“I'm of the view that the shape of the civil service should not be dictated by ideology. It should be informed by policy.”
But I assume you accept that policy should be built on a foundation of ideology? And that one tenet of such an ideology could be that government is too big?
I agree but you have one thing wrong when you say nobody did the hard work as to how to leave the EU successfully.
Your father Dr Richard North's Flexcit was a master class in understanding all the issues and arriving at a workable solution that saw us leave and regain our independence yet also keep in tact all the good trading bits the EU offered.
I would also point out Danny Kruger is likely to go the way of your father and me, for that matter, who were both sacked by Farage. Your father, as UKIP's researcher, for wanting to set up a think tank to work out how to leave the EU successfully which would have shown Farage up for the charlatan he is and me as Office Manage in Birmingham for wanting to bring much needed probity into the organisation.
As I often say 'If you think Farage is the answer you are asking the wrong question!'
the trouble is that 'the normies' aren't subscribers to sites like this. They're the folks who want their politics in bite sized chunks, what I call the basketball generation.
Detail doesn't interest them, they want easy answers and yes, slop. This is McDonald's politics - absolute junk but it's convenient, lands on your lap and feels good on the way down. Or so I'm told.
Freddie Kruger is what passes for 'detailed policy' in the Big Mac world, we need to remember that everything has been significantly dumbed down. Sad but true.
The 2016 vote to leave the EU was a massive surprise, a lack of planning prior to the vote should be seen in this context.
The catastrophe looking back, was Nigel Farage walking away.
Decapitating the UKIP party left the door open for the pro EU elite to halt the democratic process. Parliament prevaricated, denied and ultimately destroyed the vote.
As far as the civil service (CS) is concerned, there will be a massive culling of jobs under AI.
Any thoughts on its future roll has to be in the context of a much much smaller CS and how AI affects it.
AI attitude is dictated by data, and a small number of technical experts that can influence any variables.
The autocratic agenda of the CS therefore faces a problem : how to convince the AI data collected to follow a policy in a particular way without giving itself away?
Policy makers are able to question AI without a team of advisers.
The CS, right now, guides government policy by blocking or manipulating data.
AI will make it impossible without putting CS senior officials heads on the block.
Yes it was. Parliament at that time wanted to overturn a democratic decision with " a peoples' vote". Sorry, people voted in the last one - didn't they [parliament] know? It's all the usual EU programme of overturning a referendum until you achieve the desired result. This is from a "democratic" EU. Remind me, how many of the EU population voted for Von Der Leyen?
Brexit is also being thwarted by the Civil Service. They are our own equivalent to the deep state, although are being controlled by higher masters, and that certainly isn't the Prime Minister. Brexit is failing because our own ministers and civil servants charged with delivering it are absolutely incompetent or, far worse, corrupt and treasonous. Or perhaps they are being controlled by a higher power (treasonous). It doesn't matter, they are deliberately going against democratic decision. It was a yes/no referendum - how much more democratic can you get than that? "The Deep State" (the Blob is what Liz Truss called it). She was right.
Sorry Pete, your statement "Brexit was not thwarted by the deep state. " is garbage. So who did thwart it then?
At this stage it is all performative. Keep up the good work and hope that two more years will lead to some coherent policies that won’t fall apart on first contact with reality.
Reform only has one real policy, and that's immigration, the rest will be slop like the tax free overtime. I just can't envisage Reform inspiring voters at the next real election, other than false promises, as per usual.
Yes — Reform does have policies. People who say “they only have immigration” are usually simplifying it because immigration is the issue most associated with them publicly.
Reform has talked about:
Tax cuts
Leaving the ECHR
Energy policy and net zero changes
NHS reform
Cutting government spending/waste
Law and order
Housing and planning
Welfare changes
Opposition to DEI and certain culture-war policies
The criticism is more that:
some policies aren’t fully costed,
some change over time,
and immigration dominates media coverage so other policies get overshadowed.
It’s similar to how people once said the Greens “only care about climate” or UKIP “only cared about Europe” even though both had wider manifestos. Public perception often reduces parties to their biggest defining issue.
Let's face it, Reform don't need to announce any policies. They just have to continue to be the 'None of the Above' party, as all the others have been such a failure.
Nothing will change. We are already decades into a doom-loop, and it will take decades to get out of it, if ever.
