Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Quite funny that government for some reason decided to offer a free photo portrait of King Charles to various institutions - some you kind of expect like courts and otherwise it's a bit of a grab-bag.

Anyway the union for university academics have called it "culture war nonsense", while the association representing imams has said that they're frustrated that mosques are not entitled to a free portrait (but CofE churches are) as they would quite like one

[Sheilbh]

Yes, GDS used to be brilliant. Not just for government brilliant, but actually brilliant-brilliant. It set a lot of standards which became the norm across the field.
And yup...they decided penny pinching was the way forward and now bring on consultants for thrice the price on isolated projects, not continuously building and being engaged in something.

Yeah but it's not just penny pinching and basically this government.

I think there's too separate trends that are kind of coalescing in this.

One is the way the civil service works - as I say, since at least Harold Wilson's government 60 years ago there have been numerous independent reports highlighting the problem of the civil service preference for generalists and disdain for deep, specialist expertise. That everything is really understood through their own career ladder and structure - so the idea of someone staying in the same area of policy (like energy market regulation) or practice (like procurement, digital services) is just absolutely alien to the civil service and they cannot accommodate it - I think it's striking that the one area I think that does happen is for lawyers, who basically have their own guild privileges. To that I'd add that basically every minister in all parties who either knows their area very well or tries to do something quite big, has found the civil service is a bit of an obstacle (Tony Blair's "scars on my back" speech). I think those two things are possibly linked.

The other big trend that I think has happened around consultancy is similar but a little different which is that the civil service focus is policy not delivery. It's not doing things and I think part of that is also simply because of the peace dividend. I think lots of people would point to neo-liberalism/Thatcher but I'm not so sure - I think the shift was the 90s and in the 80s the British state still did things (and had to), if only because of the Cold War. I think it's in the 90s when it's the other layer of peace dividend that you get more efficiency from outsourcing, from external expertise etc - which is all true (but as all systems contain the seeds of their own end) also means that the internal capacity was diminished over time.

I can't help but wonder about this in Ukraine. Broadly speaking in Europe there is overwhelming public support for Ukraine, strong statements of support from political leaders and I think intent - but we are failing in a war of production. And I can't help but wonder if part of that is fundamentally that we have, in Europe, basically diminished our state capacity from that maximalist version of the mid-20th century with expansive welfare states/social systems and Cold War responsibilities? And that we're now at the stage where it is very difficult to do things if it hasn't already been set up? The industries that existed to support that state, but was subordinate to it (like Europe's multi-billion dollar arms industry) now are primarily export sectors.

I wonder if the combination of the peace dividend, the impact of China and Eastern Europe helping cut inflation in the 90s and 00s (despite energy challenges) but also generally available energy means there's a generation of leaders but also civil servants who simply have no experience of really thinking about the world, the state and their job in material terms of production, supply etc. I think of Rory Stewart's (as a former civil servant and then politician) line about the shock of being back in a "19th century style world" where ownership of raw materials, production capacity etc is really important and politicised - and I just think that it always was, it's just that on the end of benign impacts of that for most of the last 30 years European states (with the partial exceptions of France and Italy) kind of forgot about it/pretended it wasn't and inadvertently hollowed themselves.

[Josquius]

Quite funny that government for some reason decided to offer a free photo portrait of King Charles to various institutions - some you kind of expect like courts and otherwise it's a bit of a grab-bag.

Anyway the union for university academics have called it "culture war nonsense", while the association representing imams has said that they're frustrated that mosques are not entitled to a free portrait (but CofE churches are) as they would quite like one

Sounds like a perfect setup for a Daily Mail writer to whinge about the anti-British muslamics refusing to put up a portrait of the king whilst all the churches they've checked (3) have done.

One is the way the civil service works - as I say, since at least Harold Wilson's government 60 years ago there have been numerous independent reports highlighting the problem of the civil service preference for generalists and disdain for deep, specialist expertise. That everything is really understood through their own career ladder and structure - so the idea of someone staying in the same area of policy (like energy market regulation) or practice (like procurement, digital services) is just absolutely alien to the civil service and they cannot accommodate it -

I do think GDS used to have this kind of thing too. I'm sure I even remember hearing the word guild at some point- tech nerds of course loving that word.
I don't think they're employing random generalists at the moment outside of project management and the like. They're still employing specialists... just as said either on crap wages or as contractors. Quite a lot of my professional contacts are on GDS work.

