education and posters to this site

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.

95 Comments

  1. agricola
    December 18, 2024

    There is some merit in what you say. In less factually based subjects superfical knowledge and a sense of christian moral judgement could see you making good decisions for the progress of the nation as a whole. However I would suggest you might become very picky should you need a triple bypass or a hip replacement. In your own field you would not opt for me as your next Chancellor, however erodite I might be in Parliament.

    I maintain that in many ministries where the purpose is specific. Agriculture, as I said yesterday, would benefit from a farmer with an agricultural degree, graduation from Harvard Business School, and managerial experience in the chemical fertilizer industry. He or she would be less likely to be slurried by a PPE graduate in the CS. Jeremy Clarkson is brilliant at publicising the challenges of farming, and turning sixpence into half a crown, while Kaleb keeps him on track. I would not however see him polishing the ministers seat at MinAg.

    My conclusion is that both politicians and the CS need to be infected by more experience in the real world before being allowed anywhere near decision making for real people, as it is the latter who suffer the consequences. Keep your heart and hips in safe hands.

    1. Mark B
      December 18, 2024

      . . . more experience in the real world before . . .

      I very much agree. Currently we have people who are formulating agricultural policy who are more interested in the enviroment than they are in producing food.

      1. Ian wragg
        December 18, 2024

        So inflation has risen for the second month from 2.3% to 2.6%
        Who’d have thought giving inflation busting rises to public sector workers without productivity gains was inflationary.
        That’s before the NI increases kick in.
        What was it you were saying about advisors and experts John.

        1. Mark
          December 18, 2024

          RPI is at 3.6%. Judging from the cost of weekly shopping it’s a lot more than that, although I was able to buy computer equipment at a better price during Black Friday sales.

      2. Mike Wilson
        December 18, 2024

        we have people who are formulating agricultural policy who are more interested in the enviroment than they are in producing food

        But surely that is Mr. Redwood’s point. You don’t need a degree in farming (from Oxbridge, eh LifeLogic?) to be the agriculture minister. If you put a qualified farmer in the post, you may well get pesticides on everything and polluted watercourses. You need someone with intelligence and life experience – who is able to take on board specialist opinion and make decisions.

        1. Steve Tootill
          December 18, 2024

          “If you put a qualified farmer in the post, you may well get pesticides on everything and polluted watercourses.”
          Quite agree, esp. if they have “managerial experience in the chemical fertilizer industry” as Mike W suggests…

        2. Mark
          December 18, 2024

          I think it helps to have relevant experience before you are thrust into making big decisions. CEOs who transfer across industries often ruin the companies who hire them. Those without some prior experience will be unable to adjudicate between competing views of specialists, or even be unaware that they ought to be considering a view that hasn’t been presented to them. Some make up for the shortcoming by simply imposing their own ill considered opinion.

          Relevant experience can of course be gained in many different ways. But some jobs require different underlying skills to do well. There are jobs that are not for the innumerate, and ones that require appreciation of history to learn from it. Management reorganisation is a different skill again.

    2. Ian Wraggg
      December 18, 2024

      Specialist and Professional advice would be good if if we’re impartial
      We all know for example the Climate Change Committee only hires and listens to those who follow the narrative.
      Likewise the Inheritance Tax raid was the result of one man’s work in a left wing think tank.
      The Uniparty are all signed up to the same destructive policies so they have to go.

    3. Donna
      December 18, 2024

      “My conclusion is that both politicians and the CS need to be infected by more experience in the real world before being allowed anywhere near decision making for real people, as it is the latter who suffer the consequences.”

      I concur. Since the advent of young, telegenic, metropolitian, corporate-speaking “professional politicians” from 1997 onwards, the standard of MPs has become steadily worse and the level of competence has declined.

      There are virtually no “Big Beasts” in any branch of the Westminster Uni-Party, just managerialist drones.

    4. Lifelogic
      December 18, 2024

      It is not so much that education finishes when they finish their degree. But that the types of people who initially aspire to PPE, politics, law, classics are generally rather different types of people to those who read maths, physics, engineering


      Some like yourself are clearly bright enough to cover many fields very well. But if one listens to most energy ministers whom we have suffered under (or indeed 95% of MPs) on energy they really clearly do have not got a clue). Most do not even seem to know the difference between energy and power or the units for them let alone entropy. Government web sites even lie that walking and cycling produce no direct or indirect CO2. One shadow energy minister (a lawyer) even suggested when the wind does not blow we can use wave power! What does she think causes waves? Kwasi is quite bright but was totally out of his depth on energy with his Saudi Arabia of Wind lunacy.

      How can anyone really think that EVs save CO2 or that saving a tiny bit of CO2 in the UK is the best way to stop flooding in Spain? Or than C02 is dirty and not clean?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        December 18, 2024

        One of the best Energy Ministers was Cecil Parkinson. He was an accountant.
        He ascertained, incidentally, that in the Severn Estuary, which has the biggest rise and fall of tide in the UK (see the Severn Bore) even turbines that rotated both ways to take advantage of both the incoming and outgoing tides did not produce enough energy to cover their cost.
        A minister does not need to understand the scientific detail, he will not be producing the spec. H3 just need to understand whether the whole project is viable or not.
        Parkinson was also Transport Minister for a time. He would have ruled HS2 out.

        1. Lifelogic
          December 18, 2024

          Indeed Cecil was a fairly sensible chap why one earth did Thatcher make daft as a brush John Major Chancellor? Plus it would be a disaster environmentally and would silt up rapidly too so need dredging and endless repairs. Plus tidal energy is not oncdemand it has to be used with each tide at the time and huge variations in output between spring and neap tides. Something most green loons and MP do not understand like many other things. How many of these dope even understand why we get two tides a day and neap and SPRING tides?

