Category Archives: Public Services Reform

Opinion – Battle begins – the Spectator – Fraser Nelson

September 1, 2019 By in Boris Johnson, Brexit, David Cameron, Extreme right, Far Right, Fiscal Policy, Healthcare, Immigration, People, Politics, Public Services Reform, Shared Services, Theresa May, Transformation Risk, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Here’s a highly recommended article by Fraser Nelson, the Editor of the Spectator.

Boris Johnson is praised for being a decisive leader but the article looks at the political context, focusing on botched decisions by the Home Office, which are once again blamed on the systems with EU applicants for permanent UK residency told by the Home Office that they pressed the wrong keys.

I am a UK national, living in Cyprus, having recently received permanent residency in Cyprus. Because of demand, it took me a about four months to get and interview at Immigration – I used an agent at a cost of EUR200. The requirements were well documented. It’s important to have the right documents available. The interview at the Immigration Department, with my agent, took a few minutes and my certificate of permanent residency came through as promised several months later.

The UK Home Office has a long history of complaints and poor service to the public. If you open the link you will see an article which describes how the Home Office has profited financially by outsourcing decisions whilst complaints have escalated. Whether it’s outsourcing or systems failures, the Home Office never seems to blame the Minister for interventions and reversals. Of course, many question Preti Patel’s credentials as Home Office Minister. For sure the Home Office is heading for further scandals. Fraser Nelson questions whether the omnishambles will be on the scale of the Windrush scandal.

Rather than focus on the major battle lines, strategy and tactics, precipitated Boris Johnson, Fraser Nelson deep dives into the context – for me the analogy is whether there will be shovels to dig trenches. He tries but fails to paint Boris Johnson as a ‘One Nation Tory’. I remember well both David Cameron and Theresa May coming to power with one nation credentials – they failed to deliver, impaling themselves on Brexit.

In my judgement, Fraser Nelson is one of the shrewdest political commentators of his generation. This article gives us a subjective insight into the Government’s readiness for Brexit. For me, the natural tendency is to speculate on other high risk areas. I have seen central UK government’s risk management first hand and am deeply fearful for Brexit. Meanwhile, the stakes have never been higher for MPs to be accountable.

The article is entitled ‘Battle Begins’. History reminds us that when the jingoism subsides, there is often much blood and tears before victory or defeat.

Thoughts?

Opinion – Populism: The corrupting of democracy – via the Economist

August 31, 2019 By in Accountability, Democracy, Extreme left, Extreme right, Far Left, Far Right, Far-left politics, Immigration, Neoliberal, People, Politics, Public Services Reform, Reform, Uncategorized, Unemployment 1 Comment

Here’s an excellent, albeit highly depressing article in the Economist.

Whilst I broadly agree with the central thrust of the argument, some of the observations are not entirely in the context. Also the Economist implies that Populism is a phenomenon of the Far-Right.

Firstly, let’s look at the context. In a practical sense, in any large or moderately complex country in a democracy, the people elect their parliamentary representatives, often because of their perceived expertise and their political values. This is representative democracy and the aspiration is to preserve the sovereignty of parliament and effectively hold the executive branch of government to account. However, in the post WWII era, the boundaries have become blurred. Enormous bureaucracies have been established, a very long way removed from representative, examples include the UN agencies, the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, the IMF and the World Bank. Towards the end of my career, I was a special advisor to the head of a UN agency. It’s important to understand that these are essentially political organizations, with executive and professional appointments exclusively decided by national governments. Even clerical appointments are driven by nationality, trying to enforce representation of less powerful countries. Over the years, there has been enormous evidence of corruption, political bias and absence of good management, like for example providing audit certification of the institution’s accounts, especially in the EU. Another example is with the Arab League’s infiltration of many United Nations’ organizations – for further evidence open this link,.

In international agencies, funds are received typically from national governments and deployed in an enormous number of donor programmes – unfortunately, corruption often prevails, bringing into question the central purpose of the agency. This is often done with institutional political bias that ignores the reality of poverty, absence of education and democracy in many of the countries appealing for aid. This context is important because it has been consistently ignored angering an increasing number of voters in established democracies who want greater accountability and a return to representative democracy. These voters are angered by the liberal elites who have preserved the power of international agencies. Shrewd politicians have capitalized on this anger and we have the modern political force of populism.

My second issue with the Economist’s argument is the implication that populism is the exclusive preserve of the Far-Right. I would argue that populism is just as much a tool for the Far-left. For example, the leader of the Uk’s Labour Party has a history of Far-Left protest politics, highly dubious associations, institutional bias etc. I could imagine a Far-Left Labour government in the UK, quickly turning to Trotskyist dogma of permanent revolution, dismantling great and historic institutions.

So for me, both the Far-Right and the Far-Left would probably quickly turn from representative democracy, with their leaders arguing that the end justifies the means.

Many who have turned to populist leaders are angered by the status quo of the elitism of the liberal order and the international bureaucracies that they have spawned since 1945. Of course, the populist leaders will protect their own interests, plus those of their families and cronies.

The Economist article’s title blames populism for corrupting democracy. Surely, it was already corrupted by the elitist Liberal order, their cronies and the international bureaucracies?