I think it's striking that the one area I think that does happen is for lawyers, who basically have their own guild privileges. To that I'd add that basically every minister in all parties who either knows their area very well or tries to do something quite big, has found the civil service is a bit of an obstacle (Tony Blair's "scars on my back" speech). I think those two things are possibly linked.

It makes the culture war nonsense the Tories are throwing at the civil service all the weirder. I recently had an exchange online where some randomer told me the BBC was left wing because its the civil service and the civil service is super left wing (layers upon layers....), just wouldn't believe how conservative and change resistant it is.

The other big trend that I think has happened around consultancy is similar but a little different which is that the civil service focus is policy not delivery. It's not doing things and I think part of that is also simply because of the peace dividend. I think lots of people would point to neo-liberalism/Thatcher but I'm not so sure - I think the shift was the 90s and in the 80s the British state still did things (and had to), if only because of the Cold War. I think it's in the 90s when it's the other layer of peace dividend that you get more efficiency from outsourcing, from external expertise etc - which is all true (but as all systems contain the seeds of their own end) also means that the internal capacity was diminished over time.

I'm not so sure the peace dividend could be so neatly blamed here- other countries similarly benefit from this yet they do stuff. Germany is a huge one, they benefitted far more than us and they've managed to integrate a whole extra country.

I really wouldn't agree on the efficiency of outsourcing, but certainly that there's a deep ideological dogma that this is always the case...It does seem to make for a natural hostility to stuff like GDS and the idea of committed specialists on staff.

I can't help but wonder about this in Ukraine. Broadly speaking in Europe there is overwhelming public support for Ukraine, strong statements of support from political leaders and I think intent - but we are failing in a war of production. And I can't help but wonder if part of that is fundamentally that we have, in Europe, basically diminished our state capacity from that maximalist version of the mid-20th century with expansive welfare states/social systems and Cold War responsibilities? And that we're now at the stage where it is very difficult to do things if it hasn't already been set up? The industries that existed to support that state, but was subordinate to it (like Europe's multi-billion dollar arms industry) now are primarily export sectors.

I wonder if the combination of the peace dividend, the impact of China and Eastern Europe helping cut inflation in the 90s and 00s (despite energy challenges) but also generally available energy means there's a generation of leaders but also civil servants who simply have no experience of really thinking about the world, the state and their job in material terms of production, supply etc. I think of Rory Stewart's (as a former civil servant and then politician) line about the shock of being back in a "19th century style world" where ownership of raw materials, production capacity etc is really important and politicised - and I just think that it always was, it's just that on the end of benign impacts of that for most of the last 30 years European states (with the partial exceptions of France and Italy) kind of forgot about it/pretended it wasn't and inadvertently hollowed themselves.

Definitely issues that we've gone too far into a free market, states do nothing sort of direction.
Its interesting to me that not only is the UK failing to deliver for Ukraine but also states that you'd have thought would be more on top of the state doing things.

But not sure I'd link this to the civil service hostility to change and having people on staff- even back in Yes Minster the civil service had this reputation of it being their job to avoid doing any actual work.

[Sheilbh]

I do think GDS used to have this kind of thing too. I'm sure I even remember hearing the word guild at some point- tech nerds of course loving that word.
I don't think they're employing random generalists at the moment outside of project management and the like. They're still employing specialists... just as said either on crap wages or as contractors. Quite a lot of my professional contacts are on GDS work.

Yeah my point is more that the career structure the civil service rewards and understands is the generalist working up the ladder - and the ultimate career peak is Permanent Secretary somewhere, working with cabinet ministers on a daily basis on the most difficult stuff on policy. And in that context I can see the advantage of generalists with experience across government, I can see why the valuable skills will be things like adaptibility and a bit of creativity.

