What advice would you give to the next Prime Minister?

[Yokel]

So,
1. Six unelected advisors who will never agree with one another, will undermine each other, or will become a hive minded Group Think?

2. Knee jerk?

3. An even bigger NHS and Social Services, Wahhabism, to replace the current idea of History on the curriculum. Tradition, Law and Order, no longer matter as not mentioned so I guess the social services are going to be attending mental health calls instead of the police for once in their lives. A bigger, more capable, armed forces is required ie walk softly but carry a big stick. (agree).

4. see 3.

5. I do agree on this.

1. The 'six thinking hats' thing just means that the decision makers get detailed analysis of specific issues - I am not entirely familiar with the concept. I am familiar with PDCA - what @Kinch correctly reminds me is the Shewhart Deming Cycle is a tool used by engineers and others to avoid blunders. Before implementing a change, get someone not emotionally or politically invested in the proposal to set if it is a disaster waiting to happen. It is a protection against group think.

How many times does a Minister demand that his idea is put into action without any attempt to see if it will work?

2. Not really knew jerk - more a development of point 1. Perhaps it would be better to say that strategy should be outlined in parliament, but the details should be left to the experts and allowed to be changed as needed. My metaphor is landing an aircraft aboard a ship - constant inputs and adjustments are needed.

3. Not sure if the NHS would necessarily be larger in terms of headcount, but more therapists and less policy wonks would be good. More therapists would reduce social care needs and costs. Likewise it is cheaper to stop someone from developing diabetes than treating then after they have it. The point about education being tied to employment is that there was never a 'Golden Age' - if so why did we lose so much of our industry whilst German manufacturing flourished? The Police, courts, and so on need less red tape and less political interference, but they dot no so obviously 'pair up' with a second area of Government, as in Health AND social care, Education AND Employment, or Foreign Policy AND defence. At times these 'pairs' seem to be in conflict.

4. See 3 - why? The proximity of Russia means that our contributions to NATO are an important part of deterrence, and being perceived has weak has contributed to Putin's aggression. In 1982 it was our ability to operate in the NATO theatre, and in the Northern flank, that gave us the ability to deploy a task group to the South Atlantic. You may remember that a few years ago the Iranians started causing trouble and causing problems with the passage of oil tankers.

It is sometimes overlooked at 'Indo Pacific' includes the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Arabian Gulf, and other important areas for seaborne commerce.

5. Jolly decent of you to agree with me, I refer you to point 2.

Think smarter, not harder!

 

[Andy Farman]

1. How many times does a Minister demand that his idea is put into action without any attempt to see if it will work?

2. Will be portrayed as U Turn or knee jerk in the media

3. Not sure if the NHS would necessarily be larger in terms of headcount, but more therapists and less policy wonks would be good. More therapists would reduce social care needs and costs. Likewise it is cheaper to stop someone from developing diabetes than treating then after they have it. The point about education being tied to employment is that there was never a 'Golden Age' - if so why did we lose so much of our industry whilst German manufacturing flourished? The Police, courts, and so on need less red tape and less political interference, but they dot no so obviously 'pair up' with a second area of Government, as in Health AND social care, Education AND Employment, or Foreign Policy AND defence. At times these 'pairs' seem to be in conflict.

4. See 3 - why? The proximity of Russia means that our contributions to NATO are an important part of deterrence, and being perceived has weak has contributed to Putin's aggression. In 1982 it was our ability to operate in the NATO theatre, and in the Northern flank, that gave us the ability to deploy a task group to the South Atlantic. You may remember that a few years ago the Iranians started causing trouble and causing problems with the passage of oil tankers.

It is sometimes overlooked at 'Indo Pacific' includes the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Arabian Gulf, and other important areas for seaborne commerce.

5. Jolly decent of you to agree with me, I refer you to point 2.

Think smarter, not harder!