          Not technically “renewable” either as it slows the earths rotation speed v. slightly as this is where the energy comes from.

      2. Mark
        December 18, 2024

        One thing that Cameron did do right when he became leader was to stick with his Shadow ministers when taking up government – except of course where he had to cede roles to the Lib Dems, giving us Huhne and Davey in Energy, although Laws was a competent Treasury Secretary before he withdrew.

      3. Mike Wilson
        December 18, 2024

        are generally rather different types of people to those who read maths, physics, engineering


        Indeed. Those left brain types are increasingly pointless in a world of AI, robotics and quantum computers. I don’t need a degree in Physics, or anything else, to be able to review the evidence for anthropogenic climate change and make up my own mind. I don’t need to know how to build a car to know how to drive one and think about traffic issues.

    5. Lifelogic
      December 18, 2024

      There is a big difference between knowing lots of “facts” and understanding. Many of the facts lots of people have learned are simply not true they perhaps listen to the BBC too often. The BBC and Government think transport by walking and cycling cause no direct or indirect CO2 and getting a new EVs saves CO2!

      Many think Truss as PM caused the 10% inflation is a fact when it was the BoE and Sunak as Chancellor. Other like Reeves and Starmer even think higher taxes and more government will help economic growth!

      1. Mike Wilson
        December 18, 2024

        There is also a big difference between intelligence and acting intelligently. And a degree in physics is no guarantee of intelligent action.

        1. Lifelogic
          December 20, 2024

          Indeed look at Imperial’s Neil Ferguson who pushed for lockdown and told MPs that introducing lockdown measures in the UK a week earlier would have reduced deaths by at least half.

          Lockdown did net harm in health and economic terms as is now very clear indeed, This was rather clear to sensible people (like the Barrington Declaration people) at the time. Locking away young health people just delayed natural vaccinations and prolonged the epidemic.

  2. Mark B
    December 18, 2024

    Good morning.

    Education, education, education! I wonder who first said that ? Probably some friend of some billionaire ? Who knows ? 😉

    Education is the accumulation of knowledge. But what people forget is, it is ‘known’ knowledge that has been rigorously tested and is designed to be passed on in a manner forming minds can digest and can be tested against. All it proves in the end is, that you have reached a certain minimum standard, whatever that standard happens to be. The real test is, the test of life and whether or not you are able to go on and use said knowledge and add to it ?

    There is also the education of life which, as I am sure many agree with, is ongoing. This is sometimes know as and referred to as ‘wisdom’. I view our kind host who has accumulated much knowledge as wise, but not necessarily an expert in all things. Wisdom and wise people know their limitations and seek out those who know better. But here is the catch ! How does one know if these people are better or, they are one of those so called ‘experts’ we so often hear about but do not know ?

    For these people to be considered expert they must open themselves to questioning. Only then can we assess their level of competency.

    One issue often discussed here is Climate Change and at what level the gas CO2 plays ? I am not an expert, and I do not think our kind host or many here are. But we do question the above assumption and, I think it is fair to say find the evidence to be unconvincing.

    The other issue I have is with governments and government policy. Governments and the main political parties seem ideologically captured. MP’s should always approach matters with an open and questionable mind, especially in view of that their position gives them great power, power that can either be for good or harm. Climate Change and the laws and treaties made and signed by government with parliamentary approval have created a situation which many here and elsewhere see as harmful and driven more by ideology that fact, reason and knowledge. Such people in my view are not fit for public office. This needs to be said

    1. Donna
      December 18, 2024

      Not just ideologically captured, many of them also seem to be financially captured.

    2. Lifelogic
      December 18, 2024

      Alas “education, education, education” turned into indoctrination, indoctrination, indoctrination and loads of people with £50k plus of debt, loss of three years earning and worthless degrees in say Grievance studies from the ex-poly of Bognor or similar. On top of their two EEs at A level.

    3. Lifelogic
      December 18, 2024

      The CO2 is about to cause an imminent fiery hell on earth case is clearly nonsense. The world has had ice ages with far higher CO2. Even a doubling of CO2 will cause very little extra heating. CO2 is not even the main so called Green house Gas. It is just one of millions of things that affect the climate and is far from the main one.

      Anyway accounted for properly most of the things the government push to reduce CO2 do not anyway to any real degree.

      Endless ministers and Sunak assured us that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective, it is now beyond doubt they did significant net harm amd yet still they push them.

      1. Mike Wilson
        December 18, 2024

        The world has had ice ages with far higher CO2.

        Thanks to you, I made that assertion on a web site recently and was shot down in flames. The shooter included a link to the CO2 levels from I’ve cores that take in at least the last ice age. From memory CO2 levels were much less than half the current level. Lower even than before the industrial revolution.

        1. Lifelogic
          December 18, 2024

          The Cambrian world was bracketed between two ice ages, one during the late Proterozoic and the other during the Ordovician. During these ice ages, the decrease in global temperature led to mass extinctions. Cooler conditions eliminated many warm water species, and glaciation lowered global sea levels.

          But you were right, true is was before humans!

        2. Lifelogic
          December 18, 2024

          The most distant period in time for which we have estimated CO2 levels is around the Ordovician period, 500 million years ago. At the time, atmospheric CO2 concentration was at a whopping 3000 to 9000 ppm!