But I think it means they don't really get a separate, specialist career path were actually that's not the career goal. You're working in the sort of area that has no involvement in policy, will never really engage with the political side of the civil service but actually allows the civil service to do its work. I think they really struggle with that. I think it's a bit like, in business, the bits of the business that generate revenue v the cost centres.

Also on that career path - the other problem is that I think the skill of exceptional civil servants is not necessarily the same as the skills of a great manager able to run that department (again you think of partners in law firms). Sir Jeremy Heywood the late Cabinet Secretary for Cameron and May and key Downing Street (and before that Treasury) figure for Brown is by all accounts an exceptional civil servant. Everyone pays tribute to him - his wife did a book on this just called "What Does Jeremy Think?" particularly about things like helping Brown respond on financial crisis etc. From everything I've read he was genuinely brilliant - very smart, very creative, very good at his job. I've also read several things saying that he was a pretty dreadful manager and as the head of the civil service not anywhere near as good - because that's a different skillset, that's possibly the boring bit for someone like him etc.

It makes the culture war nonsense the Tories are throwing at the civil service all the weirder. I recently had an exchange online where some randomer told me the BBC was left wing because its the civil service and the civil service is super left wing (layers upon layers....), just wouldn't believe how conservative and change resistant it is.

I've got some sympathy with the Tories on that - I wouldn't use the language they do or frame it as they do. But as I say every minister who actually knows their area or wants to do reform talks about the civil service as an obstacle in that.

I wouldn't say they're right-wing or left-wing - I think they're very institutional. Which is to be expected but that is and that is a sort of conservatism (not one the Tories have flirted with since Douglas-Home was in charge). And I think ultimately all institutions that accrue power will instinctively fight to defend that and their privileges.

I'm not so sure the peace dividend could be so neatly blamed here- other countries similarly benefit from this yet they do stuff. Germany is a huge one, they benefitted far more than us and they've managed to integrate a whole extra country.

Yeah but I mean we did have an entire Army of the Rhine in Germany in 1990 with whole tank divisions. Currently we don't have enough to help Ukraine.

As a percentage of spending defence basically halves, there's a fall in education too; pensions, Home Office, tranport, overseas aid and debt costs are basically the same; spending on the NHS doubles (and long term social care is an entirely new category of spending).
In 1990 spending on health was about 4% of GDP and spending on defence was about 3.5% of GDP. Now health is about 8.5% and defence is about 2% (and that now includes pensions etc).

But you're right. I meant the peace dividend across Europe - I think it is fair to say that France and the UK took less of that, but it was a thing across Europe and also the US. In part, I think, it allowed us to support the healthcare of an older population in a relatively politically easy way - and I think that age is coming to an end  and the trade-offs of spending are going to be sharper.

Definitely issues that we've gone too far into a free market, states do nothing sort of direction.
Its interesting to me that not only is the UK failing to deliver for Ukraine but also states that you'd have thought would be more on top of the state doing things.

I don't think Britain is very special, positively or negatively. I think the same forces that have shaped our politics and government and society for the last 35 years (and the 45 before then) are also shaping the rest of Europe and most of the West. There may be local variations - I generally think because of our system the UK goes further (I think we became a little bit more neo-liberal than the rest, I also think post-war Britain is possibly the closest to a genuine socialist democracy the world's ever seen) - but the fundamental story is the same.

But not sure I'd link this to the civil service hostility to change and having people on staff- even back in Yes Minster the civil service had this reputation of it being their job to avoid doing any actual work.

So I'm not linking them in that I don't think there's cause and effect necessarily - but I think they are coinciding.

I think there are the old complaints about the civil service which goes back at least to the 60s - in Yes, Minister, but also around specialisation, bad management etc. I think there's a lot of truth to that and it gets worse as time goes on. I also think there's been a period of a settled "world order", there was a period (to use Mervyn King's phrase) of non-inflationary continuous economic expansion - that basically meant that the trade offs and risks in policy were a lot lower. I think that periods over and choices are sharp again. I also think there's been a period of hollowing state capacity. And that those three issues have coincided and in a way I think reinforced (but didn't cause) each other - and now with crises they're now vulnerabilities that are reinforcing each other.