Pilot schemes became costly tick box operations that will be implemented once the failings of the pilot have been spun as success's. I was CAD Controller for Southwark during the pilot of Metcall, a Home Office approved telecommunication system took place replacing twenty six local control rooms with just two. Twelve officers doing the workload of a hundred and ten. The pilot showed Metcall to be what it had been in Greater Manchester and the USA, A 60M quid, unmitigated disaster. To make it worse it is also is an example of The Emperors New Clothes. It was Sir Ian Blaires scheme, championed by him despite its previous utter failure in Greater Manchester, and the USA, and because everyone knew he shot the bearers of ill tidings, so the spineless gimps lied and got promoted. An emergency call to a woman being raped would have had officers there in 6 minutes tops, under the CAD system, not six DAYS and only after going outside of channels.

Working parties - I found myself as borough transport consultant for the Olympics and handed a proposal for certain roads to have designated Olympics Participants Only lanes, which quite obviously had been selected by someone looking at an A-Z streetmap of London and never actually driving those routes. It was only after pointing out the wholly unsuitable roads and taking time to find alternatives and detours that I realised the senior management believed the French word for 'Proposal' is 'fait accompli', and the spineless gimps had also credited me solely with the consultancy so if it went bent it would be someone other than them taking the considerable fall for a participant missing the start of an event, so I quit the planning panel after putting my objections on the official record.

Health issue prevention - I refer you to bullying and ooman rights. How dare you criticise someone's 'lifestyle'.
Society will not accept any of your common sense solutions. It is too late.
The Romans kicked the Greeks clay feet from under them and then the Goths did it to them. Now its Western Civilisations turn and wokeism is coming in for the slide tackle.
,

 

[Yokel]

Pilot schemes became costly tick box operations that will be implemented once the failings of the pilot have been spun as success's. I was CAD Controller for Southwark during the pilot of Metcall, a Home Office approved telecommunication system took place replacing twenty six local control rooms with just two. Twelve officers doing the workload of a hundred and ten. The pilot showed Metcall to be what it had been in Greater Manchester and the USA, A 60M quid, unmitigated disaster. To make it worse it is also is an example of The Emperors New Clothes. It was Sir Ian Blaires scheme, championed by him despite its previous utter failure in Greater Manchester, and the USA, and because everyone knew he shot the bearers of ill tidings, so the spineless gimps lied and got promoted. An emergency call to a woman being raped would have had officers there in 6 minutes tops, under the CAD system, not six DAYS and only after going outside of channels.

PDCA is meant to prevent that - there was planing, doing, and acting, but the checking is a waste of time if the evidence is ignored due tio political or organisation reasons. Who was Sir Ian Blaar's boss? PDCA and other tools are meant to stop the boss from driving the ship aground.

Working parties - I found myself as borough transport consultant for the Olympics and handed a proposal for certain roads to have designated Olympics Participants Only lanes, which quite obviously had been selected by someone looking at an A-Z streetmap of London and never actually driving those routes. It was only after pointing out the wholly unsuitable roads and taking time to find alternatives and detours that I realised the senior management believed the French word for 'Proposal' is 'fait accompli', and the spineless gimps had also credited me solely with the consultancy so if it went bent it would be someone other than them taking the considerable fall for a participant missing the start of an event, so I quit the planning panel after putting my objections on the official record.

Proper management methods, again PDCA comes to mind although it is really a tool for continuous improvement and change. I refer to my comment that the details should be left to people who know the area - in this case those with experience of London roads and having to manage getting people from one place to another.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the detail. To use another old saying - tell the truth and shame the devil.

Health issue prevention - I refer you to bullying and ooman rights. How dare you criticise someone's 'lifestyle'.
Society will not accept any of your common sense solutions. It is too late.

I am not sure how to reply to that - maybe with this from the Education thread:

Learned helplessness is a truly evil phenomenon that society must fight. It was a factor in the Jews being unable to fight back against the Nazis, meekly going along with what the Einsatzgruppen demanded. It is a factor in people staying with abusive partners, with people not bothering to improve things, and much else. I am sure that there were experiments where rats suffered electric shocks whatever they did, so they stopped responding. This is one of the reasons I do not like the everything or nothing approach.

