You've reminded me of a story an ex-work colleague told me about when he was growing up in the Midlands in the mid-1980s. He'd set himself up with two options at 18, namely going to uni and joining the West Mids police.
He went to his police job interview and was asked at the end...have you any questions for us?
He shot back...yeah, are you lot as bent as I've heard you are?!!
This was around the time several West Mids 'convictions' were being overturned in the courts due to persistent police brutality and the fabrication of evidence.
He ended up going to uni by the way, in case you were curious.
I wonder how many people *inside* the government know how things work. We can all see that the Slopulist Right might not have the wit or the gumption to study these things.
But it would be an interesting exercise to find out, for example, if ANYBODY who works for HMRC, knows ALL the tax 'code' regulations.
My point is that somebody *should*. Just to ensure that legislators and others are not overly complicating something that doesn't need to be complicated.
Like you alluded to for the right-wing parties seeking to change everything, government itself (civil servants, permanent secretaries, etc) should know where a tangle has occurred, and then simplify it without the need to burn it all down and start from the scorched rubble.
It would serve as a counter to those who think whole government functions should be discarded.
And perhaps it would only need a 'jury' of 12 Overseers - 6 senior (or not senior, but experienced) civil servants, plus 6 'outsiders' from the same industry that is served by the particular department (eg professional tax advisors to help oversee HMRC rule simplification).
Just having a small cadre of people who have the so-called God's-eye-view of the whole system would be beneficial. Unintended conflicts (and the attendant bolt-on solutions to them) and duplications could then be eradicated without deleting entire critical chunks.
This would need to be done for ALL major govt depts.
The freedom to cut corners has certainly been straitened, but plenty of scope remains: the watercos are still getting away with it, and the growth of fly-tipping is an economic wonder
The trouble of it is that you can’t have true society, or culture, without letting people self govern and sort out issues between themselves, although you do need a grounding reality to work against. That means more fights, more bullying, but more strength, more character. One horrible feature of the eighties workshops I saw was places snarled up by timeservers working union rules, every bit as stultifying as your HR / safety rules. The best place I worked in was the most dangerous one because the common sense was at a premium.
I come across many older folk with this return to the good old days mentality - the village bobby, the Captain Mainwaring of Warmington on Sea braced to fend off the Hun.
Sieve like memories; they want the handy things like ATMs, penicillin, Facetime to the grandkids in Oz. The good old days when a crazy right winger could assemble a 3 million strong Army, fleets of bombers crossing the Channel, Polio, rickets, ink quills. They sit in front of or carry a tablet / phone screen keyboard and, thanks to clever modern people, can complain bitterly in an instant. Pathetic. Does rationale fade with the onset of a pension?
One old boy yearned for the 1930s, punting down the Cam with a straw boater and a picnic. Tiger Moths puttering across the summer sky. Daft old fool was in the 60s rag trade, he should have looked back on Carnaby St, the swinging 60s but no.
Fair points and a neat correction to the simplistic cry of ‘deregulate’ as a universal remedy that will make us rich and prosperous again. I recall the Police and Criminal Act coming in for good reason. The problem perhaps is that we have gone too far and forgotten what regulations are for. Police, doctors, lawyers spend more and time filling in forms which make it harder and more time consuming to catch criminals, fix limbs or draft a simple legal contract. To fix things we need to simplify our regulations, but that takes wisdom and patience. On the part of regulators and the regulated - which is a tall order.
My mum (now deceased so beyond the law) worked in a local suburban police station in a rough part of Leeds in the 1970/80s running the canteen. Once she accidentally destroyed some “evidence” that had been stored in the canteen fridge (don’t worry, we can make some more). Take this lad a cup of tea in his cell and nicely ask him this and that. We had the biggest video collection (a real status symbol at the time) in the street as stolen goods were distributed across the staff. Many of the individuals were eventually dismissed for corruption, but it was rife. Like a protection racket.
The Internet has changed people's awareness of company and public service actions. To what extent do we need to regulate, which hinders small companies and sole traders, when larger companies may self regulate as public image of any misdemeanor could be disastrous? Should we be more American and litigate/prosecute on wrong doings rather than precautionary principle attempts to remove all risk? What cost is a lower GDP because of legislation vs workplace loss of life? Individually we seem to have lost the ability to balance risk assessment against rewards and so has the state, which is why we end up with delayed, over budget nuclear where it costs millions to save a few dozen fish. Decisions very much decided based on the power of the lobbyist. I can see the appeal of turning back the clock, as red tape has made work more complex, but so as privatisation, life was easier with only a single supplier of natural monopolies. I've got lots of questions, but not that many answers!