    4. IanT
      December 18, 2024

      On leaving HM Forces I was lucky enough to enter the IT Industry via a Graduate Entry Scheme, with my technical experience and (five years of self study) City & Guilds exams. I was initially somewhat in awe of my fellow ‘graduates’ but slowly realised that I too had useful and experience skills.
      The job required working long, irregular hours, often with a lot of night work. Not unlike being in BAOR if fact. Three years later I was in a regional support role and as far as I’m aware, all the other graduates had left the company.

      I have always therefore thought that whilst a Degree will help you get the job, there are no guarentees you will keep it. That very much depends on your ability and willingness to do it well.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        December 18, 2024

        Initially ICT specifically recruited from the Tec division of the RAF. ICT became ICL and they were world beaters until Wilson said the British Govt would buy from them exclusively. Then they downed tools and made no further progress because their sales were guaranteed.

        1. Mickey Taking
          December 18, 2024

          ICT emerged from merged businesses itself, then forming ICL with English Electric, Elliot, and later Ferranti. Although successful in Europe and enabled by Government buying, it became dwarfed by IBM.
          Fujitsu took over the troubled result, and again won enormous projects from UK Government, it could be argued that it continued without external competition being permitted.

        2. IanT
          December 19, 2024

          I was actually offered a job by both ICL and a US Mini company Lynn. In fact the ICL offer was better paid but I liked the look of the US company. ICL somehow felt a bit old fashioned by comparison. So I chose the Americans and it turned out to be a very good decision.

    5. Lifelogic
      December 18, 2024

      Indeed.
      “Climate Change and at what level manmade CO2 plays ? I think it is fair to say find the evidence to be unconvincing.”

      I think it is fair to say the evidence that manmade CO2 is at most a minor influence on the climate is very convincing indeed. Just one of millions of factors that influence the climate and also a bit more CO2 and slightly warmer on balance is a net good anyway.

      Rachel Reeves has lots of education PPE and MA economics from the LSE but obviously has failed to understand what helps economic growth and what destroys it. She expects growth but her policies are clearly all for destruction of growth.

      1. Mike Wilson
        December 18, 2024

        Rachel Reeves has lots of education PPE and MA economics from the LSE

        An MA from the LSE – a world-leading social science specialist university – and still useless eh? Rather defeats your oft repeated derision for people who have poor, or irrelevant, degrees.

        1. Lifelogic
          December 18, 2024

          Well it was Oxford PPE and the rather lefty LSE and Rachael Reeves is clearly rather daft!

  3. formula57
    December 18, 2024

    Agreed.

    “The blog works better if people follow suit” – another raising of the bar I see.

  4. David in Kent
    December 18, 2024

    I agree with what you say about education. We leave university or school filled with knowledge from teachers and from then on it is from our own observation and reading so it is a different quality of information.
    In my case, while I studied statistics at university and used it in my career the subject intself was changed out of all recognition by the widespread use of computers and the expansion of the Bayesian approach so continuous learning was essential.

    1. Mark
      December 18, 2024

      Statistical techniques can be learned by anyone with a mathematical mind. The most valuable lesson I learned about statistics was querying the data assembly methodology. Are the questions for a poll going to bias its outcome? Do these numbers on immigration really cover all the bases, or are you failing to measure immigration on all routes? Are the temperature records used to evaluate trends in climate really measuring that, or are they measuring urban growth or using kriging to invent numbers in ways that bias the outcome?

      Applying sophisticated techniques to data that aren’t much use is just GIGO.

  5. Wanderer
    December 18, 2024

    A good point about degrees. There’s also the mistaken superiority issue: the degree-holder thinks they are more qualified to address any issue (even one outside the scope of their degree), more intelligent, and intellectually more able than any non-graduates. This is harmless, unless they are in a position of power that’s beyond their real – rather than imagined – capabilities.

    The professions are partly to blame for this oft-seen delusion. They have almost all switched to degree-only entry, whereas most used to allow people to qualify on-the-job, along with doing professional exams. Back then it was usually clear who employers preferred to hire: the experiencd person qualified in-post, not the fresh graduate. Graduates very soon understood that their degree did not necessarily convey superior knowledge, skill, or intellectual prowess.

    This superiority delusion can affect both arts and science graduates.

    1. Steve Tootill
      December 18, 2024

      Fully agree. My experience was that we gained an advantage when hiring for software support jobs by not requiring degrees, whereas larger companies restricted hiring to relevant degree holders – “relevance” proved to be far less a guide to performance than aptitude, which we could test for.

    2. Mark
      December 18, 2024

      A competent manager assembles a competent team regardless of formal qualifications.

  6. Bloke
    December 18, 2024

    Education is a daily need to understand change.

  7. DOM
    December 18, 2024

    Reason, logic and informed debate has become pointless. John talks about education and understanding. Why when political victory can now be achieved by slander? Truss was brought to her knees by comparing her to a lettuce with of course destructive intervention from Bailey and the Treasury.

    The Tory party has been neutralised by portraying them as ‘nasty’. They now tow the progressive line like good little puppy dogs. No wonder voters are turning to Reform, they see moral courage and a refusal to endorse woke authoritarianism and Socialist re-engineering.

    Votes are angry quite simply because they can see their country being eaten away from within and without by pernicious forces. John can complain all he likes but his approach of focusing on data, reason and logical argument achieves nothing. Indeed it is counter-productive as being voters simply turn off and stop listening.

    Most on here have no personal vendetta with John, more we use the site to express concerns, some in a more robust and antediluvian manner than others.

    Thanks for your efforts

  8. Donna
    December 18, 2024

    I agree that experience in the University of Life is important in a Minister; they need to weigh up a variety of different factors when making decisions, not just the specialist subject they are technically responsible for.