My example of kids being encouraged to read where they are safe from mocking is an example - if you are going to be mocked and laughed at, will you make an effort? Will you ever associate reading with anything other than negative emotions, and give it a go? If you get shouted at a spat at because you could not run fast enough or did not catch the ball, will you be motivated to join in sport, and have a healthy attitude to physical activity in later life? Do experts TV chefs encourage people to have a go themselves, or do they despair that they could never make anything as good as that by a Michelin starred celebrity, and order McDonalds via Just Eat?

Not sure what is going on with the formatting. Anyway...

The Romans kicked the Greeks clay feet from under them and then the Goths did it to them. Now its Western Civilisations turn and wokeism is coming in for the slide tackle.

That sounds like a defeatist argument for a policy of managed decline. No thank you - we have had far to much of that. What exactly do you mean by Western Civilisation anyway? To quote myself from:

Cultural Marxism, the Neo Right, and threats to Western Democracy

Typing 'Cultural Marxism' into any search engine produces scores of articles and papers, as well as articles claiming it is a conspiracy created by the political right. The thing is many of these articles are too far to the right for me to be entirely comfortable with them. I also find it hard to believe that there is a deliberate force orchestrating the weakening of Western values, despite having expressed my own concerns on a number of threads about things such as:

- Replacing absolute standards or the more liberal 'no harm no foul' with 'do whatever you can get away with'
- The weakening of the sense of identity of the nation state
- Weakening the family's role in society - and yes I would include unmarried and same sex couples as families
- Demonising traditions
- Replacing legal concepts such as presumption of innocence and right of reply with trial by social media/old media
- Putting emphasis on competing groups within society instead of individuals or society as a whole

I also struggle with the concept of what is meant by the 'West'. Some think it is Western Europe, North America, and the Antipodes. Whilst these are all Western this definition excludes non white or non Christian nations. What about Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, or any number of Latin American or African states? What makes the West the West? What values count? My quick list includes things like:

- The sovereignty of the individual
- The rule of law
- Separation of political and judicial powers
- Free speech
- Freedom of belief
- Democracy

So is cultural Marxism real, or is it just the unfortunate co-existence of a number of sociopolitical tensions?

 

[Andy Farman]

PDCA is meant to prevent that - there was planing, doing, and acting, but the checking is a waste of time if the evidence is ignored by political or organisation reasons. Who was Sir Ian Blaar's boss? PDCA and other tools are meant to stop the boss from driving the ship aground.



Proper management methods, again PDCA comes to mind although it is really a tool for continuous improvement and change. I refer to my comment that the details should be left to people who know the area - in this case those with experience of London roads and having to manage getting people from one place to another.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the detail. To use another old saying - tell the truth and shame the devil.

Home Secretary, Theresa May, was Blair's boss.
Blair was a jobs for the boys waste of space. Inept but protected, as was Dick. When Blair made Commissioner, he gave the juicy jobs to his mates. The two he gave the operational planning of the Olympics security job to had zero operational planning experience and had a very nice time flying first class on fact finding trips. When the American's got involved with the security side two years later they were unimpressed but both boyo's had already departed for other jobs, leaving a report of manning requirements that was all nicely round-figure guestimations. Consequently, the Met was reduced to sending begging letters to recent retirees and those soon to go, like me, to "Continue my glowing career with a once in a lifetime event I could tell my grandchildren about, policing the Olympic Games for free, as a special constable"
My previous boss, a superb organiser, was summoned to the yard and told that as of the moment he arrived he was head of Olympics security and had two weeks to do what the two boyos should have been doing for the previous two years.
He resigned on the spot.
Superintendent Steve Deehan, who was my boss and who in my humble opinion had reached the rank of Superintentent by some mysterious slight of hand and blowing his own horn via creative report writing (spin) , would have known something about planning major events if personal grooming and trimming his beard had not taken so much of his day, jumped at it as a means of promotion.
Oh, how we laughed.

