English: David Cameron Deutsch: David Cameron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I thought that it might be interesting to share my top twelve blogs, since I started blogging in February 2011.

For those of you who do not know me, open this link for my bio profile and an explanation why I started blogging.

Here are the top twelve blogs, ranked by number of hits over nearly three years (highest first):

1. Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt found dead after working long hours | Mail Online
2. What are the three types of Interim Management assignment?
3. What’s the difference between an Interim Manager and a Management Consultant?
4. UK Local Authorities and Shared Services: Cost-Cutting – Myth or Reality?
5. Interim Management:  Ten Emerging Trends and Outlook for the Future
6. Malaysia travel: What to do in the Cameron Highlands | CNN Travel
7. Public Sector Catch 22: Cost-Cutting Vs. Cost Reduction (Part 1/4)
8. Utilising Professional Interims to Help Reduce the Budget Deficit – Removing Catch 22?
9. Public Sector Catch 22: The Role of “IT” in Business Transformation (Part 3/4)
10. Public Sector Catch 22: Structural Reform, Strategy and Implementation – How to avoid a Omnishambles Recovery Programme? (Part 4 of 4)
11. UK Local Authorities and Shared Services: Cost-Cutting – Myths, Realities and Escalating Risks?
12. An in Depth Look at Deleveragings – Ray Dalio – Bridgewater

It never ceases to amaze me which blogs are the most popular and why.

Looking back over the twelve blogs, I have tried to identify common themes and emergent trends. Here are my thoughts.

Firstly, both myself and fellow blogger John Gelmini were predicting an omni-shambles from David Cameron’s Government well over two years ago. BUT bad as it now is, across the Public Sector, in many small businesses and with youth unemployment, I fear that we have not seen anything yet. Applying a tourniquet on and off for three years, with no strategy nor direction is a recipe for death. Apart from the top 1%, large sections of society seemed doomed, with no effective political leadership. Growth is being talked up, on the back of off-balance sheet Government guarantees of home loans, and David Cameron‘s desperate gamble on increased trade with China; China, of course, will remember David Cameron’s previous foreign policy blunders.

Secondly, David Cameron’s short-sighted Government has fired or turned away  some of the UK’s most capable and experienced leaders, with the skills so desperately needed (like executive interim managers).  The Government has repeatedly turned to their cronies in major consultancies, who according to the Public Accounts Committee, have a highly checkered record of inadequate delivery. Many of the UK Public Sector’s most capable people have left, taking generous terms, offered by Cameron’s Government, leaving behind faceless bureaucrats, who would probably be unable to survive in the cut and thrust of the Private Sector. The UK’s military sector has been savaged, dumping soldiers who served their country honorably. Many capable independent professionals have been left on the professional scrap-heap. With large swathes of society economically ineffective and hugely in debt, the outlook for them, at least, is bleak.

Thirdly, economic management under George Osborne has erroneously relied upon excessive austerity, which has been discredited by most mainstream economists and the IMF. Osborne, a political opportunist, with no formal training in economics, nor meaningful career prior to politics, has ruthlessly used political ideology, rather than evidence-based-policy to run the UK’s economy in time of most urgent need.

As an, old-fashioned, and perhaps rather quaint, one-nation conservative, I fear many hard years ahead. The winners will, of course, be the top 1%, people like Cameron, Osborne and their privileged chums.

Any thoughts?

Related articles

• Major Coalition projects like aircraft carriers, welfare reforms and broadband roll-out questioned by official Whitehall report – Telegraph (dralfoldman.com)
• The death of the interim management industry? (dralfoldman.com)
• Bill for sacking troops to hit £500m: MoD discloses huge cost of the controversial cuts for the first time | Mail Online (dralfoldman.com)
• The BBC and Jeremy Paxman should tell Downing Street where to go – Telegraph (dralfoldman.com)
• It was hard to stomach David Cameron preaching austerity from a golden throne | Ruth Hardy (theguardian.com)
• Is a rise in self-employment disguising unemployment? | Left Foot Forward (dralfoldman.com)
• The Death of the Interim Management Industry – Part 3 – Additional Responses (dralfoldman.com)
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt died after overworking – Case for EU regulation? (dralfoldman.com)
• Why I become a guest blogger? – John Gelmini (dralfoldman.com)
• This Picture Of David Cameron Calling For Austerity Is Fundamentally Hilarious (businessinsider.com)