[Sheilbh]

Found this SCMP piece quite moving in a way - not least for what's being lost for Hongkongers in their home city and also quite grateful that they're carrying on here.

Also obligatory mention of a surprisingly influential group in British politics: bats

Who are the Hong Kong BN(O) holders winning seats on UK local councils? Migrant scheme paves way for new life in politics
    Andy Ng is first ex-Hong Kong district councillor to be elected to UK local authority, and he hopes other new arrivals will also get involved in politics
    Fellow BN(O) status holder Ying Perrett has also won spot on local council and continues to help Hongkongers struggling with access to schools, finances

Jeffie Lam
Jeffie Lam
Published: 6:09pm, 18 May 2024

Andy Ng Siu-hong did it thousands of times when running for election in Hong Kong's district councils – introducing himself with a loudhailer in front of his branded pull-up banners, while waving to residents using the Central–Mid-Levels escalator.

But these skills were barely put to use in recent months when the 43-year-old set out to win a seat in the UK's Wokingham Borough Council election as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats.

Loudhailers are frowned upon in the quiet neighbourhood, and the only way to effectively reach out to constituents is by door-knocking.

That didn't stop Ng, who moved to the country in 2021 via the British National (Overseas) migration pathway, and earlier this month became the first former Hong Kong district councillor to win public office in the United Kingdom.

"I want to tell people it would have been no big deal even if I had lost when I decided to run for the election, and I hope to encourage more people to take part now with my victory," he told the Post.

"I believe that Hongkongers, after moving to the UK, should not just integrate in the country by going to work and schools, or paying taxes. We should also get engaged in politics."

Ng, a former Democratic Party member who represented the Mid-Levels East constituency, was among about 200 opposition councillors who resigned in 2021, a year after Beijing reshaped the city's political landscape with the introduction of the national security law in response to the social unrest in 2019 before.

He said it did not take long to adapt to the fresh start as people from Britain and Hong Kong shared similar livelihood concerns such as access to dental services and school places.

But one major difference was the statutory powers held by the UK councils to make decisions in areas such as council tax collection and spending, he said, which differed from the advisory functions of the Hong Kong bodies.

He added his background as a former district councillor in the city was an asset.

"Many residents know what's going on in Hong Kong and they are supportive of [newcomers]," he said.

"While we may have different cultures, skin colours or even accents, our fundamental values on human rights and freedoms are actually very aligned with each other. This election has also proven that."

Ng was not the only BN(O) holder to score victory.

Ying Perrett, also of the Liberal Democrats and who moved to the UK in 2021, won the Bisley and West End ward of Surrey Heath Borough Council last November.


Ying Perrett moved to the UK in 2021 and says she was "mainly apolitical" during her time in Hong Kong. Photo: Handout

Unlike Ng, 58-year-old Perrett was, in her own words, "mainly apolitical" during her time in the city.

Fluent in both Cantonese and English, Perrett became the go-to person for newcomers from Hong Kong arriving in her community. She said one of the areas in which she was frequently asked for advice was from Hongkongers being asked to pay a year's rent upfront as they had no credit scores.

"It is a way for me to get involved in the community and to give back," she said.

She added the country's high degree of inclusiveness allowed her to succeed in her first bid for election, despite only arriving just over a year ago.

But a balancing act was needed to meet both the needs of Hongkongers and other constituents, while many issues were highly unfamiliar, including arrangements for managing grass cutting, bins and even a local population of bats.

Al Pinkerton of the Liberal Democrats, who worked with Perrett in Surrey Heath, highlighted the political potential of the Hong Kong diaspora.

Pinkerton, an associate professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London, said a number of Hongkongers had experienced society in a way that "many very settled British people will never experience".

"What I think Hongkongers will bring to the political system is an awareness of sometimes the rough edges of our political system, the difficulty in accessing it."

So far three BN(O) holders in the party had won local elections, with four more planning their bids, he said.