    However, their formal education does give an indication of their likely future aptitude in a particular role. Someone who has no formal education in economics is less likely to shine as Chancellor, although as Rachel-from-Complaints has recently demonstrated, someone with limited knowledge and experience of the subject can over-egg and over-estimate their own abilities and make a complete horlicks of their role as well.

    I believe we need minimum standards set for someone to become an MP. At the very least, there should be a minimum age (35) and/or a minimum period spent working in a senior capacity in the Private Sector; the Public Sector the Armed Services or who have their own business (10 years). We need to terminate the route of University; SpAd, MP, Minister.

  9. MBJ
    December 18, 2024

    Education whether formally taken as a course or self directed is ongoing.I understand that there hase to be an official benchmark for certain jobs.My job for example requires on going update and education continually with documented evidence.The standards are very high and useful.There again learning is an adventure and shouldn’t be seen as a power kick for those who attended university many years ago.

  10. Roy Grainger
    December 18, 2024

    I worked for several big private sector companies both in UK and USA and EU. At no time was anyone in my entire management chain (of up to 7-8 people) able to do my job and they didn’t need to because I could do it. What they needed to be able to do was be good managers – a quite different skill set. So I think it is unnecessary, for example, for the Health Secretary or the NHS CEO to have any medical training at all, in fact it would probably be best if he or she didn’t have any and so came from outside the medical establishment. But it is essential for those two people to be very high-grade experienced managers who also know how to handle and challenge subject matter experts. Not qualities evident in those two posts during the last Conservative government.

  11. Denis Cooper
    December 18, 2024

    One of my hobby horses, and these days often my preferred steed, is the marginal economic impact that UK membership of the EEC/EC/EU had, and more generally the marginal economic impact for us of all special trade deals including those with our European neighbours now that global trade has been so extensively liberalised. Look at how Theresa May tried to keep the whole of the UK under the economic thumb of the EU on the excuse that we desperately needed a special trade deal with them when that was not the case, it was a longstanding lie, and look at how Boris Johnson was prepared to leave Northern Ireland behind under swathes of EU laws for the sake of what was really a pathetic little trade deal, and look at how Keir Starmer is trying to reverse the political gains of Brexit on the false argument that to get more growth we closer economic ties with the EU when in truth the problem of low growth dates back to the global financial crisis both for us and for the EU member states.

  12. Rod Evans
    December 18, 2024

    Sir John, your blog is an interesting example of the modern desire to communicate and hopefully educate others via the Socratic approach to learning. Those who comment here have particular interests that they feel the need to explore and express. Your daily blog with comment opportunity, provides that vehicle for others to express their view and convey their version of truth. Those with fixations on specific interests will always utilise the opportunity to speak out, so, as has clearly been the case thus far, tolerance of some repetition is afforded and hopefully that will continue within the limits of common sense.
    As far as education goes I am a prime example of life long fascination of all subjects with hopefully some retained knowledge, that enables me to explore areas beyond my engineering training. Politics is a reasonably recent area of interest, Embracing the past 15 years for me and I can see why you focused your life on it.
    Keep up the good work, someone has to….

  13. Narrow Shoulders
    December 18, 2024

    Curiosity, a holistic view to avoid unintended consequences and the ability to see beyond personal doctrine and the perceived wisdom of the time.

    This requires much more than a simple university degree (the standard of which I despair when I see the courses my daughters are undertaking).

    The problem is not so much that Ministers are not educated enough it is more that the people they surround themselves with and the civil servants in their departments are lined up with the zeitgeist rather than independent thinkers.

    1. a-tracy
      December 18, 2024

      I agree, NS, all three of my kids are master’s grads with 1st class degrees. Do I think they’re smarter or more intelligent than their father, who left school at 17 with an early A level and became an apprentice in computer science? No, they don’t have his three decades of further experience and additional learning, something we have never stopped as adults.

  14. Stred
    December 18, 2024

    The idea that a couple of billionaires are behind international government policies is over simplistic. Some billionaires do create charities or institutions in order to influence policies and they do gain access to politicians and civil servants and offer lucrative jobs or speech making opportunities.
    But the late Sir Christopher Meyer pointed out the real reason for what has been called ‘post democratic’ government when he was telling us why Donald trump was a terrible choice for president. He did not respect the ‘Rules based Order’. As an ex USA ambassador he obviously followed this international network of law and rules, which has been set up to allow the western governments to set the agendas and work through the UN and other organisations such as the Davos mob that Kier prefers or the WHO and Institute of Migration, now merging into one controlling world order.
    These politicians will lawyers have tied governments up with treaties and pacts that cannot be discarded without breaking the international rules. The UN Migration Pact signed by the UK requires that economic migrants are assisted as if they were refugees and lawyers such as Sir Kier and mayor Khan have used these laws to prevent anyone deporting what they now call ‘irregulars’.

    It will be interesting to see whether president Trump tears up the rules, which civil servants follow while ignoring calls from elected representatives.

    1. a-tracy
      December 18, 2024

      Has Argentina’s Milei gone back to following worldwide rule and order or is he the outlier?

      1. Mark B
        December 18, 2024

        I think he is doing what he thinks is best for Argentina. And it seems to be working.

  15. Ian B
    December 18, 2024

    “It is quite possible for a Minister to make good judgements” …? Is it good judgement when a Minister contradicts logic and seeks to fulfil ideological almost religious beliefs well ahead of common-sense and proven historical experiences?

  16. Nigl
    December 18, 2024

    Maybe finally one multiple poster who regularly trashes politicians with his obsession about what degree they took umpteen years ago will finally spare us or you could do it for us.

