Many of us have been clanging the alarm that the rot in our institutions would eventually lead to a national crisis and as 2025 dawns, it appears we have well and truly arrived at this point.
I couldn’t agree more but given the deliberate programme of ‘Common Purpose’ which has permeated our institutions i doubt anything will change in my lifetime. Deeply saddened by the state of my beloved country.
I first encountered that organisation 20 years ago and was invited to join - I informed them that I thought their project was a slippery slope to fascism - the collusion of state and business, the politicisation of institutions and wold result in groupthink which would destroy our society by increments.
Perhaps another symptom of moral disintegration is the rise of careerists who value their career progression over the values or the organisation? It's easy to ignore organisational failures when your eyes are on your next promotion, the next career achievement.
There's a lot of sense in 'The Way Forward'. If I had to pick one item as the most important it is naming and shaming leaders who fail to act. Tricky in today's litigious world but a good journalist should be able to pull it off, and exposing gutless executives to public censure is a social punishment for dodging responsibilities.
The people at the top support people like themselves. They close ranks, exclude the objectors, trouble-makers, independent thinkers. If this wasn't so then there would only be hobbyists writing articles here on Substack and I'd be watching the BBC News.
I don't see any way to hold anyone to account because nobody is responsible for anything and any telling off that goes on is done by the same class of people. I don't see Matt Hancock, for example, being held to account for any of his poor decisions during the pandemic. He just walked away. Paula Vennells isn't being held to account for the Post Office fiasco - a bit of public weeping and off into the sunset with her. Chief Executives of hospital trusts, police forces, county councils simply move on to a new part of the country or move sideways into a different area of "public life". I mean - Tony Blair is still walking the earth as a free man!
There does not appear to be a way of holding anyone to account for anything.
Unfortunately I suspect you are correct. The only possible remedy will be if change is forced on us through economic necessity. If the markets demand it.
I'm deeply Sceptical about whether this would happen until we were a total basket case as Argentina was.
Hear, hear. But as someone who came to the UK 30 years ago and knowing two other countries and people quite well, the USA and Germany, I must also tell you that this unwillingness to take personal responsibility has been prevalent and almost genetic in the UK 30 years ago already, and then still in contrast to those other countries: the "wrong kind of leaves" syndrome.
Sadly, though maybe good for Brits relatively speaking, that syndrome, general attitude and its lack of consequences leading to the now dysfunctional businesses and states, has spread to every other country in the West since about the financial crisis of 2008/9.
I didn't think that things would get this bad so quickly. Perhaps it's a good thing but I detect people still sticking their heads in the sand.
I couldn’t agree more but given the deliberate programme of ‘Common Purpose’ which has permeated our institutions i doubt anything will change in my lifetime. Deeply saddened by the state of my beloved country.
I first encountered that organisation 20 years ago and was invited to join - I informed them that I thought their project was a slippery slope to fascism - the collusion of state and business, the politicisation of institutions and wold result in groupthink which would destroy our society by increments.
Perhaps another symptom of moral disintegration is the rise of careerists who value their career progression over the values or the organisation? It's easy to ignore organisational failures when your eyes are on your next promotion, the next career achievement.
There's a lot of sense in 'The Way Forward'. If I had to pick one item as the most important it is naming and shaming leaders who fail to act. Tricky in today's litigious world but a good journalist should be able to pull it off, and exposing gutless executives to public censure is a social punishment for dodging responsibilities.
How do we "hold leaders to account"?
How do we *do* anything to change all this rot?
The people at the top support people like themselves. They close ranks, exclude the objectors, trouble-makers, independent thinkers. If this wasn't so then there would only be hobbyists writing articles here on Substack and I'd be watching the BBC News.
I don't see any way to hold anyone to account because nobody is responsible for anything and any telling off that goes on is done by the same class of people. I don't see Matt Hancock, for example, being held to account for any of his poor decisions during the pandemic. He just walked away. Paula Vennells isn't being held to account for the Post Office fiasco - a bit of public weeping and off into the sunset with her. Chief Executives of hospital trusts, police forces, county councils simply move on to a new part of the country or move sideways into a different area of "public life". I mean - Tony Blair is still walking the earth as a free man!
There does not appear to be a way of holding anyone to account for anything.
Unfortunately I suspect you are correct. The only possible remedy will be if change is forced on us through economic necessity. If the markets demand it.
I'm deeply Sceptical about whether this would happen until we were a total basket case as Argentina was.
Hear, hear. But as someone who came to the UK 30 years ago and knowing two other countries and people quite well, the USA and Germany, I must also tell you that this unwillingness to take personal responsibility has been prevalent and almost genetic in the UK 30 years ago already, and then still in contrast to those other countries: the "wrong kind of leaves" syndrome.
Sadly, though maybe good for Brits relatively speaking, that syndrome, general attitude and its lack of consequences leading to the now dysfunctional businesses and states, has spread to every other country in the West since about the financial crisis of 2008/9.
Oh yes, there was nothing new but there was at least diversity of opinion in leadership teams and organizational culture back then.
And yes, this malaise infects the West in particular.