Conservatives – Adam Tugwell

Depending upon which side of the fashionable side of the divide you currently sit on, you could be looking in horror at the work and changes that Elon Musk has already made to US Federal or government spending structures.

Alternatively, and as many on the right of the UKs political spectrum currently are, you might be so enthralled by how the sweeping changes of the new Trump administration looks, that you are already championing a similar approach for the UKs Public Sector, just as soon as the next government has been installed.

That wastage, the pursuit of projects that should never have been pursued, and the existence of many public servants who have never once served the best interests of the public at all is a problem across government, public services, NGOs and anywhere that the public purse picks up the bill across the UK, is most certainly true.

However, to suggest that ‘the problem’ would be solved, merely by taking an arbitrary glance at what money has and is being spent on, then stopping the cheques without question where anything doesn’t resonate, is utterly foolish.

Expecting some unseen force to pick up the slack from any action that could shut down public service provision overnight, is the food upon which anarchy and civil unrest are built on.

Those seriously minded about finding the solutions to the mess that the UK is now in would do well to remember that sharing a language and words that we use with our American cousins is in many respects where the real similarities between the way that we are governed and how our very different countries are run simply ends.

Whilst many of us fall into the trap at election time of believing that we are voting for one Prime Minister or another, the UK doesn’t have a Presidential system like the United States.

Even though it can be interpreted as being exactly that way, when one minute Rishi Sunak goes and is replaced just an hour later by Keir Starmer in No.10.

The sweeping powers that the American President appears to have just don’t manifest in the UK in anything like the same way – even if that’s how they genuinely work in the USA.

A mistake that we can be reasonably confident that most of the Prime Ministers over the past 3 decades are likely to have made would be that they have headed from The Palace to No.10, with the belief that once the famous door closes behind them, it will be as simple as saying whatever they want to say, and that whatever they then goes’.

No decision can be made in any form of government without consequences – as many of us like our Farmers are now openly in the process of finding out.

Yet many would be amazed at how simple many of the politicians that we have today really believe that making reasoned and meaningful change in and across government really is.

To say that the public sector is a monster of our politicians’ own making would be an understatement of seismic proportions.

But to begin to understand what anyone who really wants to ‘fix’ anything is up against, it is essential to recognise that the public sector is little more than a patchwork of massive, money-burning fiefdoms, where nothing more than overarching ‘policy’ direction is set and paid for by central government (That’s the Westminster lot).

Every little thing that can be interpreted and managed in some way differently, will be. To suit the needs of an overwhelmingly protectionist sector that has truly forgotten what it was created for.

Decisions overtly made by public representatives are followed and implemented in ways that would only ever be recognised as being corrupt if and when it could be proven that the decisions made were directly paid for.

If the reader can appreciate this, it is also just as important to understand that very little of anything the public sector does is technically or legally wrong. Because the system, the rules, the regulations and the directions that they are given have evolved over decades of time so that all of these organisations can apparently be run in any way that those managing them choose, as long as it appears that they are doing what they have been told.

The reason that the public sector serves itself isn’t because the Councillors, Mayors, Boards, CEOs and Executives have all decided that they will go it alone.

It’s because the UK has been a rudderless ship when it comes to leadership at the very top of government for so long that the system is now one that it is almost impossible for anyone at the very top to lead.

The UKs public sector and system of government delivery has become far too centralised and hierarchical for the distance between decision maker and decision implementor to work efficiently and work in the best interests of all those who genuinely need it in any way.

No, it’s not as simple as placing someone at the head of government who means what they say. Even though there are many existing and would-be politicians who are desperate for us all to see it that way.

Besides the fact that the UKs ‘executive’ really should always understand what they are doing, the technical structure of government and service delivery it ‘leads’ also needs to be of a size and nature where decision making is genuinely in touch with reality.

Public delivery systems need to respond and feedback in ways that are not only seen as being effective, but actually do work.

If you are minded that it’s the delivery that is the most important thing when it comes to Public Service provision, you may also be able to see that it’s the way that our government is structured, that is and has led to the problems that we now have, right from the very start.

Centralisation of power has created circumstances where poor politicians can hide the poor decisions that they make. Because the chain of authority is simply too big for whoever is genuinely responsible for the damage that is caused by ineptitude to take the blame.

Lack of real accountability is a problem throughout the public sector as a direct result. And when public servants look for an example to follow, many see what today’s politicians are doing, rather than what they are saying they are doing, and then interpret that model of behaviour as being perfectly acceptable to define how they approach their own workload.

So, whilst the talk coming from Reform, what is left of the Tories and what we identify currently as the ‘right’ may be suggesting that they all intend taking an axe to all that’s wrong with the UKs public sector, the hard truth that sits behind the veil of electioneering rhetoric is the problems we face are much more severe and structurally embedded than anyone is currently prepared to publicly admit.

