British Politics Guide

[bradrn]

I managed to find the full documents! It turns out you have to google to find [council submitting proposal X]'s section on local government reorganisation¹, then follow the link to the council meeting where this was discussed, find the agenda and then download the pdfs of the documents² endorsed at that meeting. This is an entirely obvious process that I'm shocked I hadn't already worked out.

¹ Because of course their search function is broken
² Yes, document's plural

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.”

—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

[Lērisama]

Sometimes it does feel like that…

[Lērisama]

In the next episode of the black comedy sitcom interspersed with semi-random extracts from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy¹ that is British politics, Andy Burnham² has applied to the NEC⁴ to be allowed to run in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election⁵. This is totally unrelated to the constant speculation about a possible leadership challenge to Kier Starmer, which he would have to be an MP to stand for⁸, or to his refusal to rule this out, or to the fact he celebrated the resignation by expounding about a vague political philosophy that could pick up some points from anyone left of Kier Starmer in the Guardian. This has meant the media have produced more thorough descriptions of the relative Starmerism of the members of the NEC than I ever thought I'd need¹², and probably more than I do. The consensus seems to be that him being allowed to run is unlikely, but possible, but if I were Burnham I wouldn't ask unless I was pretty sure of being allowed to run, so he may know more than we do about this than we do. This isn't particularly important, but I guarantee we will be hearing about the aftermath of this for a long time to come.

¹ And I don't just say that because of Bradrn's intervention earlier. Some of the rulesets and conventions do feel straight out of the Guide (within the book, that it)
² Mayor³ of Greater Manchester.
³ One of the newfangled directly elected mayors I talked about earlier, rather than the traditional type.
⁴ National Executive Committee of the Labour party. Think politburo crossed with a dysfunctional PTA. He needs to ask for special permission because he's a sitting mayor, which means there's a special ‘don't force an unwinnable mayoral by-election on us’ clause.
⁵ I think the US term is ‘special election.’ This one is because a Labour MP for somewhere in Manchester got expelled from the party⁶ after some scandal⁷, and has now, some time later resigned his seat, ostensibly for medical reasons.
⁶ They at least ‘lost the whip,’ i.e. got kicked out of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but I don't know if he has been formally expelled from the party.
⁷ I have honestly lost count now.
⁸ Okay, technically, a set threshold of MPs call a leadership election, which all Labour MPs who can reach a certain number of MP supporters, including the current leader is free to stand in, and is decided by the membership of the Labour party. However, the current front runner in that is Wes Streeting, a Kier Starmer with slightly better people skills who has learned how to make subtle hints to the Labour membership that he's really on their side of issue X⁹, which isn't
⁹ But before you think he means such things, he is a believer in what I like to call the Magic Efficiency¹⁰ Tree¹¹, the strange belief that your government department doesn't need any more money now, it has to earn it by become more efficient first (usually by adapting unspecified technology in unspecified ways), because a health service in an aging population that is held together by good will and luck by this point doesn't need more money (horrified gasp), just to learn how to spread its money ever thinner to just about meet the increasingly broad and impossible targets set by said minister, which will somehow fix all the problems. He is, surprisingly, not my favourite minister in the current government.
¹⁰ Yes, efficiency has come back to haunt us again.
¹¹ It's the right wing counterpart to the magic money tree they like to accuse Labour of.
¹² For example, the recent election of the left winger Angela Egan to be general secretary of UNISON¹³, over the incombant Starmer ally, has moved their two seats into the probably yes camp.
¹³ The public sector union, the largest in the UK, and a Labour affiliate, so it has NEC seats.

[Raphael]

he is a believer in what I like to call the Magic Efficiency¹⁰ Tree¹¹, the strange belief that your government department doesn't need any more money now, it has to earn it by become more efficient first (usually by adapting unspecified technology in unspecified ways), because a health service in an aging population that is held together by good will and luck by this point doesn't need more money (horrified gasp), just to learn how to spread its money ever thinner to just about meet the increasingly broad and impossible targets set by said minister, which will somehow fix all the problems.