  17. Sakara Gold
    December 18, 2024

    Nobody doubts Sir John’s university qualifications, nor his working experience and career before parliament. He was part of the Conservative government under Thatcher which took power after the May 1979 election at a time of extraordinary high inflation (18% for most of 1980) High inflation caused problems with the unions and Thatcher’s monetary policy involving high interest rates caused millions of job losses (3 million out of work at Christmas 1981)

    Thatcher’s confrontational monetarist policies lost the country more than 2 million manufacturing jobs during the savage recession of 1979-1981 when thousands of good British firms went bust. Thatcher and her successor Major managed to destroy the industrial base of the country so thoroughly that we have never had a balance of payments surplus since – ultimately leading to the present humungous national debt. Thatcher’s policy of selling off state industries and particularly the nation’s council housing stock – without building replacements – has resulted in the current housing difficulties for renters and is a cause of the massive drop in the birth rate among indigenous Brits, as it takes two people working to pay the rent. Let alone a mortgage.

    I think the history books will be unkind to the Thatcher/Major years. The question is, can the new Labour government reverse the low productivity trend and rebuild our manufacturing and export industries? Other than Royal Mail there is very little left to sell off.

    Reply I became Margaret’s Head of Policy after the 1979-81 recession which was brought on through a traditional Bank/Treasury squeeze to curb an excessive inflation. The attrition of mining, steel, rail and other nationalised industry jobs had been very bad under Labour in the 1970s and continued in the early 80 s. I helped Margaret with a growth strategy which worked well from 1982 onwards, until John Majors EU ERM policy did big damage. I opposed that.

    1. Mark B
      December 18, 2024

      Thatcher and her successor Major managed to destroy the industrial base of the country so thoroughly that we have never had a balance of payments surplus since . . .

      Absolute rot ! Everyone, especially those from the Left, do seem to forget what the country was like BEFORE Mrs.T came to office. Ever heard of the, ‘Winter of discontent’ ? When there were so many strikes that the country was labeled the, ‘Sick man of Europe.’ Mrs.T and the (Lord) Geoffry Hown, her first Chancellor, managed to turn this country round.

      And as for privatising the Nationalised industries. May I remind you that many of those industries when they were first created were in fact Private ! Many were Nationalised AFTER 1946 and the Labour government of Atlee.

    2. Sakara Gold
      December 19, 2024

      @Sir John – reply

      Acknowledged. Many who lived through those difficult years recall the polarisation of British society – and the lady’s refusal to contemplate a “U” turn. With the benefit of hindsight Major’s government went into the ERM at far to high a level in its attempts to “track” the Deutchemark. The rest is history

  18. Bryan Harris
    December 18, 2024

    It’s very true that as you move through life that you keep learning.

    My basic education ended at 14 3/4, but I have skills and knowledge I couldn’t have imagined when I left school.

    Places of work are a great educating factor, learning on the job, with help, gives confidence and helps one to progress. Yet when I was thrown out into the world, barely out of short trousers and with practically no worldly knowledge, I couldn’t foresee the path I was going to end up on. By degree I made myself more employable and gained skills that permitted me to travel to many countries. My basic education certainly did not prepare me for that.
    The opportunities that arose in the middle/last quarter of the last century were unique, allowing many like me to make an impact, but I somehow doubt that similar opportunities will arise in the future in quite the same way.

    In my experience from observing others, and the cheapened degrees offered, universities are not the starting point they should be.

  19. Cliff.. Wokingham.
    December 18, 2024

    Good morning Sir John.
    A very interesting and thought provoking piece this morning.
    I like to think as everyday being a school day and learning never ends throughout one’s life.
    Formal education has changed so much over recent decades, with so many opting to go to university post their secondary education.
    I would like our MPs to have some life experience outside of politics and Westminster before embarking on their political careers.
    I also feel that some ministerial roles should require some experience in the field they shall be responsible for. I think, for example, an ex military person would be a better candidate for such a role overseeing the MOD, than someone who wasn’t in one of the military branches.
    A person who has been a doctor for some time would understand the problems within our NHS which an outsider may not understand.
    Finally, all roles should be awarded on merit and not on the basis of any tick box criteria such as gender, ethnicity, nor religion etc.

  20. Stred
    December 18, 2024

    As to education and its value to politicians and civil servants, it seems to be true that policies are made without understanding and knowledge.
    The worst of these is environmental policy and energy.
    My own education involved some engineering and I have studied the numbers involved in energy and how to create, conserve and store it. The most useful reference was the book Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by Prof MacKay. When it was first published the current minister for energy and climate change was running the previos Labour government and it was reported that his civil servants were urging him to read it. Had he done so and followed the number, he would have realised that the energy density of wind, solar and biomass were hopelessly low and that storage of electrical energy is only possible for short periods. Prof MacKay thought that nuclear was the only viable long term solution.
    MacKay also analysed buildings and insulation. It would be interesting to know how many of the 4500 civil servants know about the types of insulation that are now excluded from EPCs or the actual energy costs that are not accounted for in their wholly inaccurate computerised tick box system, where actbills are ignored and national averages are used. My guess and of the surveyors i have spoken to is that they are at the bottom of this class.

  21. Stred
    December 18, 2024

    actual bills
    Correction

  22. Denis Cooper
    December 18, 2024

    Off topic, I read this morning in EUobserver:

    “Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili will address MEPs in Strasbourg today, following massive protests sparked by the pro-Russian Georgian Dream government’s decision to suspend the country’s EU accession process after the controversial parliamentary elections in October 2024. Zourabichvili’s presidential term is due to end on 29 December.”.

    “EU heads of state and government are expected to meet with leaders from the Western Balkans in the evening. “The message will always be that the Western Balkan partners belong in the European family, and the future will lie within the EU,” an official said.”.

