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#91

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2024

Last post by Barrister - May 17, 2024, 04:45:31 PM

A name I hadn't thought of for many years, but instantly recognizeable:

RIP Dabney Coleman, age 92.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dabney-coleman-dead-9-to-5-mary-hartman-tootsie-1235902521/

#92

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Admiral Yi - May 17, 2024, 04:37:18 PM

Mercedes Benz workers in Alabama voted overwhelmingly to reject a union.

#93

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Valmy - May 17, 2024, 02:54:23 PM

The man shot by the now pardoned guy in Texas was also white, for the record.

Yes, but he was a protestor, right?

Yep.

#94

Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread

Last post by Sheilbh - May 17, 2024, 02:52:40 PM

Little John Carey summary which gives some context:

GK Chesterton was not very fond of politicians. "It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged," he once remarked. The obstinacy and intransigence of politicians had, he believed, brought about the First World War, in which his younger brother, Cecil, had died. Cecil had joined the Highland Light Infantry as a private soldier, and was wounded three times, returning to action each time. He was buried in the Terlincthun British Cemetery, Wimille.

Chesterton's elegy takes its title from Thomas Gray's more famous elegy, which condemns great historical conquerors who:

...wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Chesterton's poem is more limited in scope, and prompted by a particular personal loss. But it voices something permanent about the feelings of the ruled towards their rulers.

And on that and the "endless poetry" it makes me think of Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, which isn't his best novel but I enjoyed it. It starts with an upper class minor poet, Cecil Valance, visiting the middle class home of his (intimate) university friend in the summer of 1913, then moves through the twentieth century in the lives of gay men in the twentieth century in some way shaped by that minor poet and his connections - the school in later set up in his family home, the literary biographer, the family etc.

#95

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Jacob - May 17, 2024, 02:34:24 PM

The man shot by the now pardoned guy in Texas was also white, for the record.

Yes, but he was a protestor, right?

#96

Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread

Last post by Jacob - May 17, 2024, 02:33:08 PM

It seems disaffection with the governing classes existed even back in 1900s...

#97

Off the Record / Re: NHL Hockey thread

Last post by Valmy - May 17, 2024, 02:01:27 PM

My heart is with Edmonton because of Connor McDavid. Sorry Oilers I have jinxed you 

#98

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Syt - May 17, 2024, 01:37:41 PM

There's that other reactionary cause celebre guy (Kyle Rittenhouse or something like that) who shot some BLM guys he felt threatened by when he waded into their demo while wielding his rifle. IIRC at least one of them was white.

I think the fair game doctrine is being expanded to include left-wing activists whatever their race, in addition to Black people.

The man shot by the now pardoned guy in Texas was also white, for the record.

#99

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Threviel - May 17, 2024, 01:31:33 PM

Yeah, the problem isn't so much the actions of the individuals but rather the fact that it's legal to walk around with assault guns.

Once everyone is armed their actions are rational. Threat level 10.000 requires response 10.000.

#100

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - May 17, 2024, 01:26:26 PM

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.