You've reminded me of a story an ex-work colleague told me about when he was growing up in the Midlands in the mid-1980s. He'd set himself up with two options at 18, namely going to uni and joining the West Mids police.
He went to his police job interview and was asked at the end...have you any questions for us?
He shot back...yeah, are you lot as bent as I've heard you are?!!
This was around the time several West Mids 'convictions' were being overturned in the courts due to persistent police brutality and the fabrication of evidence.
He ended up going to uni by the way, in case you were curious.
I wonder how many people *inside* the government know how things work. We can all see that the Slopulist Right might not have the wit or the gumption to study these things.
But it would be an interesting exercise to find out, for example, if ANYBODY who works for HMRC, knows ALL the tax 'code' regulations.
My point is that somebody *should*. Just to ensure that legislators and others are not overly complicating something that doesn't need to be complicated.
Like you alluded to for the right-wing parties seeking to change everything, government itself (civil servants, permanent secretaries, etc) should know where a tangle has occurred, and then simplify it without the need to burn it all down and start from the scorched rubble.
It would serve as a counter to those who think whole government functions should be discarded.
And perhaps it would only need a 'jury' of 12 Overseers - 6 senior (or not senior, but experienced) civil servants, plus 6 'outsiders' from the same industry that is served by the particular department (eg professional tax advisors to help oversee HMRC rule simplification).
Just having a small cadre of people who have the so-called God's-eye-view of the whole system would be beneficial. Unintended conflicts (and the attendant bolt-on solutions to them) and duplications could then be eradicated without deleting entire critical chunks.
This would need to be done for ALL major govt depts.
The freedom to cut corners has certainly been straitened, but plenty of scope remains: the watercos are still getting away with it, and the growth of fly-tipping is an economic wonder
The trouble of it is that you can’t have true society, or culture, without letting people self govern and sort out issues between themselves, although you do need a grounding reality to work against. That means more fights, more bullying, but more strength, more character. One horrible feature of the eighties workshops I saw was places snarled up by timeservers working union rules, every bit as stultifying as your HR / safety rules. The best place I worked in was the most dangerous one because the common sense was at a premium.
I tell em that the decade that gave you Blue Monday also produced Shadappa Your Face.
I come across many older folk with this return to the good old days mentality - the village bobby, the Captain Mainwaring of Warmington on Sea braced to fend off the Hun.
Sieve like memories; they want the handy things like ATMs, penicillin, Facetime to the grandkids in Oz. The good old days when a crazy right winger could assemble a 3 million strong Army, fleets of bombers crossing the Channel, Polio, rickets, ink quills. They sit in front of or carry a tablet / phone screen keyboard and, thanks to clever modern people, can complain bitterly in an instant. Pathetic. Does rationale fade with the onset of a pension?
One old boy yearned for the 1930s, punting down the Cam with a straw boater and a picnic. Tiger Moths puttering across the summer sky. Daft old fool was in the 60s rag trade, he should have looked back on Carnaby St, the swinging 60s but no.
Fair points and a neat correction to the simplistic cry of ‘deregulate’ as a universal remedy that will make us rich and prosperous again. I recall the Police and Criminal Act coming in for good reason. The problem perhaps is that we have gone too far and forgotten what regulations are for. Police, doctors, lawyers spend more and time filling in forms which make it harder and more time consuming to catch criminals, fix limbs or draft a simple legal contract. To fix things we need to simplify our regulations, but that takes wisdom and patience. On the part of regulators and the regulated - which is a tall order.
My mum (now deceased so beyond the law) worked in a local suburban police station in a rough part of Leeds in the 1970/80s running the canteen. Once she accidentally destroyed some “evidence” that had been stored in the canteen fridge (don’t worry, we can make some more). Take this lad a cup of tea in his cell and nicely ask him this and that. We had the biggest video collection (a real status symbol at the time) in the street as stolen goods were distributed across the staff. Many of the individuals were eventually dismissed for corruption, but it was rife. Like a protection racket.
The Internet has changed people's awareness of company and public service actions. To what extent do we need to regulate, which hinders small companies and sole traders, when larger companies may self regulate as public image of any misdemeanor could be disastrous? Should we be more American and litigate/prosecute on wrong doings rather than precautionary principle attempts to remove all risk? What cost is a lower GDP because of legislation vs workplace loss of life? Individually we seem to have lost the ability to balance risk assessment against rewards and so has the state, which is why we end up with delayed, over budget nuclear where it costs millions to save a few dozen fish. Decisions very much decided based on the power of the lobbyist. I can see the appeal of turning back the clock, as red tape has made work more complex, but so as privatisation, life was easier with only a single supplier of natural monopolies. I've got lots of questions, but not that many answers!