Surrender to Stupidity

The Surrender Bill is getting a lot of bloated attention. Just pause for a second. The executive head of our democratic parliament, our Prime Minister, is rubbishing his parliament that has democratically decided that we must not leave the EU without a deal. If he feels so strongly against it, he should present a counter Bill to nullify it. But of course he cannot, as he does not have a majority in the House nor within his own Party.

Bluff and bluster may be a successful at a personal level but you cannot run a country by bluff and bluster. In a sales pitch you might get away with pretending you will just walk away. But not at National levels. The bluff that UK will walk without agreeing a deal is utter nonsense. The EU knows it, most of the country knows it, so why discredit your integrity by pretending to hold an impossible position. The rest of the sane world knows there is too much at stake. The breakup of the United Kingdom for one. Turning our backs on our closest neighbours is another. Unravelling 40 years of close integration is another, but the list goes on and on. At some point an agreement with the EU will have to reached. Not facing that reality, holding up the pretence of another (unspecified) option will result in a lot of pain and damage.

Another bluff tactic is to claim that the Country has Decided. No it did not. Half the country definitely did not decide to leave. It is worth recalling that the ripples of a divided nation, catholic v protestants lingers on even to this day. Our Nation is divided over the EU. As in all inflamed disputes, in the end the opposites just have to sit down, talk and reach an agreement. That is what a Prime Minster worthy of the position should be doing, Not fanning the flames of discord.

As our Prime Minster continues to fail to recognise and respond to the deep division within our country, what are we to do? Twiddle our fingers whilst grabbing unquestioningly every soothing soundbite offered, lap up all the electoral gift baubles as if they were substantive and a real, or do we demand better? Is the retention of a United Kingdom worth fighting for? Are we really content to retreat to a gated community to keep all those unpleasant neighbours at arm’s length, do we really want to surrender having any voice in the world that is listened to? Do we want a fantasy future or face up to the hard issues before us? For that we need a Parliament that reflects all of us and a Prime Minster who has integrity, able to seek accord and with a vision which does resonate with our core values.

Government, the Right to Rule

Now, depending on their business acumen, a sole principle can really fly a tight, lean ship and be very adaptive to changing circumstances. Their weak vulnerability is that they cannot grow beyond around the thirteen subordinates whose out and inflows can be safely monitored and should they become incapacitated, for even a brief period, it all falls apart.

To manage a big enterprise the leader, the top dog, has to delegate day to day running to sub-ordinates. The really successful managers, enpower their sub-ordinates to make their own calls, enthuse them with ever higher objectives and pick them up and encourage them when the inevitable stumble occurs. Top managers possessing these skills and qualities are rare, very rare to extent of almost being exotic.

Your President cum Prime Minister having been plucked from the street with no particular credentials and having won a beauty contest is unlikely, if not quite inconceivable, to possess such attributes. Likewise Cabinet members selected for favours given or clout within the rulings ranks have no firsthand experience of the departments they are left to run for a couple of years before being switched to another department incase they become too skilled.

So contrary to the public perception of a country led and run by their elected politicians the whole gargantuan hydra-headed government of this country is actually run by civil-servants who play a cat-n-mouse game of wrapping their day to day operational procedures in the current flavour of political party speak. Life really does just carry on same as before, just the words to describe it change.

Lets set this charade behinds us and accept that our political representatives just do not have nor ever will have the expertise, charisma or experience to actually manage and run a booze-up along the river let alone a District Council or the country! What they do have is a political view of how the disparate sectors of our communities may come together and be better able to live in some sort of goodwill and mutual benefit. The Civil Servants really must be left to run the country for the long term and not be beset by short term political goals which is today's norm. We desperately need a committed long term dispassionate governance that can lead us to be a more successful nation, run by the Civil-Servants who do actually do know all the ins and outs of how the country is managed, have the keys of access to minds and information that can keep this country running at full tilt, given a fair wind.

Which is not to say that the Civil Servants therefore have a freehand, far from it. Firstly they must be accountable, no more hiding behind a politicians skirt. If they initiate a course of action and it fails then that is the end of their career. Parliament alone sets or refines the political gaols and in consultations agrees the yardstick measure of achievement and gets to decide whether the set yardsticks have been met. The Civil Servants deliver the gaols and offer evidence of achievement and advise on amplification needed.

This seems to put the relationships back into a better and truer balance, the politicians, within their actual competence levels, set the moral or social agenda and the Civil Services adjusts its on-going long term strategy to show how it is meeting that agenda. A stable governance with a long term view but able to adapt to changing perceptions of societies wants and needs. Of course the Civil Service is more than capable of drowning any government, politician, Prime Minster or President in shed loads of obscuration, obstruction, delay, you name it, any machiavellian devices and they are sure to have employed it and no doubt will continue to do so as long as they exists as an organisation. But that is not the point. The point is, as is already rooted in the very soul of the Civil Services, their sole purpose is to run the country efficiently. At the moment they duck and dive behind the politicians that they use as Aunt Sallies, I want them to be out there in the open and answerable. It may even bring a new purposefulness to their operations.