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This recent wide ranging interview was mainly concerned with the economy.It is under PopCon on You tube.

 

 

The Humpty Dumpty government in waiting thought a lot of themselves .They were after all all good eggs. In these environmental days they were well to the free range end of the spectrum. Some had made good livings as lawyers or charity executives or trade union officials . It made them very careful to tell others to obey the law and very willing to call out those who did not.

 

The leader of the party particularly liked international law. He could fly away to so many interesting places. He could meet lots of important people who all thought like him. It was so much more agreeable than trying to explain to the ordinary people why net zero mattered or how we needed to invite in so many migrants to meet our international law duties

 

Once upon a time people told a successful public sector lawyer he could become Prime Minister. He was flattered but had his doubts. It would mean he might lose his very good public sector lawyer pension. They said they could fix that for him. He could even go on and get a big PM pension and lifetime allowances as well. They pointed out he could do more international conferences and be free to travel in his own special jet. So he decided to have a go.

 

He got himself elected to Parliament and got into the Shadow Cabinet of a left wing leader who lost the election.So he pitched  to become  Leader, saying he was different and more moderate which is what electors wanted. He also made sure he was left wing enough to win, which he duly did.

Then he had a piece of luck. The government he opposed first locked down the whole country stopping many working to deal with a pandemic. He backed that and wanted longer lockdowns. Unfortunately it was doing lots of economic damage, where the public naturally blamed the government. Then the Bank printed lots of money and gave the country a big inflation which was very unpopular. He blamed the governing politicians and avoided saying how he might have stopped the Bank doing what they called Quantitative easing. He posed as the safe alternative. He got all the way to the election promising little other than a general message he would change things for the better. He won a huge majority.

 

His supporters put the whole Humpty Dumpty government up on a tall wall to see all the admiring electors. They felt a bit nervous up there but realised they did now need to be on display.

The Humpty Dumpty government sat on a Great Wall of indecision. They had been good at complaining about everything in Opposition and blaming anything bad on the government. They now had to ask themselves the difficult question.

What shall we do, now we have so much power?

 

The Home Secretary, the Chancellor, the Health Secretary, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary in the Humpty Dumpty government told the Prime Minister they should keep promising all would be improved.

 

They had been elected by all too few people but enjoyed a huge majority because people so wanted change. Voters were fed up with so many migrants coming to the country so they promised to crush the people smugglers.

Electors were angry at the inflation which had put up prices and made them worse off. So they pledged to transform the U.K. into the fastest growing of all the major economies.

People were cross that when they needed to see a doctor or get medical treatment there were so many delays and so much difficulty in arranging an appointment. They said they would mend the broken health service.

Young people were frustrated that homes were so dear so many could not afford to buy one. They told people they would change planning rules and build lots more houses.

Many were annoyed that when it came to giving out help the government seemed to give priority to giving things away to foreigners. The government wrapped themselves in the Union Jack and said they were proud of the U.K . .

 

The government embarked on its first few months telling the public everything was broken, but failing to say how they were fixing it. Soon they heard some critical voices raised against them.

 

Five months into the government the people were very angry . The number of illegal migrants coming by small boats had gone up. The Chancellor’s unexpected tax rises had slashed growth and led to a loss of jobs and cancelled investments. Pensioners and small businesses  had to pay for all the giveaways to others. The NHS received a lot more money but there were still very long waits. Mortgages to buy a home started going up again whilst no more homes were built. The U.K. kept giving more away to foreigners, giving away the Chagos islands and promising a lot more money to foreign countries to help them with net zero costs.

 

The Prime Minister had been all round the world giving things away to countries that did not like us and trying to be closer friends with Europe and with the UN. As he sat with the Cabinet on the wall and looked down he could see people pointing to them to get off the wall. So he called a Council of his key Cabinet Ministers to think through what to do.

 

Well said the Home Secretary we need to press on with our plans to slash illegal migrant numbers. We can speed up consideration of their cases once they have got here and find most of them deserve to stay. That way we can get them out of special hotels and let them find other accommodation. We can make it easier to come here legally. We can stage a few successes in prosecuting people smugglers but we need to show how this a Europe wide problem with illegal entry to the EU before they come to us.

The Chancellor said she had to put up taxes a lot to pay for all the public sector workers pay awards the party supported. She would carry on blaming the last government for not leaving enough money behind. She was cross that so many businesses were refusing to invest and hire more people when she had told them to do so. The Bank and Treasury had not told her borrowing more would put up mortgage rates.

 

The Health Secretary reported that the NHS was broken. He was asking patients and voters how to fix it. You couldn’t blame him. It would take a long time to mend.