Krish Kandiah, chairman of the Welcoming Committee for Hongkongers, a non-profit group, said the elected newcomers had done extremely well as Britain did not have an "easy system" and they were also not well-known in the community.

He noted there had been no negative feedback among the general population despite increased anti-immigration discourse.


Andy Ng (centre) says his background as a former district councillor in the city is an asset. Photo: Wokingham Liberal Democrats

Michaela Benson, a professor in public sociology at Lancaster University, said Hongkongers in the UK benefited from being allowed to stand for election – a right not extended to all immigrants.

"I think three people [getting elected] is pretty impressive, given the short time period they've been here. That makes them particularly well positioned to represent their communities and talk about the issues that people in their communities are facing," she said.

Benson said newly arrived Hongkongers faced a range of challenges such as not having qualifications recognised.

"For any community in the UK, having access to power, to be able to speak to the people who can affect change is important, and that has always meant having representation from your community," she said.

The UK government approved 191,158 BN(O) Visas for Hongkongers as of December 2023 since it officially launched the bespoke bathway in 2021 in response to the Beijing-imposed national security law the year before.

They are allowed to work, study and live in Britain for six years, after which they will be eligible to apply for citizenship.

I'd add that both of those areas - Wokingham and Surrey Heath - are big Lib Dem targets at the next election (Wokingham's about 30 on their target seats, Surrey Heath is more challenging at about 60). But the Lib Dem strategy is always to start by building a base in local government - so this is a step on the way and no doubt the councillors profiled here will be out campaigning to get rid of John Redwood and Michael Gove, which we can all support

[Sheilbh]

Not a surprise (and very much in line with the standard British scandal - you can cut and paste the stuff on government and NHS here to numerous other public inquiries into NHS scandals) - Sunak's apology is right and compensation needs to follow but will be very expensive:

'Suffering that is hard to comprehend': key takeaways from UK infected blood report
Scandal was completely avoidable, with government and NHS colluding to cover up risk to patients
Rachel Hall
Mon 20 May 2024 12.30 BST
Last modified on Mon 20 May 2024 14.52 BST

A day of reckoning has arrived, more than 50 years since the first victims received infected blood. The UK public inquiry has published its final report, which it is hoped will provide a measure of justice to the thousands of people affected by apportioning blame to the government and health service, and paving the way for a formal apology and compensation scheme. Here are the main points covered.

    1. The disaster could have been prevented

    The main message from the 2,527-page report is that what is thought to be the NHS's worst treatment disaster "was not an accident" and could "largely, though not entirely, have been avoided".

    Patients were knowingly exposed to "unacceptable" infection risks between 1970 and 1991, and this resulted from successive governments, the NHS and the medical profession failing to "put patient safety first", concluded the inquiry's chair, Sir Brian Langstaff.

    Successive governments are primarily to blame for the "catalogue" of "systemic, collective and individual failures" that allowed the infected blood scandal to happen, though "others share some of it", wrote Langstaff, who has been hearing evidence since 2019.

    Ministers' refusal to own up to failings "served to compound people's suffering", resulting in a decades-long battle for the truth. He asks why it took until 2018 for a UK-wide public inquiry to be established.

    It is "astonishing" that this could have happened in the UK, causing a "level of suffering which it is difficult to comprehend", Langstaff stated.

    2. Tens of thousands of victims were affected

    More than 3,000 deaths are understood to have resulted from the scandal. An estimated 1,250 people with bleeding disorders are thought to have been infected with HIV, about 380 of whom were children, and a further 80-100 in transfusion recipients.

    Estimates are weaker for those infected with hepatitis C, between 3,650 to 6,250 in people with bleeding disorders, and 26,800 in transfusion recipients, just 2,700 of whom were still alive in 2019.  Many of these people were undiagnosed.

    Lives were "damaged and destroyed" through "pain, sickness and loss". Many more families were affected by caring for their loved ones who were infected, as well as the stigma associated with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s and 1990s.

    There is a particular focus in the report on Treloar's school, where a haemophilia centre was located and pupils were used for "unethical and wrong" research into the use of blood concentrates. Just 30 of the 122 pupils with haemophilia who attended between 1970 and 1987 survived.