 

[Mbongwe]

1. The 'six thinking hats' thing just means that the decision makers get detailed analysis of specific issues - I am not entirely familiar with the concept. I am familiar with PDCA - what @Kinch correctly reminds me is the Shewhart Deming Cycle is a tool used by engineers and others to avoid blunders. Before implementing a change, get someone not emotionally or politically invested in the proposal to set if it is a disaster waiting to happen. It is a protection against group think.

How many times does a Minister demand that his idea is put into action without any attempt to see if it will work?

2. Not really knew jerk - more a development of point 1. Perhaps it would be better to say that strategy should be outlined in parliament, but the details should be left to the experts and allowed to be changed as needed. My metaphor is landing an aircraft aboard a ship - constant inputs and adjustments are needed.

3. Not sure if the NHS would necessarily be larger in terms of headcount, but more therapists and less policy wonks would be good. More therapists would reduce social care needs and costs. Likewise it is cheaper to stop someone from developing diabetes than treating then after they have it. The point about education being tied to employment is that there was never a 'Golden Age' - if so why did we lose so much of our industry whilst German manufacturing flourished? The Police, courts, and so on need less red tape and less political interference, but they dot no so obviously 'pair up' with a second area of Government, as in Health AND social care, Education AND Employment, or Foreign Policy AND defence. At times these 'pairs' seem to be in conflict.

4. See 3 - why? The proximity of Russia means that our contributions to NATO are an important part of deterrence, and being perceived has weak has contributed to Putin's aggression. In 1982 it was our ability to operate in the NATO theatre, and in the Northern flank, that gave us the ability to deploy a task group to the South Atlantic. You may remember that a few years ago the Iranians started causing trouble and causing problems with the passage of oil tankers.

It is sometimes overlooked at 'Indo Pacific' includes the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Arabian Gulf, and other important areas for seaborne commerce.

5. Jolly decent of you to agree with me, I refer you to point 2.

Think smarter, not harder!

In my industry Edward De Bono's Six Thinkins Hats is widely used; everyone in a project team metaphorically "dons" one hat at once and expresses all the creative ideas to put into a project (Green Hat is the creative hat), then further down the line everyone in the project team dons the Black Hat (the critical hat) and thinks of all the flaws in the plan and generally tries to rip the idea to shreds.

A very useful process to assess the feasibility of a plan or project, and a brilliant way of getting pessimists to think positively (Green Hat stage) and making creatives get real (Black Hat stage).

P.S. There are of course four other colours of hats but I'm just giving you two extremes!

 

[Andy Farman]

In my industry Edward De Bono's Six Thinkins Hats is widely used; everyone in a project team metaphorically "dons" one hat at once and expresses all the creative ideas to put into a project (Green Hat is the creative hat), then further down the line everyone in the project team dons the Black Hat (the critical hat) and thinks of all the flaws in the plan and generally tries to rip the idea to shreds.

A very useful process to assess the feasibility of a plan or project, and a brilliant way of getting pessimists to think positively (Green Hat stage) and making creatives get real (Black Hat stage).

P.S. There are of course four other colours of hats but I'm just giving you two extremes!

I quite like Robin Olds description of Pentagon military proposals. I will just lay it out and leave it as we have drifted across a whole ocean.

"Data is gathered by captains and majors put it together. Lt Cols massage the proposal and feed it to Colonels who present it to panels where it is ripped up by boards and sent back to the majors to be re-written and re-fed to Lt Cols who recoordinate the original data before Colonels re-present the proposal to a brigadier who presents it to a board of Major Generals who approve it for a Lt General to lay before the government, not realising that the proposal bears no resemblance to that which was originally requested as he was not part of the proposal team which the government had ordered to be formed."