    “Meanwhile, a group of European leaders, including those from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland, are also expected to attend an event organised with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Nato chief Mark Rutte. EU Council president AntĂłnio Costa and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen are reportedly attending as well.”

    Having fomented war in Ukraine, now the EU/NATO/US troika wants to do the same in Georgia.

    1. Mitchel
      December 18, 2024

      There was also the failed attempt at a colour revolution in Kazakhstan in January 2022-interesting timing;the Ukraine war started the following month.

      All in the context of RAND Corp’s report “Overextending & Unbalancing Russia-assessing the impact of cost-imposing options”,24/4/19.And a recent follow-up:-

      “The Day After-Postwar US Strategy toward Russia”,9/2/24.

      It’s not as if they have ever tried to hide what they have been planning.That’s why Russia and its allies were ready for them!

      btw,Boris Johnson posted a videoclip on the Daily Mail website recently:”If Ukraine falls,it will be a catastrophe for the west,it will be the end of western hegemony.”Not much concern there for the fate of the Ukrainians themselves-although that should have been crystal clear right from the start.

      1. Denis Cooper
        December 18, 2024

        Supposedly non-violent options, but with hostile intentions.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        December 18, 2024

        Oh the path to World King is littered with corpses.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      December 18, 2024

      And of course Salome Zourabichvili is French. Always a bad idea to have anybody other than a native in the Corridors of power.

      1. hefner
        December 18, 2024

        Does that apply to a South African native who spent 18 years there, then went to Canada for a couple of years, then to the USA and became a US citizen at 31?

  23. Sir Joe Soap
    December 18, 2024

    There are very few true polymaths. It’s generally the case that intelligent people either express themselves and their abilities through words and stories or through figures and structures. Hence the well trodden decision taken many years ago to split 6th forms into arts and sciences. Within those areas some subjects require problem solving or deductive shills, others require a good memory and regurgitating facts.
    We then need to ask how this range of skills would be best deployed to run the country. Do we need a Parliament full of story tellers, regurgitators of facts, problem solvers or those with a facility of figures and structures?
    A well run company would have a judicious mix… probably fewer story tellers and reurgitators of facts and more problem solvers.
    Your contributors, in noting a mix in the present government of those without tertiary education, those with story telling and word skills e.g. lawyers, and none with skills in figures and structures, honed in a business environment make a valid point. We desperately need these skills and they’re practically absent both in this government and in previous ones going back to Major’s.

  24. Lifelogic
    December 18, 2024

    “Some writing in have a strange idea that education ends when someone completes their degree.”
    This is a total misrepresentation and of course education continues. But someone who chooses to drops science and maths at 16 to read say languages or arts is rather unlikely to ever really understand very much on these subjects.

    They tend not to “think” in the same way which is often why they dropped the subjects early in the first place.

    1. a-tracy
      December 18, 2024

      Lifelogic that is rubbish. I know a couple of girls who could disprove your theory in no time.

      1. Lifelogic
        December 18, 2024

        Not rubbish at all obviously there are a few exceptions but how many people who dropped maths and physics at 16 ever got a 1st in these subjects at university later in life? Note I only said “rather unlikely”. I should have said extremely unlikely (and even less likely for females I suspect if you look at the stats).

      2. Lifelogic
        December 18, 2024

        How could they possible disprove it?

        1. a-tracy
          December 19, 2024

          I know a female singer with a maths degree, a classical musician who is also a dentist retraining after an initial creative degree. Many creatives are also maths and science based. Why do you assume everyone is one dimensional. I know arts graduates who could easily get a Maths degree.

  25. agricola
    December 18, 2024

    Yes Mark to all you say, but do not ignore the humble historian. All the good decisions and all the bad decisions are there writ large for everyones guidance. We do not have to fail by ignoring the events of the past.

    1. Mitchel
      December 18, 2024

      “B-b-but it will all be different this time”

      1. Lifelogic
        December 18, 2024

        Well the technology available certainly changes as to human nature, greed and other human frailties perhaps not so much.

  26. Original Richard
    December 18, 2024

    “It is quite possible for a Minister to make good judgements without having a specific qualification in a relevant subject.”

    This may be true, but yesterday’s topic concerned the Civil Service and I expect the senior staff of the Civil Service to have the relevant qualifications for the department in which they are employed. I thought this was a major purpose of a permanent civil service so they were capable of advising ministers. Just as I expect judges to have law degrees, surgeons and anaesthetists to have had medical training I expect the at DESNZ to find engineering degrees and not degrees in modern history, economics and social history, geography, criminology and modern languages (German & French).

    That the Chief Scientific Adviser to The Treasury has a degree in foreign languages and literature is quite frankly an insult.

    It was Carl Sagan, an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator who said that giving control of a country that is highly dependent upon science and technology to a group who have no understanding of science, technology or engineering is a certain recipe for disaster.

    1. Mark
      December 18, 2024

      It might be good if some of the DESNZ staff had a proper understanding of economics. They might be less inclined to develop policy on the basis of economic fantasy.

  27. Ian B
    December 18, 2024

    Does an MP, then what becomes our government serve first their constituents and the Country (Society as a whole), or do they serve their political religion, ideology and their Gang Leader?

    No Political Religion has the monopoly on best intentions, some work with those that empower and pay them others fight and keep fighting, you fall into their mindset, their self-gratification entilment or you are the enemy. The fighters deem you must agree with them as their ideology doesn’t respect difference (views and opinions) it only panders to fellow travellers.

    Those that listen, work with, achieve for all individuals and the collective whole.