    3. Hepatitis and HIV risks were known

    It was already well known from the 1930s that blood transfusions could transmit fatal hepatitis. The virus responsible for hepatitis C was identified in 1998, but apparent from at least the mid-1970s. Transmission of Aids through blood products was established in 1982. This was all "very well-known" among the government officials responsible for treatment with blood products. 

    Despite this, decisions were not taken to suspend the licences granted to import risky factor concentrates. It was understood from 1973 that importing the commercial blood products known as factor 8 concentrates made in the US and Austria carried a high risk of hepatitis and were less safe than domestic treatments, of which there should have been a sufficient domestic supply. In the mid-1970s, one professor warned that one commercial product was sourced "100 per cent from Skid-row derelicts", while the World Health Organization urged self-sufficiency.

    An erroneous decision was taken in 1983 not to suspend the importation of commercial blood products, and more could have been done to control their distribution.

    Increasing the size of the pools to manufacture factor concentrates was known to markedly increase risks of viral transmission, and yet went ahead. These concentrates were unnecessarily given to children rather than safer treatments.

    There were delays in rolling out the universal screening of blood products for HIV and hepatitis C despite this representing a "public emergency". Successive governments falsely claimed that blood screening was introduced at the earliest opportunity.

    Research into viral inactivation, for example through heat treating, was underfunded, which could have "prevented many infections and deaths". Instead, there was "an attitude of denial" towards risk, with the donor selection process not "sufficiently careful and rigorous", while the public were reassured that there was "no conclusive proof" that blood products carried Aids, and that the hepatitis C risk was "mild and inconsequential", despite research linking it to liver disease.

    4. Patient safety was not prioritised

    A culture of "doctor knows best" prevailed, and patients were not informed of risks and alternatives, and many were not told that they had been infected. Once infected, many were informed in ways that were "insensitive and inappropriate", and there were delays in accessing specialist treatment.

    Blood products were "used unnecessarily", and wrongly seen by many clinicians as posing little or no risk. Transfusions were also given where they were not clinically needed, for example to top up after childbirth. In many cases medical records have been destroyed, lost or are incomplete.

    5. There was a government cover-up

    Victims' suffering was compounded by the lack of a meaningful apology, and a cover-up culture in the NHS and the government. Ministers "cruelly" repeated the line from Margaret Thatcher in 1989 that "they had received the best treatment available" and therefore that compensation was not required.

    Langstaff criticised the government response as characterised by "a lack of transparency and candour" and "groupthink" among civil servants and ministers over decades. This is "damaging to the public interest".

    He also warned of the "slow and protracted nature" of government decision-making.

    The report confirms that there was a government cover-up of the scandal, not in the sense of an orchestrated conspiracy, but rather "to save face and to save expense". This included the "deliberate destruction of documents of relevance".

    Instead of responding to the infection of thousands of people with HIV and hepatitis through investigations, there was a "defensive closing of ranks" within the NHS.

    6. Compensation and cultural change are needed now

    The report sets out a series of recommendations for the government, "principal" of which is that a compensation scheme be set up now.

    It also asks that a permanent memorial be set up to those affected by the scandal.

    Other recommendations are targeted at the culture and practice in the civil service, including around attitudes to public health risks and speeding up decision-making, and the NHS, such as encouraging the reporting of concerns and accountability for leaders. 

    This includes requiring medical education bodies to update doctors' training; strengthening the safety culture, including by addressing a culture of dismissing patient concerns and failing to be fully transparent; a UK-wide review of healthcare safety regulation; a healthcare records audit; and an end to the "defensive culture" in the civil service and government.

    Support for those suffering from hepatitis C is also outlined. People should have six-monthly lifetime monitoring scans for liver damage if they have been diagnosed with cirrhosis or fibrosis, and should be seen by senior doctors. Doctors carrying out blood transfusions and providing care to haemophiliacs should be required to take additional steps to ensure safety. There should be a concerted effort to find those who are undiagnosed including testing anyone who had a blood transfusion before 1996.

