery the way they do it? To me, it’s just crisis living - they move from crisis to crisis with little hope of anything positive in between.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:05 am
@ CJ: I believe they had a vision, not a plan. If they had gone through a natural transition of vision, plan, implementation and review, then they would know where it went wrong. Whatever the vision, I never supported its viability, objectives or re-distribution of wealth, it just doesn’t work. I agree they move from crisis to crisis, the is self-evident in the way that they always offer knee-jerk responses to problems as they arise. The bottom line is we have schoolboys running our country, with all the testosterone and child-like behavior that is associated with that age group. On top of that, they lack moral rectitude, a sense of pride or awareness. They are, in my humble opinion, the lowest of the low.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
The difficulty is, (a) what more damage are they going to inflict on us all if they remain in power for another year and (b) if the country has had enough, how on earth do we get rid of them before their due time? At the moment, Brown holds the ace card…..the election will only happen on his say-so, or at the end of the allotted five-year span, next May/June. That gives him another year to spin more fibs with Mandelson, socially engineer the voting system and dream up more scare tactics to frighten people into supporting their policies. Also more time to attack the middle-earner with higher taxes, destroy the private rented sector, bully people into databases and generally devise more weasly taxes to drag more money out of our pockets to line the coffers of a bankrupt country. It’s enough to make you head for the nearest cliff…..
May 6th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
@ CD: I truly wish I had the answers. We badly need some form of mechanism to allow the people of this country to call time on the government of the time. Unfortunately, only the Queen has those sorts of powers and even if the majority of the people petitioned the Queen, I doubt she would elect to do anything. The only thing that has brought governments down in the past, at least in this country, is high level of civil disobedience, or self-inflicted wounds by the government itself. Sadly, there is too much disinterest for the former to happen and in terms of the latter, this government could self-destruct and it would still attempt to hold onto power. We need real constitutional change to return power back to the people.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Ministers decide policy, civil servants, quangos and contractors implement those policies. Why do you (apparently) think that an accountant or financial adviser would make a better Chancellor of the Exchequer? What experience do you think one of these would have that would enable them to do the job better?
Would you require the Health Secretary to be a surgeon or physio? What should the requirement for Home Secretary or the Foreign Secretary be? How would you define the job requirements for the whole cabinet?
May 19th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
@ eveningperson: My first point would be that based on the underachievement in many of these departments, improvement would not be difficult to achieve, even if they did nothing!
Part of the problem is the sheer size of the departments in question, the second is that policy is often decided on the hoof and/or or to benefit from good headlines. One thing Ministers do not appreciate, because o many have had little or no business experience, is the fact that people have a way of not doing things, or doing things their way. That is to say, simply because a Minister says something has to be done, he often, naively, assumes that it will. Anyone in business will tell you that it takes a lot more than dictats to make things happen.
Let’s take a look at Health shall we? At the moment, we have a very affable, friendly minister in charge of the Health Service, with a budget close to £100bn and 1.4m staff. His qualifications, he is a smooth operator and a former postman/union official. My argument is that there are quite a few clinicians that also have substantial business, as well as frontline experience. Attempting to persuade people with this depth of experience will add value, not least because people always tend to have more respect for ‘experts’ rather than yet another politician changing everything his predecessor implemented on a whim. These ministers come in, look around for a few weeks and then assume they know everything, I have met these types in business. They are a menace and can be hugely damaging.
It terms of the Chancellors job. Well let’s see, we could opt for an economist, an economics professor, a central banker or perhaps the finance director of a large ftse100 company. Instead, we appointed Gordon Brown, who had been a Rector of the University of Edinburgh, after that, he was employed as a lecturer in Politics at the Glasgow College of Technology. Brown read a few books, went to the States and considered himself an expert, no wonder he couldn’t see the impending crash!