The Deputy Prime Minister reported she had told the Councils to grant more planning permissions. It wasn’t her fault that the Chancellors budget had put up mortgage rates.

The Foreign Secretary said it was most important the U.K. agreed with foreign country views of international law and paid all our bills. It was right to increase net zero payments and right to pay to lease back an island we had given away.

 

The Prime Minister thought that all made a lot of sense so he decided the problem must be the people. He had had to be very firm at the beginning and told the courts to crack down hard on right wing protesters complaining about too much illegal migration. It was clear too few people understood the perfect way he was handling impossible problems inherited from the past against a very unsettled world background. He would continue to take an international lawyers view of what to do.

 

Meanwhile growth collapsed, inflation started to rise again, the government was way short of its housing and NHS waiting list targets and people were demanding a new early election. The Humpty Dumpty government felt very alone, very exposed and very vulnerable. Would anyone succeed in pulling them down?

 

There are two endings to this story. In the happy one the Humpty Dumpty government remembered the old nursery rhyme, listened to the public and won back support by doing what the public wanted. That was something special, a government that did what people wanted. They were delighted to hear the cheers as the people came to like their government on the wall.

The other ending saw the government double down on what they were doing.

They strengthened their attacks on their critics and told people it would all take a long time to put right. That made sitting on the wall a very uncomfortable experience. What do you think happens? Did the government fall and did its leading characters rush away from the problems to write their memoirs and earn their speaking fees?

This is a democratic forum, so you will decided the ending in the light of what the government does next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lord Mandelson is a poor choice for this job. Our current Ambassador pulled off getting an appointment for the PM and Foreign Secretary to see Donald Trump shortly before his victory and  did her best to help Lammy move on from his offensive remarks. She could have continued for longer.

Lord Mandelson is said to be experienced and charming. He will  need to be both to win over the President. He will come to crucial trade issues from the EU standpoint  that is likely to inflame the  President and  will probably urge Starmer to align with a losing and no growth EU. To prove me wrong he should begin by persuading the PM to cancel negotiations to give away the Chagos. This is a clear policy where the U.K. and US interests are the same. The absurd and expensive surrender line from the Foreign Office needs to be dumped.

The U.K. has a great opportunity to clinch a free trade deal with the US whilst the EU and the US impose more tariffs on each other. The U.K. should not copy the EU plan to impose high and wide ranging carbon based tariffs under the so called carbon border mechanism.

 

Let me try again. My main point was what someone studied at 18-21 may  be irrelevant by the time they come to an important job twenty or thirty years later. It is quite possible for someone with a non technical/scientific degree to gain experience and professional qualifications later.

I am all in favour of people who know what they are doing running things. Most management tasks require teams of people with different skills. The Leader needs leaders skills, which are more about choosing  talented and qualified people, incentivising  them, establishing correct accountabilities, setting targets  and making ultimate decisions where need arises. The team may need a scientist, a technician, a stats and maths analyst, an engineer etc.

Having a relevant degree at 21 does not mean you can run something 20 years later. Someone without a relevant degree who is good at choosing people and leading may do well as they gain management experience.

If you are a professional you have to take exams. Equally important you need to keep up to date and keep practising as experience and evolution of knowledge matters. Medics, lawyers, finance professionals etc do this through Continuous professional development learning and testing sessions. I was certainly not proposing seeking medical advice from a non qualified person, but would be happy to see a Dr at a clinic or hospital run by a good manager whatever their degree. I took a professional qualification later in life and keep up to date on investment and economic issues daily.

Five months in, several months talking down the economy and a bad tax raising budget have done damage. Inflation is up from 2% to 2.6% on the CPI. Unemployment is up and job vacancies well down

On the ONS preferred wider measure of inflation including housing costs inflation is back up at 3.5%. Rents are shooting up thanks to a shortage of homes and further demand surges from high levels of migration. Wage inflation led by inflationary  public sector awards with no productivity promises is sticky. The hike in National Insurance and other wage costs is keeping inflation in services too high.

The Bank of England should not cut interest rates until the pay and productivity issues are sorted out.

Some writing in have a strange idea that education ends when someone completes their degree. They say that because someone studied subject A for three years around the time they were 20 this determines what job they can do 20-40 years later. If you want to assess a person’s aptitude for a job you need to look at what they have done after university and what they have learned in recent years as they will recall that more easily, as well as what they when young.

My experience is different. I have studied economics and investment in my business and public service life all my adult years. I have not refreshed my university studies of economic history and the history of ideas since I was 22 completing my doctorate.I have taken an Investment qualification later in life and have written and spoken about leading economic issues. In order to keep up to date with a subject takes daily energy and curiosity, assisted by practical experience of decision taking based on analysis and forecasting.