 

[endure]

and maybe less likely to be politicking and boosting their career maybe? Getting a head by doing a good job rather than brown nosing & dodging?

Is Liz giving blow jobs?

 

[Jimmy_Green]

I quite like Robin Olds description of military proposal.

"Data is gathered by captains and majors put it together. Lt Cols massage the proposal and feed it to Colonels who present it to panels where it is ripped up by boards and sent back to the majors to be re-written and re-fed to Lt Cols who recoordinate the original data before Colonels re-present the proposal to a brigadier who presents it to a board of Major Generals who approve it for a Lt General to lay before the government, not realising that the proposal bears no resemblance to that which was originally requested as he was not part of the proposal team which the government had ordered to be formed."

CREATION OF POLICY

In the beginning was THE PLAN

And then came the Assumptions

And the Assumptions were without form

And THE PLAN was completely without substance

Darkness was upon the face of the Division

The Division spoke unto their Senior Rate saying:

“It is a crock of shit and it stinketh”

The Divisional Senior Rate went unto the Divisional Officer and said unto him:

“It is a pail of dung and none may abide by the odour thereof”

And the Divisional Officer went unto his Commanding Officer and sayeth unto him:

“It is a container of excrement and it is very strong such that none may abide by it”

And the Commanding Officer went to his Squadron Staff and sayeth unto them:

“It is a vessel of fertiliser and none may abide by its strength”

And the Squadron Staff went unto their Flag Officer and sayeth:

“It contains that which aids growth and is very strong”

And the Flag Officer went unto C in C Fleet and sayeth unto him:

“It promoteth growth and is very powerful:

And C in C Fleet went unto the Defence Council and sayeth unto them:

“This new plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of the Service”

And the Defence Council looked on THE PLAN and saw that it was good

And thus THE PLAN became POLICY​

 

[Jimmy_Green]

1. Ditch the ECHR immediately.

2. Send the illegal immigrants to Rwanda for processing on the very first flight out after their arrival on our shores and publicise it widely, especially in the countries they originate from. No passport from country of origin = no chance of remaining in the UK. Sentence convicted people smugglers/traffickers to a minimum of 20 years. (Once illegal immigration has been dealt with and people smuggling rings have been smashed we can revisit dealing with genuine asylum seekers.)

3. Revise all the EU legislation that passed into UK law when we left the EU as soon as possible and remove/rewrite everything that is not in the UK's best interest or favours the EU.

4. Challenge the culture warriors and wokerati at every opportunity, especially from special interest groups and those with an agenda, such as the trans lobby. Challenge the notion that a bloke who has had his cock cut off is really a woman and is no different to a woman who was born with a cervix - he's not (however better the surgery makes him feel about himself). The same goes for female ---> male surgery.

5. Invest in the forces of law and order across the board. Double the amount of police and get them out on the beat, visible to the public. Cut red tape. Build more prisons, recruit a lot more prison officers and improve pay. Prosecute 999 time wasters.

6. Remind the judiciary that judges are not politicians. If they play politics with their decisions sack them.

7. Change sentencing so that time awarded is time to be served. Any misdemeanours whilst serving time results in an increase to the sentence. Convictions for multiple crimes should mean sentences are served consecutively, not concurrently. Stop allowing repeat offenders being let off with a slap on the wrist.

8. Ditch net zero targets. China and India don't give a flying fig about achieving net zero and without them doing so it will never happen. All we're doing is making our own citizens pay through the nose and becoming poorer because of it.

9. Ditch the pervasive box-ticking culture. It does nobody any favours apart from the incapable. Get rid of 'protected characteristics' and allow people to stand on their own ability and merit. If people from various groups want equality they shouldn't expect special treatment because of who or what they are.

10. Realign the Conservative Party to be a centre-right party - and conservative, not the centre-left liberal party it is now.