Education: There are a good number of Universities and colleges that have a business attached, these are often, though not always run by academics, professors etc. They, in my opinion, would have a better understanding of the education needs of our country, that a career politician. In the main, my view is that politicians are style over substance, presence over experience. Little wonder that civil servants view many of them with utter contempt.
I am not arrogant enough to claim that I have all the answers, but I have sufficient grasp to know that the way it has always been, simply isn’t working. I believe that part of the reason is that candidates are selected from a very limited pool, this means the ‘best of the best’ often, though not always, simply isn’t good enough. If you want to be ready for government, you must have the right people in place, with the appropriate qualification, gravitas and experience to run big departments. It is no longer enough to be placed in a powerful position, with a large workforce and massive budget based on cronyism. Parliament needs to become a meritocracy, political parties need to actively encourage people with outside, but relevant expertise to come in to run key posts. If you or anyone else has a better idea, then I am all ears!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
I don’t think you’ve answered my question. The incumbents may well be inadequate, but what sort of skills do you think are required to run a department of state?
As far as I know Gordon Brown has good (conventional) knowledge of economics. So have most economics professors. None of them apparently spotted the crash coming. Nor did the bankers, although most of them would rate highly for you as having run FTSE 100 companies. Rather a large failure that. I can’t see how they would have made better Chancellors.
You seem to think that business people are somehow better qualified to run the government. Most of them would think so too. I have seen a lot of businesses close up, and most of running a business (after the initial stages) involves technical knowledge and rules of thumb - beyond that success is largely a matter of luck and timing and external forces beyond one’s control. What precisely do you think a business person has that suits them to a government department?
May 21st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
@ eveningperson: I think you should read my original post and subsequent responses again. For the record, having worked in senior positions and run my own businesses, I do not agree with your assessment of what makes a business successful. I don’t know what your background is, but in my experience, those with opinions similar to your own act as observers, not participants and, whilst that may not invalidate your opinion (to which you are entitled), it does not imply detailed knowledge either.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I don’t doubt your experience or your own opinion of it. All I’m saying is that you haven’t given any indication of what specifically it is about business people and economists that you think would make them better at running departments of state, and why.
Especially as the current crash is due to business people and failed to be anticipated by economists.
It goes without saying that all business people (and most other people too) think they can run the country better than the current crowd. But that’s not evidence.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
@ eveningperson: In terms of my business experience, I quoted a fact, not an opinion on my abilities, that would be determined by my peers and my ability to achieve set objectives. Something politicians would do well to remember.
Let me put you straight on a few further facts. It was not the failure of “business people” that caused the current economic crisis; it was the greed of bankers, the failure of regulators and the inability or unwillingness of ministers to ensure that the public interests were protected. It is not true to say that economists failed to predict the current crash. Vince Cable a politician and respected former economist did so 4 years ago and a good number of other economists in the intervening years also predicted a crash, though not necessarily a banking crash. I read many newspaper articles predicting a housing crash and bursting of the credit bubble. The problem is these experts opinions were not taken into consideration because government ministers thought they knew better.
I do not consider myself an expert, but even I predicted several years ago that there would be a so called “bust”, because it was quite clear to me that the rising house prices was not sustainable, worst still, people were accessing their mortgages or remortgaging to purchase things such as cars, holidays and so on. The number of times I heard people refer to their home as a house. I did not fall into this trap, so I followed my own advice, I know many that did however and whilst they must be responsible for their own decisions, the politicians did not help much when we were constantly told that there had been an end to boom and bust. I hold Gordon Brown primarily responsible for much of the mess we are in, he didn’t listen when he was told that his private sector pension raid would seriously damage people pensions, he didn’t listen when he was advised against first selling our gold reserves when the price was at an all time low and then announcing his intention in advance of the auction. He didn’t listen when told that the public sector pension scheme was not sustainable. He didn’t listen when he was told that the tax credit system would be too complex to administer, now we have hundreds of thousands of people that do not get what they should and over-payments and fraud nudging £2bn every year.
