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Bliar and wifey
You have to laugh at the arrogance of some people in thinking that this would make a good Christmas card.
But this is THEIR card for this year.
It makes my RNLI ones look a bit tame don’t you think?
I received a letter from the Government recently, asking for some details about my business. I wanted to check on the type of information they wanted and decided that it might be best to contact them to talk about it.
But their unsigned letter only contained a phone number that took me to a “system voicemail” and did not contain any email details at all.
So I’m now left with the choice of guessing an email address, ignoring the issue, giving my interpretation of what they want, or of writing to them. But I don’t do writing: well not much anyway, as it takes time, involves envelopes. stamps and a walk to the post box. I far prefer email, and of course that is much quicker too.
So wouldn’t it be so much easier if we all had email addresses and personal phone (with voicemail) numbers visible on all our correspondence?
Poor old Gordon Brown: he means well and wants to do the right thing, but he just doesn’t do it right.
The latest example is the letter of condolensce he sent to the father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2007. Whilst I am certain that he meant well, the letter was sent nearly 2 years after the soldier’s death and was accompanied with a staff written apology about the timing.
Of course he was trying to do the right thing, but the fact is that it was the wrong thing to do on this occasion. I would have expected the PM to have the nous to realise that it would make more sense to not write at all. Equally importantly I would expect his staff to be able to counsel him on a more appropriate course of action. The lack of awareness and the inability of the staff to influence are equally concerning.
Sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do.
When I served in the Army the total strength was just over 180,000 of which the Territorial Army accounted for 85,000. Today those numbers are much smaller, a shade over 100,000 in total, but in reality a TA of only 19,000 trained soldiers.
Meanwhile the civil service element of the MOD has grown to a bloated 85,000 and continues to deliver outstanding failures, especially in the areas of procurement. Cost over runs and/or late delivery is almost the norm. The only equipment that is delivered relatively successfully is via Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) and anyone who has worked on the supplier side of UOR will tell you that they are a god-send. If something is “urgent” then cost doesn’t matter. Tidy mark-ups all round!
Today we learn that over 55,000 MOD civil servants are receiving bonuses. In principle I don’t mind giving people an incentive to over perform. But to do so you need to accept that if people under-perform then they lose the most basic bonus of even keeping their job. So for some of those who have failed there should have been dismissal. I can’t seem to have heard about any of that anywhere, even for the team that several years ago delivered 9 helicopters that sit in a shed in the West of England as they didn’t order the right software to be able to fly them.
For those who have achieved bonuses, I would dearly love to know what their targets were. If you accept that bonuses are a means of getting more out of people then you need to know how much more you are getting in return for the payment made.
As for the arguments about it all being within the salary budget: Rubbish! It all comes from the Defence Budget, the one that recently wanted to save £20 million by cutting all TA training for the rest of this financial year. Money can be re-allocated within the Ministry if there is will to do so.
Sadly though when it comes to will power we are lacking. Nobody is prepared to take on the over-sized civil element in the MOD. Nobody drives for true accountability and as a result we reward mediocrity without evening knowing how high the bar of mediocrity had been set.
Shell, international oil giant and owner of a chain of petrol stations in Britain, have banned the on-site collection of money in support of the Royal British Legion annual Poppy Appeal. This is particuarly insensitive when one recalls that their oil platforms were protected in the North Sea by Royal Marines.
It also appears to be an act of crass stupidity at a time when there is clear public support for the military and a groundswell of feeling around Remembrance.
To express my own “thanks” to Shell for this wholly unnecesary and objectionable act I shall refuse to buy anything from their service stations from now on.
I came across this sign whilst walking my dog today, I’d not seen a Cold Calling Control Zone before and wondered how or why they are established.
So I rang the number on the sign and was told that it was:
Strangely the number on the sign wasn’t the phone number of the local authority. I wonder how much it cost to create this un-enforcable scheme?
My brother-in-law owns a chippy, a really good one that produces “probably the best chips you’ll ever eat”, but yesterday he received a notice about his business rates for next year. His business rates will increase next year by 60%.
Did you get that - 60%!
And for what? There’s no explanation and no commitment. Surely you could expect some extra information for what equates to a £125 per week off his profit line.
His restaurant is open for 363 days per year and employs over 20 staff. He has regular customers that turn up day after day and week after week. The council services do not extend to providing working CCTV nor to collecting rubbish which he pays for privately.
But he recognises that the nation is in a real mess, financially and that tough choices are needed. And he’s prepared to play his part. But he’d like to know if there is a plan to fix the problem.
He really does not welcome a new rate that will penalise him. He is fed up with a bloated, arrogant public sector that believes it can bill him to help them get out of this hole, without providing some information to support the decision.
As a business man he needs to make his books balance and he will now need to find the £125 a week. His options are to lose it from the bottom line or cut costs. The result is that he’ll probably not open for some of those quiet hours that he used to open for and will therefore have less staff hours to pay. As a result some of his staff will be worse off every week.
But let’s remember that in this particular business there are options: for some smaller businesses this tax will be crippling. In fact they will be so crippling that many will close, which has to be the worst possible result for the country.
By imposing this tax on a business our irresponsible Government are definitely going to make some staff poorer. They are also threatening some businesses and will force some to close as they cannot meet the new costs for no benefit.
That is why some businesses are doomed with this new Rate.
It’s a simple question – at a time when politics in Britain has never had such an active level of support, and equally such a level of apathy, why, oh why has the television coverage of Assembly proceedings in Cardiff ended?
How can those who talk about gaining greater engagement expect that to happen when the tele-box does not support the communication? How will enthusiasts (Bloggers and Twitterers in particular) get their story?
This is a poor day for democracy in Wales. Or am I wrong?
I’ve found my interest in politics growing recently, driven by dissatisfaction with the poor performance of some elected members and by the close to fraudulent activity that has come from Westminster, elected and hereditary. I suspect that seeing the lack of true support for our Armed Forces, for whom I have a huge affinity, has also irritated me hugely. As has the pointless spin that emanates from Ministers and their aides.
Image by Maia C via Flickr
As a result, I’ve watched, listened, wondered and started to question. And the one question that sits uppermost in my mind is: “what is the role of an elected member?”. Allied to this is the need to question what the job description for the role really is and some who’ve read my blogs may recall my views on job roles and tools for the job.
Anyway, back to my main issue: what is their role? I’ve always thought that politicians are elected to represent their constituency. After getting more interest in our political system I’ve begun to realise how naïve this view is. I cannot remember when an elected member that I’ve voted for has appeared to seek my views in order to represent them properly. Instead, his/her party has decided what my views are, or at least the views to be represented.
Now the party conference season has started we are hearing more about what elected members want to see. Statements like: “I want to see …” surely miss the true point of elected members. They are there to shout out loud that “the people who elected me want to see…” for it is their view that matter, not those of the elected member.
As social media becomes more pervasive and we, “the great unwashed” feel that we have both the right and capability to make our views known it really is time for the challenge to be made to elected members to listen more to their electorate.
Engagement is not about surgeries anymore, but about continued communication. And of course, communication is not about blogging or Twittering, it is a mutli-path dialogue that captures and forms opinion over time and sometimes in pretty quick-time.
In a real democracy elected members represent those who did not vote for them just as much as they represent those who did. And they should do this without worrying about the needs of their party machines that helped them to be elected to the role in the first place.
If the principle of the wisdom of crowds will have its day then it is going to use social media to do so. Wise politicians will realise this and then amend their stance to truly represent all those who elected them and will speak on their behalf.
Image by fdecomite via Flickr