11. Strip the BBC of its licence fee funding.

12. Stop giving foreign aid to countries such as India who can afford a space programme and nuclear weapons but aren't prepared to spend their money on their own people.

13. Row back on dependency on China for manufacturing and goods and raw materials if they can be sourced elsewhere.

14. If you're backed into a corner and forced to allow another Scottish independence referendum ensure that the whole of the UK gets a say. Don't promise to enact the result but say it will only be recognised as an opinion poll. That'll get Blackford howling at the moon during PMQs.

15. Watch your back - it won't be long before another Tory's going to stick a knife in it.

16. Watch your front - the opposition is all about identity politics and is more interested in that than challenging Conservative policies. Don't play their game.

 

[Gary Cooper]

....When Laura Kuenssberg et al complain that it's too austere fly into a rage .....

Put a cushion under her bum while she's being shagged and Laura will be grand,

 

[Stainmaster]

Comb your f@#%ing hair!

 

[tiger stacker]

Put a cushion under her bum while she's being shagged and Laura will be grand,

Shove something in her mouth to muffle that laurelbank educated accent…

 

[Cold_Collation]

Comb your f@#%ing hair!

...with a comb, not a toffee apple.

 

[Gary Cooper]

Shove something in her mouth to muffle that laurelbank educated accent…

Boris has that covered.

 

[Cold_Collation]

What’s interesting reading this thread is the recurrent themes.

Now, either we’re one hell of an echo chamber or the government and politicians generally are managing with exquisite skill to ignore what people want.

 

[Retired bloke]

What’s interesting reading this thread is the recurrent themes.

Now, either we’re one hell of an echo chamber or the government and politicians generally are managing with exquisite skill to ignore what people want.

What the faceless masses want, and what is needed are two different topics of discussion, both studiously ignored, and are considered by many MPs as irrelevant, unless it fits their career path agenda.

 

[Yokel]

Try to avoid appointing people like Tim Nice But Dim or Dick Nice But Thick as ministers or policy advisers.



Just because they went to the right public school, studied something like Ancient Greek Literature or something else that requires little common sense or analytical ability, or were in the Rugby team, it does not follow that they have insights that override that are always correct.

 

[Diko]

My advice to the next PM? Watch out for your next Conservative Party Conference as you will be holding it in the wake of the October fuel price rise and there’s going to be a few protesters, just saying.

 

[Jimmy_Green]

What’s interesting reading this thread is the recurrent themes.

Now, either we’re one hell of an echo chamber or the government and politicians generally are managing with exquisite skill to ignore what people want.

No, we're not an echo chamber. There are plenty of old giffers on here who have seen a lot of the world go round, have seen and done a fair bit during their time in it and have plenty of knowledge and experience of how things work. Those living in an echo chamber, in my view, tend to be more narrow-minded and have less awareness of the wider world and the things that influence events, both currently and historically. The ARRSErati has a broad spectrum of political views with very few at the extremes. Mostly we sit towards the centre of the bell curve and whilst there are those with very entrenched opinions on certain topics there is often a lot of common ground.

The second of those options is closer to the truth with one exception; the government and politicians can't do anything with exquisite skill.

 

[Cold_Collation]

No, we're not an echo chamber. There are plenty of old giffers on here who have seen a lot of the world go round, have seen and done a fair bit during their time in it and have plenty of knowledge and experience of how things work. Those living in an echo chamber, in my view, tend to be more narrow-minded and have less awareness of the wider world and the things that influence events, both currently and historically. The ARRSErati has a broad spectrum of political views with very few at the extremes. Mostly we sit towards the centre of the bell curve and whilst there are those with very entrenched opinions on certain topics there is often a lot of common ground.

The second of those options is closer to the truth with one exception; the government and politicians can't do anything with exquisite skill.

Rhetorical question, sorry - I don't think we're an echo chamber either. Those who assert we are are usually trying to shoot down prevailing opinion.

As I've said many time elsewhere, popular opinions are precisely that because they tend to have some sense to them.