I don’t know all the answers, but it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that the current system is simply not working. Politicians are often selected through cronyism and, of course, it helps if they are good or persuasive public speakers. They are not selected based on their knowledge of a particular subject, even if that is as inane as life itself. The problem with most politicians is they are seduced by power, they end up going into transmit mode and assuming that they can walk on water. In other words, they simply do not listen. They issue dictats and assume that everyone will run around and do their bidding, of course most of their advisors will give them a sanitised view of the world outside and may even provide them with a set of appropriate statistics that can help the politician ’sell’ his success. The realist is all so often completely different.
Any experienced businessman will tell you that they have learnt that their most important asset is being able to listen, not just to the customers, but the people they employ. Moreover, they will tell you that you cannot issue orders and expect to get them followed through to the letter, especially of the management team don’t agree. Instead, experienced business people will engage with their team, listen to their views, sell his own and agree a course of action. This process will then go down the line with each doing likewise. Government ministeries are huge, if this process isn’t followed, then no matter how many targets you set, your objectives will not be met and as we all know, failure in the civil service or government departments rarely leads to anything other than a sideways move.
It is not just this government that is at fault. I remember some months ago as a camera followed Cameron around whilst he spoke to 5 businessmen. He came back having listened to them and thought he had all the answers. These were carefully selected business people, they like me, would not necessarily have all the answers, but they could provide a flavour. But here he was, a day out in the sun, a few cups of tea and a business enterprise expert. Please…and you wonder why I am such a cynic.
To sum up, business people did not cause the crash, bankers did. Yes, some businesses were over-leveraged, but that has happened for decades and more recently it has been the investment companies that were, in effect, over-leveraged. A common trait of successful business people is their ability and willingness to listen, their complete understanding of the necessity to engage with and involve the entire team. Further, the successful business person would appreciate that it is far easier to get the team to perform if the team understand the reasons behind the initiatives and they have been involved in the process.
I will quote you a personal example. I joined a business that had purchased a new sales order processing system. The staff were against the implementation. I suggested that the shareholders hold off on the introduction until the staff had bought in, were allowed to see some of the benefits and improvements to the everyday processes. My advice was not taken and the SOPS was implemented. Within 2 weeks, the business was virtually on its knees and I am not exaggerating. The problem wasn’t the system, it was miles better than the previous one; it was simply that it was different. The staff could see no value in changing something that worked, moreover, and this was critical, they had not been involved in the process, other that on the periphery. The business survived, but just.
Of course, business people are fallible, just like politicians. But there are more successful business people out there than there are successful politicians. The successful business people have already made their mistakes and learn their lessons. Politicians on the other hand are often thrust into massive roles with just a few years ‘government’ experience under their belts and little else that matters. It is akin to passing a scalpel to an otherwise experienced nurse and expecting them to perform open heart surgery, having just read a book on the subject.
I don’t want change for the sake of it, but I am absolutely certain that what we have at the moment is not working, therefore change is a necessary. There are no guarantees in life, anymore than there are in business, but experienced business people will be able to take considered measures, based on ‘real life’ experiences, not theory. Most business people are happy to be judged based on what they deliver, not what they say and this is probably one of the fundamental differences between business people and politicians. Business people will already recognise that the worst people they can have around them are those that agree with everything they say. Business people want and need to be challenged, because even the best business people know that they cannot always be right. The idea of having people around them that disagree is completely foreign to them.
Business people will also recognise when they are flogging a dead horse. If I wrote a thesis on my views I doubt I would convince you that there is an alternative, and yes, a better way to run our country. Whilst you may be willing to retain the status quo, I think something should be done about it, in other words, that there must be a better way. If you have any better ideas, other than leaving everything the way it is, I am always open to new ideas or initiatives.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
eveningperson - Give the guy a break will you? Seems to me you are just provoking Frustrated Voter, rather than offering anything tangible yourself. Maybe you should offer up solutions rather than obstacles?