  28. David+L
    December 18, 2024

    To paraphrase a posting on another discussion site: “Experts” learn from other “Experts” and thus feel that their views are the correct views and that anyone questioning them must be wrong.
    Few experts have sufficient wisdom to recognise that there is much they don’t know.
    We see examples of this in every branch of our governance, in health matters and in industry. Today’s news on BBC of a whistleblower in the EV design business being sacked and blacklisted for raising safety concerns about a particular model that has caused deaths, is just the latest in this litany of arrogance of those who believe themselves incapable of error.

  29. Ian B
    December 18, 2024

    Sir John
    I fully understand your view on this. Yet I fall in to what you see as maybe a trap of having a ‘hobby horse’ – I lament the loss of democracy, common-sense, common-decency, common-law. The UK Parliament and State now comes over as a corrupt and on a par with a failing third world dictatorship all run on ego and self-gratification.
    All the ills and miss-steps you illustrate each day comes back to those we elect, empower and are forced to pay, they daily show a disdain and almost hatred of the People that in a real democracy they would ‘work with’ to achieve the greatness and prosperity for all. So, every point you raise comes back to the neglect of those we entrust to serve. So yes, things do get repetitive.
    I note from today’s mainstream media even the incoming US Administration talk of the collective Conservative & Labour members of Parliament as being the ‘Uniparty’.

  30. Atlas
    December 18, 2024

    Did not an episode of “Yes Minister/ Prime-minister” cover the issue of those having technical (ie specialist) knowledge only getting so far up the Civil Service tree? Given the accuracy of those TV series, this presumably explains why Ministers get dud technical information.

  31. James4
    December 18, 2024

    There is a well known historian in my town he’s a professor who lectures in college and also has a column in the local newspapers where he has since branched out to writing about trivia. He knows everything about the early 20th century, facts, figures, people, he knows it all but ask him a question about the early to middle nineteenth century and he struggles. To me he’s not really a historian but more a ‘pop’ historian who can’t see further back than where he is placed – unfortunately there are people like that in all walks – square pegs etc

  32. Original Richard
    December 18, 2024

    We see PPE, ancient and modern history, foreign languages, social sciences, maths and philosophy, geography graduates debating with each other on energy (debates on climate change are not allowed). This is of course necessary in the two Houses and their Select Committees. But why do we never see the Permanent Secretary of DESNZ tested by someone who actually knows the subject of energy?

  33. Original Richard
    December 18, 2024

    “I am not posting

..the angry denunciations of both main political parties in wholly negative and repetitive language.”

    Benjamin Franklin said:
    “If we all think alike, no one is thinking.”

    The fact that the majority of MPs of both political parties are thinking alike on the two major issues of the moment shows that none of them are thinking and this is terrible for not only the running of a well organised, prosperous country but even for the continuance of democracy itself.

  34. Kenneth
    December 18, 2024

    An interesting exercise is to copy any article about any election into a word-processor and to replace the term “educat” with “brainwash”.

    For those who go into a competitive industry they gradually replace this conditioning with education from real life. They grow up and lose the “student politics” viewpoint.

    However, many of those in publicly-funded jobs never really “grow up” as they are surrounded by like-minded people. The current cabinet is an example of this.

  35. john McDonald
    December 18, 2024

    Sir John,
    You have just explained the modern “Management Culture” That is you do not need to know about the subject in question. You just need “experts” to tell you about it so you can decide a course of action from what they tell you.
    If you know nothing at all about the subject there may be better arguments made for doing the wrong thing than the right. Which seems to happen far too often these days. And there maybe political influence and dogma impacting the decision maker’s thinking 🙂
    This is why, in my opinion, the UK Government ( of any of the three main Parties) has/is gradually destroying the standard of living of the average voter, and respect for the so-called democratic system of Parliament we now have. And of course if you know nothing about the subject you have to make decisions on, and it all goes wrong/get political flack , can always blame the “experts” who advised you in the first place 🙂

    Reply I have not recommended that. I am pointing out that someone. A study, gain experience and work at things unrelated to their first degree on leaving university. I myself took professional qualifications later in life. I do not recommend ignorant executives.

  36. formula57
    December 18, 2024

    I came across a poem the other day that I quote only because it seems so on topic today.

    It is by Su Dongpo (really Su Shi, courtesy name Zizhan, art name Dongpo, who was a Chinese poet, essayist, calligrapher, painter, and scholar-official who lived during the Song dynasty from 1037 to 1101).

    The poem is entitled “On the birth of his son”.

    “Families, when a child is born
    Want it to be intelligent.
    I, through intelligence,
    Having wrecked my whole life,
    Only hope the baby will prove
    Ignorant and stupid.
    Then he will crown a tranquil life
    By becoming a cabinet minister.”

  37. Lynn Atkinson
    December 18, 2024

    The best Energy Minister in living memory was Cecil Parkinson. He was an accountant. He ascertained that in the Severn Estuary, which has the biggest rise and fall of tide in the country, turbines revolving both ways, to take advantage of incoming and outgoing tides, did not pay their way. He did not need to be the specialist, he was not going to produce the design drawings.
    He was probably also that last best Transport Minister. HS2 would never have been commissioned on his watch.
    Formal education is the transfer of tools and theory. Life is about apply the tools (sometimes to fashion new ones) and adapting the theory to deal with Reality. If you can’t do that you seek sanctuary from reality and competition in various types of Ivory Tower.

  38. Original Richard
    December 18, 2024

    The PPE, history, law and arts graduates who dominate Parliament and the institutions, quangos and regulators of our energy have so far managed to make our electricity twice the EU average for medium consumers despite our gas price being less than the EU median price.