Knee-jerk cost reducing strategies enacted in isolation will end up hurting people, if not actually leading to chaos. And as public policy solutions go, a DOGE for the UK will not really take anyone wishing to be successful in government all that far at all.

The correct solutions for everyone are not always obvious. But fools with power will inevitably believe that they are.

The problem also isn’t a new one. It’s just that it is becoming clearer to normal people today in ways that it never has done before.

The system works as it does, because it benefits certain interests for it to do so. People have always missed out. But the number has steadily increased to the level where the problems caused can be seen today. Because every lie has to be hidden by many others, until no lie can hide the others anymore.

***

I first saw these issues over 25 years ago running charity-based services that were funded by public sector partners and then as a local government officer where I designed and set up a service to benefit not-for-profit organisations. I quickly realised that the system at that time was likely to have been four times as productive with a quarter of the people, if it wasn’t protectionist in every conceivable sense and encouraged public servants to serve the public rather than the organisations themselves.

Twelve years as a Councillor with four as a Licensing Chair served to develop my view and understanding much further and I have previously written in detail about the problem and will link those blogs below.

Jail terms for public servants who overlook their safeguarding responsibilities sounds tough. But if the cause of the problem is actually government wide, should David Cameron be volunteering himself for 5 years in prison rather than another jolly in No. 10?

Public outcry over Grenfell may ensure prosecutions, but the root causes of public sector indifference are cultural and injustices are destined to continue

The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government | Full Text

Manifesto for a Good Dictator

Our Future IS Local

You may have read the title of this blog and immediately wondered what I’m on about. After all, Reform UK are running level with the Labour Government in the polls; the gap is opening up to the Conservatives behind them, and it’s all looking rather like Nigel Farage’s prophecy that Reform will form the next government in 2029 is unfolding in front of them like a political itinerant’s dream come true.

Anything is of course possible. And with the result and consequences of the General Election only six months ago plain for all to see, there is just as much reason to believe that Reform could sweep to victory on a 2029 landslide, that a majority vote for, simply because they appear to then be the better option out of a very bad bunch.

However, could it really be as straightforward as that?

My guess today, as someone whose political background is the ‘right’; who was elected into local government twice as a Conservative and who has dealt with evolutions of reform that include UKIP and the Anti Federalist League before Farage himself was even around, is a considered no.

Not because a new political party from outside of the traditional mainstream cannot smash the current triopoly. But because both Reform and those who are riding off the idea that they can profit from being like Reform are still playing the establishment game and offering too much of the destructive sameness that the establishment demands.

Whilst the reader would need to be watching all forms of media closely to see a very different reason for Reform’s future unfolding differently, the other problem that Reform – and therefore the whole of the right or conservative family has, is that there are already two further parties emerging that to one degree or another could easily split the Conservative Party and Reform axis even further. Leaving it ever more realistic that a left-wing or rainbow coalition will form the next government, with an even weaker Labour Party leading and ‘in charge’ than the one being accused of crashing the economy right now.

What Andrew Tate, and whatever Dominic Cummings has cooking, the current mentality of the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform all have in common is their belief that they are different. Whilst the only difference they offer or look like they will offer, is a distilled version of policies which are no better than calling out the issues facing the UK as they see them. Which in terms of being the difference that the majority of people now need and want is the same thing as no difference at all.

Whilst the polls create a constant source of excitement for political anoraks, they do not indicate that a sweeping aside of petty rivalries and egos is now or is currently likely to take place.

That means all the right is offering today is all it has done for living memory:

Whichever version you choose, it’s all about the politicians themselves rather than people – which is what we all so desperately need.

Being able to talk about the uncomfortable issues that the government today and the last conservative government would not, is no longer enough.

That much has been quickly proven by the reality that the Labour Cabinet is massively out of its depth with the problems and realities of the establishment machine that they face. When they also rode a wave of good faith-based voting that led them to believe that they were equipped and ready to take on what faced them on the 5^th of July.

It will not be different for any of the politicians currently coveting the keys to No. 10. As will be the same case for all of their understudies who sadly show all too easily what we can expect from them through their ambition and failure to genuinely connect.

If the political right is going to gain a meaningful result at the next election, rather than contributing to the creation of greater damage to the UK and what may then be an unnavigable mess, they have to be ready to fight the next general election together.

More importantly they will have to work together in a very different, people orientated way.

2029 is not a long time, assuming that the next general election will be then, rather than much before.

The time to deal with the differences and find common ground is now. Not in 3 years and certainly not during the fall out of the next general election where on current trajectories, things are going to be hideously worse than they are even now.

I’m not convinced that a coalition of the right is possible as things stand. Because nobody in politics can face up to the truth that it’s the outcome that is the most important factor to consider. Not how they take us there or who becomes the name that everyone then thinks about as being in charge.

The one thing we can be sure of is that change of the kind that the UK currently needs and what getting there really means, isn’t going to be offered or achieved by any political vehicle constructed with the same motives and way of looking at the electorate as the Political Parties who have been swapping power between them up until now.