Ashford: Should he stay or should he go?

[Roger Mexico]

3 hours ago, Hoops said:

Well,with the filtration of information through the various levels of civil service management without, seemingly, any ministerial oversight, it does show that the point of the ministerial structure is to have a democratically elected representative there to announce unelected officials' decisions.

It actually doesn't have to be that way and may not even have been so at the beginning, but has ended up working like that.   A lot of the problem lies with Ministers and indeed Chief Ministers who didn't really see their job as being ministerial and didn't want to put the work in.  Instead they just wanted to take the money and the title and they liked the sound of their own voice.  Understanding or steering what went on in their Department was too much though and just doing what they were told became the norm.

This suited the civil service of course and meant that those in the Departments could do whatever they wanted without any real supervision.  So a culture has grown up that enables this and in turn this has been formalised into ministerial codes and the like that mean even if a minister wants to be more active, they're not allowed to be.

I've described Ashford before as being the perfect minister under this system.  He sounds confident and well-informed - providing you don't actually listen to the words, just the tone (but that's enough to fool some people).  But he will just do what he is told and actively resist (as we saw with Ranson) any attempt to do anything that requires any initiative or thinking for himself.

[John Wright]

29 minutes ago, Declan said:

But you find a work around to circumstances like that. For example, you widen the command group to include the Island Medical director.

Totally. She should have been on Gold Command. Not just Bronze/Silver. I questioned above who was responsible for deciding who was at each level. I suspect Greenhow.

[Declan]

The account that Rachel alleges is stalking her has the description. "#indigo, #humanliedetector #creativevoidfiller #lovewolves #freespirit "A Prayer For The Wild At Heart Locked In Cages"

[Gizo]

3 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

Surely this is harassment, why are the police not taking it further? 

Does this Really need answering?

[cissolt]

1 minute ago, Roxanne said:

I’m guessing those were also the accounts on here attempting to rip Dr Glover to shreds and supporting Minister Ashford? 

Dirty work. 

Surely this is harassment, why are the police not taking it further? 

It appears that they either lack the skills or the will to pursue such matters.  They seemed to clamp down on that Fenton chap!

[Passing Time]

4 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

I’m guessing those were also the accounts on here attempting to rip Dr Glover to shreds and supporting Minister Ashford? 

Dirty work. 

Surely this is harassment, why are the police not taking it further? 

probably all off sick with covid...

[Newsdesk]

1 hour ago, Bandits said:

Yes quite some allegations this morning including an investigating police officer allegedly telling her that Ashfords partner could put a load of flaming dog shit through her letterbox and they still wouldn’t investigate it. Let’s see how long they stay up. But if it is right that the partner of a sitting Minister has harassed and made threats (including alleged death threats) to someone who challenged her partner it’s quite serious really. 

She definitely not TakeoverTV and even I know that. 

[Newsdesk]

34 minutes ago, Declan said:

The account that Rachel alleges is stalking her has the description. "#indigo, #humanliedetector 

If she really is a human lie detector and she actually lives with Ashford then she can’t be a very good one. 

[Roger Mexico]

2 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Totally. She should have been on Gold Command. Not just Bronze/Silver. I questioned above who was responsible for deciding who was at each level. I suspect Greenhow.

The list of who was on each committee is interesting:

Council of Ministers (CoMin)

•Chief Minister (chair), all Ministers, Chief Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, Attorney General

National Strategy Group (NSG)

•Chief Minister (chair), Treasury Minister, Minister for Enterprise, Minister for Health & Social Care, other Ministers depending on agenda, Attorney General, Chief Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, CEO DfE, CEO DHA, CEO DHSC, Executive Director of Crown and External Relations, Head of Silver Command.

Chief Officers Group (COG)

•Chief Secretary (chair), Chief Executive Officers of all Departments

Gold Command (Strategic)

•Chief Secretary (chair), Chief Officers Group (as above), Chief Constable, Director of Public Health, Emergency Planning Officer, Attorney General, Head of Silver Command, Director of Change and Reform, Executive Directors of Crown and External Relations, Executive Director of the Office of Human Resources and Executive Director of Government Technology Services.

Silver Group (Tactical)

•Director of Public Health (chair), Medical Director, Director of Nursing, Infection Prevention & Control Lead Nurse, Chief Pharmacist, Senior managers in acute patient areas, Consultant Respiratory Physician, Emergency Department Consultant, Dentistry representative, GP representative, Emergency Planning Officer, Communications Manager, Head of Health Intelligence (Public Health), Hospital Director (Acute Services), Consultant Microbiologist, Health Protection Lead (Public Health), Legal representative, Finance representative, Environmental Health representative, Head Biomedical Scientist

Bronze Group (Operational)

•Medical Director (Chair), Director of Public Health, Head of Community Health Operations, Emergency Department representative, Infection Prevention and Control representative, Pharmacy representative, Pathology Services representative, GP and Dentistry representative, HR and Occupational Health senior advisor, DESC representative, Senior Manager (Acute Services), School Nurse & Health Visitor representative, Ambulance and Rescue representative, Environmental Health representative, Health Protection Representative (Public Health), Funeral Director representative.

 

Basically Gold Command is just the Cabinet Office heads.  Oddly enough the DPH appears twice (also as Chair of Silver Command).  Could Ranson originally have headed Silver but Ewart insisted on doing so to prove she was 'top doctor'?  Whatever it meant that there was very little medical input into the strategy for an epidemic.

[b4mbi]

40 minutes ago, Declan said:

The account that Rachel alleges is stalking her has the description. "#indigo, #humanliedetector #creativevoidfiller #lovewolves #freespirit "A Prayer For The Wild At Heart Locked In Cages"

Well that was quick, the tweets on that account are now protected (not being an hour ago), only confirmed followers can access...

presumably the #creativevoidfiller is the shredder basket?

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, Declan said:

But you find a work around to circumstances like that. For example, you widen the command group to include the Island Medical director.

I thought Ranson was Nobles Medical Director?

[John Wright]

5 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

I thought Ranson was Nobles Medical Director?

Ranson was, from appointment to 31/3/21 DHSC medical director with responsibility for medical staff at Nobles AND IoM GP’s. She was MD designate for Manx Care with same responsibilities, supposed to take up duties on 1/4/21. 
 

She was on Bronze/Silver - but not Gold Command. Declan is saying that because Magson, as CEO of DHSC, wasn’t present, Ranson should have been on Gold Command. I agree.

[The Phantom]

16 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

It appears that the person doing the harassment was the minister’s girlfriend.

 

On 5/16/2022 at 11:51 AM, The Phantom said:

Did he know there was a party?

Can we blame his wife?

When your jokes about Govt become premonitions... 

[Andy Onchan]

2 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Ranson was, from appointment to 31/3/21 DHSC medical director with responsibility for medical staff at Nobles AND IoM GP’s. She was MD designate for Manx Care with same responsibilities, supposed to take up duties on 1/4/21. 

It's good job we don't need to replace light bulbs very often.

[Non-Believer]

34 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

I think it does. 

There was a considerable amount of online harassment toward someone who was being smeared by a government minister. 

It appears that the person doing the harassment was the minister’s girlfriend.

If this account is true then IOM police are stating that they are not going to take the charge seriously because of the people involved, then we have a far bigger problem here than just the unfair dismissal of our top medical advisor.

What in the hell is going on? 

'Cos IoM....