    The government is asked to consider and commit to implementing the recommendations within a 12-month timeframe, or give sufficient reason for rejecting them. The report notes that the government has still not responded to all of the recommendations contained in the interim reports, published in July 2022 and April 2023./quote]

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is another scandal in plain sight; I think I have known about it for at least 30 years, though obviously not in the detail brought out in the inquiry.

 "The main message from the 2,527-page report is that what is thought to be the NHS's worst treatment disaster "was not an accident" and could "largely, though not entirely, have been avoided"."

Exactly, the first set of people were unknowingly infected but, when the problem became clear instead of taking action it was business as usual.

There is a pattern here; British state entities are far more concerned with saving face than ensuring the welfare of the "little people".

[crazy canuck]

It is another scandal in plain sight; I think I have known about it for at least 30 years, though obviously not in the detail brought out in the inquiry.

 "The main message from the 2,527-page report is that what is thought to be the NHS's worst treatment disaster "was not an accident" and could "largely, though not entirely, have been avoided"."

Exactly, the first set of people were unknowingly infected but, when the problem became clear instead of taking action it was business as usual.

There is a pattern here; British state entities are far more concerned with saving face than ensuring the welfare of the "little people".

This is curious timing.  We all went through the same problem at the same time.  It has been decades since Canada went through its process of figuring out what went wrong, why and how to fix it.

[Sheilbh]

Exactly, the first set of people were unknowingly infected but, when the problem became clear instead of taking action it was business as usual.

There is a pattern here; British state entities are far more concerned with saving face than ensuring the welfare of the "little people".

Yes - and look at the postmasters, or at Hillsborough or, for that matter, other NHS scandals. There is a pattern of cover up, lies and protecting each other that's a huge problem.

And I also think of Johnny Mercer's evidence of officials lying to him and the amount he had to push on war crimes by British special forces in Afghanistan to get anywhere - he'd heard about it as a veteran from other veterans and was faced with a stone wall in the MoD where he was a minister. Similarly in Rory Stewart's memoir when he talks about aid to Syria where he fees like he'll know something and has a very strong suspicion it's going to jihadi groups (it was) and has numerous meetings where he's lied to by officials or fobbed off or even told by a civil servant in Number 10 that he's causing problems before getting to the bottom of it.

So there are issues with the politicians and it is their responsibility regardless, but I can't help but wonder if their sin was basically to believe what civil servants told them - and if they can't, our system is in real trouble.

[Oexmelin]

One is the way the civil service works - as I say, since at least Harold Wilson's government 60 years ago there have been numerous independent reports highlighting the problem of the civil service preference for generalists and disdain for deep, specialist expertise.

Sir Humphrey: Well, obviously I'm not a trained lawyer or I wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit!

(But yes, the hollowing out of State capacity is a very real thing and serves to fatten up hordes of consultants and lobbyists, who can conveniently be the object of more creative accounting, and less vivid obsessions, than the civil service itself)

[HVC]

Something as bad as this (and the post thing) really calls for jail time.

[Gups]

One is the way the civil service works - as I say, since at least Harold Wilson's government 60 years ago there have been numerous independent reports highlighting the problem of the civil service preference for generalists and disdain for deep, specialist expertise.

Sir Humphrey: Well, obviously I'm not a trained lawyer or I wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit!

(But yes, the hollowing out of State capacity is a very real thing and serves to fatten up hordes of consultants and lobbyists, who can conveniently be the object of more creative accounting, and less vivid obsessions, than the civil service itself)

Is it a real thing? We have 500,000 civil servants in the UK up from 384,000 in 2016. We also have the highest level public spending as a percentage of GDP in peacetime.

Maybe the problem is the expansion of the state at the behest of public and politicians combined with abysmal productivity levels in the civil service.

As Shelf says, the generalist approach is dreadful. As soon as anyone gets any kind of expertise in an area, they are moved on. I recruited a government lawyer about 6 years ago. He was very happy in his job but was being forced to move from planning/regeneration to marine law. He's super clever and hard working and made partner this year. We gained (and so has he) but the Government has lost a talent and I'll be this happens all the time and the service is just left with the unambitious.