Ah yes, the idea of making services for people who urgently need them "efficient". As far as I can see, when people talk about "efficiency", they usually mean doing as much as possible for as little money as possible with as little resources as possible in as little time as possible. IMNSFHO, if that's the common understanding of what "efficiency" means, then I want healthcare, education, and similar things to be inefficient.

[bradrn]

he is a believer in what I like to call the Magic Efficiency¹⁰ Tree¹¹, the strange belief that your government department doesn't need any more money now, it has to earn it by become more efficient first (usually by adapting unspecified technology in unspecified ways), because a health service in an aging population that is held together by good will and luck by this point doesn't need more money (horrified gasp), just to learn how to spread its money ever thinner to just about meet the increasingly broad and impossible targets set by said minister, which will somehow fix all the problems.

Ah yes, the idea of making services for people who urgently need them "efficient". As far as I can see, when people talk about "efficiency", they usually mean doing as much as possible for as little money as possible with as little resources as possible in as little time as possible. IMNSFHO, if that's the common understanding of what "efficiency" means, then I want healthcare, education, and similar things to be inefficient.

I mean, isn’t that an objectively good thing to aim for? The only problem is when people add the extra phrase ‘…at the expense of literally everything else’.

[Raphael]

Ah yes, the idea of making services for people who urgently need them "efficient". As far as I can see, when people talk about "efficiency", they usually mean doing as much as possible for as little money as possible with as little resources as possible in as little time as possible. IMNSFHO, if that's the common understanding of what "efficiency" means, then I want healthcare, education, and similar things to be inefficient.

I mean, isn’t that an objectively good thing to aim for? The only problem is when people add the extra phrase ‘…at the expense of literally everything else’.

I don't like the idea of processing as many patients as possible for as little money as possible in as little time as possible. Or trying to teach as many pupils/students as possible with as few teachers and classroom resources as possible in as little time as possible.

[Lērisama]

he is a believer in what I like to call the Magic Efficiency¹⁰ Tree¹¹, the strange belief that your government department doesn't need any more money now, it has to earn it by become more efficient first (usually by adapting unspecified technology in unspecified ways), because a health service in an aging population that is held together by good will and luck by this point doesn't need more money (horrified gasp), just to learn how to spread its money ever thinner to just about meet the increasingly broad and impossible targets set by said minister, which will somehow fix all the problems.

Ah yes, the idea of making services for people who urgently need them "efficient". As far as I can see, when people talk about "efficiency", they usually mean doing as much as possible for as little money as possible with as little resources as possible in as little time as possible. IMNSFHO, if that's the common understanding of what "efficiency" means, then I want healthcare, education, and similar things to be inefficient.

I mean, isn’t that an objectively good thing to aim for? The only problem is when people add the extra phrase ‘…at the expense of literally everything else’.

Yes, but the idea that it can be increased by ministerial fiat without any time, effort, money or thought towards the problem is ludicrous, and the person who is supposed to be, in effect, the minister for the NHS castigating a service which he knows¹ is held together by gaffer tape and good will for not doing even more with the not enough money it gets isn't consistent with reality.

¹ Because literally everyone knows, because everyone has used it, worked in it, or knows someone who has, and the actual minister in charge of it should have more information on the NHS the average person on the street.

[Ketsuban]

Of course Yes, Minister got there first, as always. The episode "The Economy Drive" has a gag where the department had spent a bunch of money investigating how it could become more efficient and determined that it was actually understaffed.

[Lērisama]

Of course Yes, Minister got there first, as always. The episode "The Economy Drive" has a gag where the department had spent a bunch of money investigating how it could become more efficient and determined that it was actually understaffed.

Yes minister always gets there first, and says it better. That is pretty much why I find the focus on efficiency so galling. Pretty much the only change is that the watchword has moved on from ‘economy’ to ‘efficiency.’

[bradrn]

But, from what I’ve watched of Yes, Minister, I always got the impression that the writers there saw ‘efficiency’ as a good thing, not a bad thing…? That’s why that gag got a laugh.

