Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Thanks.
Reading it... Yep. Really depressing.
The sad thing is as well as infecting the leadership this idiocy rings a lot of bells as the sort of thing I've heard from ignorant fuckers. Too many people just completely don't grasp Britain's place in the world.
I wonder if a lot of this is down to not getting numbers. A lot of people don't get the difference in scale between a million and a billion.


In other news...
Britain continues to be an absolute cock.
BBC News - UK and EU in row over bloc's diplomatic status
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55742664

[Sheilbh]

In other news...
Britain continues to be an absolute cock.
BBC News - UK and EU in row over bloc's diplomatic status
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55742664

It's ridiculous and childish.

Interesting piece by Institute for Government on something I've mentioned before the UK's got a very centralised state with quite a weak centre (especially around the PM):
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/weak-centre-government
From the researcher:

Alex Thomas
@AlexGAThomas
NEW from me an @instituteforgov paper on "the heart of the problem". My take on why the centre of government is too weak

I suggest the UK has the worst of all worlds: a highly centralised system of govt without the capacity to organise it from the centre
The PM needs a better support structure to set direction, identify critical points for intervention and hold departments and their agencies to account

See screen grabs here for a summary
The Cabinet Office is good at brokering, smoothing and resolving disputes. But it doesn't have capacity to raise problems above lowest common denominator solutions or to deal with intractable cross-dept issues like social care, climate change or levelling up (whatever that means)
Nor is there enough firepower in the Cabinet Office to hold departments to account for making the government's programme happen. The centre needs to be able to take a systematic look at top priority projects and ministers need to know the PM will be judging their performance
And the top civil servants - the cabinet secretary and govt chief operating officer - need more direct power over actually running the civil service. The "functions" (x-cutting services like digital, HR, procurement) have been most successful when gripped by the Cabinet Office
There's lots to learn from the Brexit and Covid-19 experiences - books have been and will be written - but one core lesson is that the centre of government had to do too much firefighting and couldn't do enough long term work, anticipation and direction setting
So what to do? There's no panacea, but there are sensible, not-entirely-original changes the PM and cabinet secretary can make. Indeed a bit more learning lessons from previous govts, and a bit less tearing up of structures that have proved their worth would be welcome
1. PM should get the cabinet to sign off the govt's policy plans more explicitly and more publicly. Dip everyone's hands in a detailed programme and then charge the Cabinet Office with holding Secretaries of State to account
2. Choose a *small number* of cross-cutting top priorities and run them from the centre. Government is less than the sum of its parts on these issues
3. Recreate a powerful delivery/implementation unit with personal attention and investment from the PM. Top people with a real say in how high priority programmes are managed, working collaboratively with departments
4. Run the nuts and bolts of the civil service more explicitly from the centre - have the commercial, programme/project management, digital etc functions writs running across departments
I don't think we need a "prime minister's department". The nameplate doesn't matter that much and it implies a distracting reorganisation
BUT a stronger centre will still collapse like a civil service soufflé without an engaged, focused PM who spends significant time keeping his cabinet on their toes. No administrative structures can substitute for that
And one counter-intuitive point: this should not mean major centralisation - a strengthened No.10 and Cabinet Office should be more confident about handing over responsibility to depts (or others)
Hope this is useful context and suggestions for the work @MichaelBarber9 is doing at the moment
Some of the most talented people work in the centre @cabinetofficeuk @10DowningStreet so I've been thinking about how the org structures could help them establish what they do most of best and finding fewer ways of doing more of it less #W1A (sorry) (ENDS)

Chris Cook - former Policy Editor on Newsnight - added some comments:

Chris Cook
@xtophercook
this is excellent, and exactly hits the nail on the head. I'd add in a parallel thought:
We have (a) too much generalism, which undermines the ability of the periphery to build capacity, and (b) where there is expertise, you often end up with real experts having to convince some 25 year-old at HMT about their plans.
Alex's solution is to build up the Cabinet Office. I'd suggest you need to shut down the Cabinet Office and plough salt into the earth and fire everyone who's ever even seen the building. And then make a new institution.

His take on the Cabinet Office

An institution where (a) it's all PowerPoint and no Excel, (b) no delivery expertise, (c) no economic expertise, (d) no knowledge of local govt, (e) rammed full of spooks and (f) afflicted more heavily by toadying than the rest of the CS.

Alexander Clarkson suggested splitting the Cabinet Office in two. One unit to be a proper policy development centre and the other to deal with the devolved and regional government. He noted that it needs to be staffed with senior experienced civil servants who can actually bully back the Treaury and put the Treasury in their box when necessary (which I think is essential - so many of the mistakes on covid have the Treasury's fingerprints all over them).

[The Brain]

levelling up (whatever that means)

Have they lived under a rock the past decades?

[Tonitrus]

With the UK, it could be a reference to the Levellers.

[Syt]

WHen do we get to Level 42?

[Josquius]

It's quite interesting to see all the stories of people running into customs and vat problems.
Like this was all entirely unforseen.
It sounds like exactly the same sort of thing I encountered living in Switzerland.
The UK really should have learned from others.

[Zanza]

In other news...
Britain continues to be an absolute cock.
BBC News - UK and EU in row over bloc's diplomatic status
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55742664

The UK already learned that is equally sovereign, but not the sovereign equal of the EU in the last negotiations. If they want to play stupid games, they will win stupid prizes. The EU could just make that a precondition of further talks on whatever the next big topic is, e.g. a MoU on financial services or so.

[The Larch]

In other news...
Britain continues to be an absolute cock.
BBC News - UK and EU in row over bloc's diplomatic status
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55742664

It's ridiculous and childish.

For the UK to deny ambassadorial status to the EU delegation and representatives or for the EU to request it?

[Sheilbh]

For the UK to deny ambassadorial status to the EU delegation and representatives or for the EU to request it?

The UK to tit about with it.

[mongers]

Is this still a thing?

Because I can't see too far, what with the sun strongly reflecting of these green rolling hills hereabouts. 

[Syt]

Updated schematic.

[Zanza]

Updated schematic.

This is even more telling as it leaves out most of the lesser "clubs":

[Josquius]

You won't be laughing when the blackjack and hookers arrive.

[Tamas]

You won't be laughing when the blackjack and hookers arrive.

Actually that's a fairly good point - we are easily the most civilised non-EU country easily accessible for Europeans. Won't that naturally push us toward services and industries the EU frowns upon but desired by EU citizens?

[The Brain]

You won't be laughing when the blackjack and hookers arrive.

Actually that's a fairly good point - we are easily the most civilised non-EU country easily accessible for Europeans. Won't that naturally push us toward services and industries the EU frowns upon but desired by EU citizens?

Yes. Europeans call the UK "The Western Land".