It is quite possible for a Minister to make good judgements without having a specific qualification in a relevant subject. Ministers are there to weigh up specialist and professional opinion and relate it to practicalities, likely efficacy and the public understanding.

Several contributors wish to write in every day making the same points about their own single hobby horse. I am not posting the persistent allegations that a couple of billionaires control the world’s governments, nor the angry denunciations of both main political parties in wholly negative and repetitive language. I aim to set out a variety of topics and arguments in moderate tones.The task is to contribute to the public debate and understanding of government and society.   The blog works better if people follow suit.

The civil service has too many grades, switches people around too often and then has to buy in expertise from consultants.

If some one is only going to spend a couple of years or so in a job before moving onwards and often upwards there is difficulty in that person learning enough, building enough relationships and contacts to do the job well and having a wide and deep body of knowledge about that set of problems. The civil service needs to keep more people in jobs for longer, and reward them better for staying in post with performance pay or with promotion whilst staying in the same area.

I remember as Single market Minister finding our officials were often switched whilst some other countries kept people in post in Brussels for much longer to build their contacts and understand how the system worked.

Regular  switching is linked with several grades of official being involved in Decisions and framing advice.It means no-one is ever to blame or responsible for handling a problem when it emerges. If something goes badly wrong the enquiry usually concludes it was a system failure an£ recommends a set of procedural changes for the future. In business there is more individual responsibility set out in the definitions of jobs and the authority levels granted to the staff. There can then be a more direct relationship between performance, pay and promotion, and faster response  to problems which may need staff change.

There needs to be more regular review of tasks and staffing in the civil service. Flatter structures for more matters would help. Clearer named responsibility and build up of expertise is  essential. there should be less resort to consultancies to do the work when there are officials on the payroll to do it.

The areas of the private sector that achieve the highest levels  of efficiency are usually very driven by competition. The leaders of the businesses know if they cease the search to do better with less and give up the drive to innovate and change, their competitors will take their customers.

Advocates of nationalisation say that should  be more efficient and low cost because it removes the need for competing management teams, multiple head offices and advertising. Looking at past experience  shows this is just not true. Large nationalised monopolies offset the economies  of scale with the inefficiencies of monopoly provision.

When the U.K.electricity industry was privatised the nationalised management fought against creating competing generators, claiming it would be dearer and less productive. The  government split up the industry and created competition. In the first decade moving to a competitive system labour  productivity doubled and electricity  prices came down. The industry that had believed in fuel inefficient  coal power stations went for the dash for gas. The new power stations were 60-70% more fuel efficient, greener and cleaner.

Public sector trading bodies that charge the customers should be subject to competition.

MPs are meant to run the complaints department. Much of the case work is trying to remedy failings in public services. I will be writing a few blogs on some of the reasons there are so many complaints.Many of the Statements and  debates are about what to do when things go wrong..

One of the principle causes of complaint is rationing. Key public services have too little capacity, leading to access denied or inadequate service performance  or long waits to get the service.

We have fully nationalised roads. All my life we have been kept short of road space by local and national road managers who want to deny or limit access to roads or think it a good idea to allow bad traffic jams. There is still no south coast motorway, the M25 remains too small, the A 303 to the West Country has not been fully dualled, with similar gaps in provision elsewhere in the country. Many Councils now close or limit what roads they do have to make access to towns increasingly difficult.

The NHS dominates healthcare. It has excessively long waiting lists, delays in getting appointments and lets  some down who need urgent treatment.

The fully  nationalised rail regions have poor records for delays and cancellations to train services. Train travel fails to offer much capacity for freight traffic in ways that could shift loads off the roads.

The heavily regulated and controlled electricity utilities rely more and more on imports as government will not design national security into its over managed system.

The water companies under nationalised ownership and more recently under privatised and regulated ownership have lacked capital and permissions to replace worn out old pipes and put in enough capacity for a rising population.

So now we read confirmation the the EU wants us to accept freedom of movement for under 30 s.
They want to grab more of our fish for longer, demanding an extended and generous access for their trawlers and super trawlers to our waters.

They want to impose more of their  laws on us. They are offering no new and improved access to their market.

None of this makes any sense for the U.K.Still the U.K. government fails to ask for anything that we might need to make our lives better.

Although the U.K. establishment did its best to wreck Brexit and avoid taking advantage of the freedoms, we are saving £12 bn a year and putting that into the NHS, We have avoided a large Share of Euro 800 bn of extra EU borrowing they agreed as soon as we left, and do not have to impose hundreds of costly and unhelpful laws they have imposed since we left.