EDIT: Rewatching, this is definitely the case. ‘Surely we want to save money? / Oh, Bernard, you know perfectly well, there has to be some way to measure success in the Civil Service. British laymen measure success by the size of their profits — or, to be more accurate, they measure their failure by the size of their losses. But we don’t have profits and losses, we have to measure our success by the size of our staff and our budget. By definition, Bernard, a big department is more successful than a small one. […] Suppose everyone went around saving money irresponsibly all over the place?’

[Lērisama]

Yes, efficiency is a good thing¹. The problem is when budgets are cut (in real terms) and the department is told to make up the difference with ‘efficiency savings.’² This is never accompanied by any attempt at working out where the money comes from, just an assumption that ministerial fiat will solve a problem – just see your Yes, Minister episode for the actual effort required. After more than 15 years of this, all the efficiency savings that could possibly have been made in this way have already been made, and we're into the kind of savings that require either making people work even harder for less, doing less, or putting actual effort into it. Efficiency savings as an excuse for underfunding and so at the expense of the public service's actual job is what I object to so much. Sadly, that has been the only kind we've had.

¹ Assuming everything else stays the same.
² That can never include the minister's pet projects³, of course, no matter how bad they are.
³ I do have examples, but I'm working out what I'm comfortable sharing thereabout.

[Raphael]

But, from what I’ve watched of Yes, Minister, I always got the impression that the writers there saw ‘efficiency’ as a good thing, not a bad thing…? That’s why that gag got a laugh.

EDIT: Rewatching, this is definitely the case. ‘Surely we want to save money? / Oh, Bernard, you know perfectly well, there has to be some way to measure success in the Civil Service. British laymen measure success by the size of their profits — or, to be more accurate, they measure their failure by the size of their losses. But we don’t have profits and losses, we have to measure our success by the size of our staff and our budget. By definition, Bernard, a big department is more successful than a small one. […] Suppose everyone went around saving money irresponsibly all over the place?’

Well, the writers of Yes, Minister were a leftist and a Thatcherite, so the messages of the show weren't always consistent with each other. (I especially like one long quote in one episode that basically completely demolishes the entire premise of the whole show, though I'm not sure if the writers realized that when they wrote it.)

[bradrn]

(I especially like one long quote in one episode that basically completely demolishes the entire premise of the whole show, though I'm not sure if the writers realized that when they wrote it.)

Which one?

[Raphael]

(I especially like one long quote in one episode that basically completely demolishes the entire premise of the whole show, though I'm not sure if the writers realized that when they wrote it.)

Which one?

I think I'll leave people who might be interested in trying to guess which one I mean some time before posting it.

[bradrn]

(I especially like one long quote in one episode that basically completely demolishes the entire premise of the whole show, though I'm not sure if the writers realized that when they wrote it.)

Which one?

I think I'll leave people who might be interested in trying to guess which one I mean some time before posting it.

I don’t know the show very well; could you put it in a spoiler or something?

[Raphael]

I don’t know the show very well; could you put it in a spoiler or something?

Perhaps later. For now, one hint: it's one of the quotes listed on Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yes,_Minister

[alice]

There's also the thinking, which is very common in British media and political circles, that "Government" == "public sector" == "inherently irredeemably inefficient and ultimately and inevitably nothing more than a gross waste of taxpayers' money", and doing it privately will, obviously, simutaneously cost one-tenth and deliver ten times. because of "the discipline of the market", or something.

[Lērisama]

Yes, because introducing profit into the expenses side of the equation always means it costs less.

[bradrn]

I don’t know the show very well; could you put it in a spoiler or something?

Perhaps later. For now, one hint: it's one of the quotes listed on Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yes,_Minister

I’ve been through this page several times now, and the closest I can find is this one:

More: show

Hacker: Besides, it's easy for judges. Judges don't have to lie to television producers, don't have to suck up to journalists, don't have to pretend they like their Cabinet colleagues. Do you know something? Well I'll tell you: if judges had to put up with some of my Cabinet colleagues, they'd bring capital punishment back tomorrow! Bloody good thing, too!

But I hardly think this ‘completely demolishes the entire premise of the whole show’…

[Raphael]

bradrn: No, not that one.