    But the price will increase even more as they implement NESO’s plan to decarbonise our electricity by 2030 by quadrupling offshore wind, doubling onshore wind and trebling solar at an estimated cost of “£40bn+ per year” (no upper bound given BTW). Fortunately for us the SoS at DESNZ has been persuaded to accept 95% decarbonisation as 100% would cost the double if not more.

    So if they all understand what they’re doing and “making good judgements” the question must be, why do they want to make the price of our electricity the highest in Europe, if not the World?

  39. agricola
    December 18, 2024

    I have been pondering immigration legal and illegal, to which all UK political parties have some interst, but Reform are the only ones with worked out solutions. Projected to 2050, current trends will have an irreversable effect on the culture of the UK.

    I advocate that current levels cease and reduce to 10,000 highly paid, self supporting immigrants per annum. This would result in a nett reduction of the UK population of around 250,000 due to emmigration.

    We then have to deal with the large section of UK society that has not integrated. It must be made clear that we have one law with Parliament as the ultimate arbiter. I see no place for a supreme court that can overule Parliament. We are also in need of one education syllabus and system applicable in all UK schools. It is reasonable to assume that this is what incentivised most immigrants to come to the UK in the first place.

    To precede this we must prepare the ground. Immigrants comprise 15%of our 70 million population ie. 10,500,000. Of these 2,000,000 I assume anecdotably to be illegal. Having let them run free we are in dire need of a national identity card containing biometrics. A job for an extended MI5, definately not the police or Home Office. My version of the Spanish one is a great asset when in Spain. It would be a sure way of identifying illegals and swiftly removing them along with the 10,000 prisoners in our jails. We must also have our own human rights law while removing al linterferencs by the ECHR.
    The remaining 8.5 m who need it should be subjected to a full UK integration course including rights and obligations. We must not allow segments of our population to be ghettoised, the result of the ill conceived venture into multiculturism. Better we drive for an integrated British society.

    The alternative is what happened in Palestine/Israel in the early 20th century. In brief, wise voices were ignored and divisive ones acted upon. The result is what you see today, an intractably divided society in destruct mode, egged on by countries with vested interest in a mono society with the destruction of the other.
    We found a solution for NI in a shared parliament and the end to overt terrorism as the only way forward for a divided society.

    So cure the nacent symptoms and avoid the disaster of a polarised society in the UK. Seriously debate it with a recognition of the lessons of history.

  40. Bella
    December 18, 2024

    Following from what you were saying I do hope that the good ministers are in place to bring in whatever legislation needed to thwart the newest danger to our democracy – I refer to the Musk/ Farrage nexus – a danger conceived and so diabolical that is set to destroy what little order we have left. So who now speaks for the people of Clacton?

    1. Mickey Taking
      December 19, 2024

      Oh Bella – you did me a good laugh. Drama lives and breathes!

  41. hefner
    December 18, 2024

    oecd.org 10/12/2024 ‘Do adults have the skills they need to thrive in a changing world?’
    The full report is 199 pages but the summary is 7 pages long.

  42. Geoffrey Berg
    December 18, 2024

    This is an interesting topic.
    I spent 3 years as a student at Cambridge University finding out that the people at University (maybe with a very few exceptions at the very top) weren’t exactly top rate, including myself at what I was studying, and Cambridge was and is one of the very best Universities in the world! As I get older I become even more critical, especially of the academic world.
    In Astronomy everybody was assured, unanimously and absolutely assured that the Universe was 8 billion years old since its beginning at the Big Bang until the Hubble Telescope observed older galaxies. Thereafter we were absolutely and unanimously assured the Universe is nearly 14 billion years old. Now with further observations from the James Webb Telescope that notion is in trouble! Scientists tend to behave like The Communist Party (and Orwell’s 1984)- they are always right at the present time even if what they are now saying contradicts (which one isn’t supposed to notice) what they were all saying 20 years ago!
    In fact it is generally outsiders who create businesses and make money in business, not Business Studies students and lecturers. It is generally outsiders and not Politics graduates who dominate politics and are the best politicians. In Philosophy students and lecturers study mostly historic philosophers (pre-Kant) who usually weren’t University Philosophy teachers but nowadays it is thought only Philosophy Professors can contribute to philosophical thought!
    The top Universities do contribute something but it is rather like gold-panning where there is a tiny bit of gold within huge quantities of mainly worthless rubble.
    The value of Universities is nowadays greatly overrated, certainly in terms of most working or studying within them.

    1. Ukret123
      December 19, 2024

      GB
      That’s a great contribution and I couldn’t agree more with your well argued case. Many things in recent times have been sparked by disrupt deep thinking outside establishments of status quo. Unfortunately “Teaching to. (Actually) Think” as a subject itself is a skill which is not taught as opposed to learning by rote in so called Education, highlighted by Dr Bono years ago.

  43. Ukret123
    December 18, 2024

    I have been lucky to be involved with computers since the late 60s and been involved in learning and adapting aka Life-Long Learning, LLL” (which resisted by the mainstream at the time). Old habits die hard as by default, people hate change, especially rethinking how to think afresh esp assumptions. Dr Bono calls this Grand Canyon thinking – paths worn down by time and some contributions do sound deja vue, sadly.
    Regardless, I sure hope we all experience a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year not least of all Sir John!

  44. Linda Brown
    December 21, 2024

    I agree with your comments. I would point out that people can learn on the job too and contribute as much to a job as someone who has a relevant qualification on the subject. I have seen this many times as common sense is used by the person on the job whereas when you study you are not required to have this quality to deal with problems. I have found this out for myself and feel that working on the job is much more beneficial than having a qualification. I would state that I have two degrees to MA level which I loved studying and have used the information in my working life but experience on the job was quite the most important.

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