“I'm of the view that the shape of the civil service should not be dictated by ideology. It should be informed by policy.”
But I assume you accept that policy should be built on a foundation of ideology? And that one tenet of such an ideology could be that government is too big?
I agree but you have one thing wrong when you say nobody did the hard work as to how to leave the EU successfully.
Your father Dr Richard North's Flexcit was a master class in understanding all the issues and arriving at a workable solution that saw us leave and regain our independence yet also keep in tact all the good trading bits the EU offered.
I would also point out Danny Kruger is likely to go the way of your father and me, for that matter, who were both sacked by Farage. Your father, as UKIP's researcher, for wanting to set up a think tank to work out how to leave the EU successfully which would have shown Farage up for the charlatan he is and me as Office Manage in Birmingham for wanting to bring much needed probity into the organisation.
As I often say 'If you think Farage is the answer you are asking the wrong question!'
the trouble is that 'the normies' aren't subscribers to sites like this. They're the folks who want their politics in bite sized chunks, what I call the basketball generation.
Detail doesn't interest them, they want easy answers and yes, slop. This is McDonald's politics - absolute junk but it's convenient, lands on your lap and feels good on the way down. Or so I'm told.
Freddie Kruger is what passes for 'detailed policy' in the Big Mac world, we need to remember that everything has been significantly dumbed down. Sad but true.
The 2016 vote to leave the EU was a massive surprise, a lack of planning prior to the vote should be seen in this context.
The catastrophe looking back, was Nigel Farage walking away.
Decapitating the UKIP party left the door open for the pro EU elite to halt the democratic process. Parliament prevaricated, denied and ultimately destroyed the vote.
As far as the civil service (CS) is concerned, there will be a massive culling of jobs under AI.
Any thoughts on its future roll has to be in the context of a much much smaller CS and how AI affects it.
AI attitude is dictated by data, and a small number of technical experts that can influence any variables.
The autocratic agenda of the CS therefore faces a problem : how to convince the AI data collected to follow a policy in a particular way without giving itself away?
Policy makers are able to question AI without a team of advisers.
The CS, right now, guides government policy by blocking or manipulating data.
AI will make it impossible without putting CS senior officials heads on the block.
"Brexit was not thwarted by the deep state. "
Yes it was. Parliament at that time wanted to overturn a democratic decision with " a peoples' vote". Sorry, people voted in the last one - didn't they [parliament] know? It's all the usual EU programme of overturning a referendum until you achieve the desired result. This is from a "democratic" EU. Remind me, how many of the EU population voted for Von Der Leyen?
Brexit is also being thwarted by the Civil Service. They are our own equivalent to the deep state, although are being controlled by higher masters, and that certainly isn't the Prime Minister. Brexit is failing because our own ministers and civil servants charged with delivering it are absolutely incompetent or, far worse, corrupt and treasonous. Or perhaps they are being controlled by a higher power (treasonous). It doesn't matter, they are deliberately going against democratic decision. It was a yes/no referendum - how much more democratic can you get than that? "The Deep State" (the Blob is what Liz Truss called it). She was right.
Sorry Pete, your statement "Brexit was not thwarted by the deep state. " is garbage. So who did thwart it then?
At this stage it is all performative. Keep up the good work and hope that two more years will lead to some coherent policies that won’t fall apart on first contact with reality.
Reform only has one real policy, and that's immigration, the rest will be slop like the tax free overtime. I just can't envisage Reform inspiring voters at the next real election, other than false promises, as per usual.
Yes — Reform does have policies. People who say “they only have immigration” are usually simplifying it because immigration is the issue most associated with them publicly.
Reform has talked about:
Tax cuts
Leaving the ECHR
Energy policy and net zero changes
NHS reform
Cutting government spending/waste
Law and order
Housing and planning
Welfare changes
Opposition to DEI and certain culture-war policies
The criticism is more that:
some policies aren’t fully costed,
some change over time,
and immigration dominates media coverage so other policies get overshadowed.
It’s similar to how people once said the Greens “only care about climate” or UKIP “only cared about Europe” even though both had wider manifestos. Public perception often reduces parties to their biggest defining issue.
Let's face it, Reform don't need to announce any policies. They just have to continue to be the 'None of the Above' party, as all the others have been such a failure.
Nothing will change. We are already decades into a doom-loop, and it will take decades to get out of it, if ever.