Ashford: Should he stay or should he go?

[SleepyJoe]

2 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

He knows how thick a lot of his voters are. He’s got to keep them on side. 

Vainglorious stuff it was

[AOR]

1 hour ago, Hmmmm said:

 I lost count of the times he thanked Alf (whose body language is something to behold during this tardy speech).  

Alf Cannan, Howard Quayle. It seems only the names are different.

[AOR]

2 hours ago, Passing Time said:

the half arsed clap from Cretineys offspring said it all really

Did she read, or is even interested in/capable of reading the tribunal findings?

[Declan]

If, as Ashford says "culture" is like a river that flows through an organisation from top to bottom, then changing those at the top will change it. 

[John Wright]

The situation is quite simple.

The situation giving rise to the Tribunal, where his megalomaniac CEO bullied and was out of control, happened on his watch as Minister. Whether he involved himself, knew, was deliberately blind, is irrelevant. He has ultimate responsibility politically. He should have resigned immediately the Tribunal decision was distributed, and if he didn’t then Cannan should have sacked him.

All the stuff about whether Ewart, or Ranson, or Glover, were right, or wrong, is irrelevant.

Who was minister for DHSC? David. Which department did these terrible things? David’s. Who has to resign? David.

if he’d done the decent and honourable thing there’d have been much less of the opprobrium. Why is there so much opprobrium? Because he didn’t do the decent thing. He’s now tarred, as is Cannan, with being tone deaf, attempting to cling on to power, not taking ultimate responsibility.

A simple. “ It happened on my watch. The behaviour of the department towards Dr Ranson was insupportable. I apologise, as former DHSC minister to Dr Ranson, unreservedly. I regret it happened. I take full political responsibility. That is why I have resigned.” Would have been good.

[Andy Onchan]

2 hours ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Let's not forget this is the man who thought the DOI management were doing an excellent job; then subsequently went off in a huff when Cannan didn't reward with the DoI ministership.

I don't think he was even a serious contender was he? AC has his faults but I don't think he's been taken in by Rob.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Declan said:

If, as Ashford says "culture" is like a river that flows through an organisation from top to bottom, then changing those at the top will change it. 

He also made the point that the management had completely changed during his time as Minister, while the cultural problems had continued.  Without realising quite what a self-own that was.

Even by Ashford's standards that was quite a performance.  Pompous, and self-regarding and embarrassing in its sucking up to Cannan and others.  But completely unable to understand why he had to go.  It simply isn't true that a Minister should take responsibility for everything that goes wrong in their Department and therefore resign when something does.  That should only happen if they knew something was going on and did nothing about it and didn't investigate.  Which is exactly what happened here and the Decision gave plenty of examples.

He seems to think that because he did everything his CEO told him to, that somehow absolves him of responsibility.  But it just means he was completely unfit for office and responsible for what did happen, including the way the bullying culture of DHSC got worse if anything.

[asitis]

Whatever the fall out from this sad saga, the bottom line is, the island has lost the services of a respected Dr, and no doubt the ripples of this and the anaesthetists shambles will make getting good medics to come here even more difficult than it already was . The end user suffers and also pays, ironic really !!

[quilp]

39 minutes ago, John Wright said:

All the stuff about whether Ewart, or Ranson, or Glover, were right, or wrong, is irrelevant.

I would disagree here. Ewart played her part in the joint enterprise of concerted vilification of Dr. Ranson and very probably in the machinations concocted against Dr. Glover. Her role may or may not have been a minor one but she was still a cog in the mechanism which has brought things to this juncture.

Will she answer for it? Will Quayle, leader of the house and ultimately Walter's boss, be brought to book? He must have been aware of what was going on in that department and whatever role he did or did not play needs investigating.

[cissolt]

1 minute ago, quilp said:

I would disagree here. Ewart played her part in the joint enterprise of concerted vilification of Dr. Ranson and very probably in the machinations concocted against Dr. Glover. Her role may or may not have been a minor one but she was still a cog in the mechanism which has brought things to this juncture.

Will she answer for it? Will Quayle, leader of the house and ultimately Walter's boss, be brought to book? He must have been aware of what was going on in that department and whatever role he did or did not play needs investigating.

Ewarts behaviour towards Ranson was immature and vindictive.  She wanted to be top doctor and we all paid the price.

Her involvement in the steam packet PAC was illuminating.

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, AOR said:

I'm not sure of David Ashford's much referencing to Chris Robertshaw. What was that all about? (CR has made his view clear in interview with Paul Moulton).

It was about Robertshaw's championing of the Manx Government becoming a single legal entity - something that should have been done years ago.  It's absence has been a good a excuse for Ministers and civil servants not doing stuff they didn't want to do anyway, though in practice there have always been ways of getting round any problems if required. 

It should be done, but it's not the magic bullet often claimed, and backing it has often been a way for Manx politicians to look like they are in favour of reform without actually doing any.  And of course once they get in CoMin like Ashford, nothing happens.

[John Wright]

37 minutes ago, quilp said:

I would disagree here. Ewart played her part in the joint enterprise of concerted vilification of Dr. Ranson and very probably in the machinations concocted against Dr. Glover. Her role may or may not have been a minor one but she was still a cog in the mechanism which has brought things to this juncture.

Will she answer for it? Will Quayle, leader of the house and ultimately Walter's boss, be brought to book? He must have been aware of what was going on in that department and whatever role he did or did not play needs investigating.

But that’s a totally separate issue to whether Ashford needed to resign.

[Two-lane]

5 hours ago, Passing Time said:

the half arsed clap from Cretineys offspring said it all really

Who is the lady who provided the polite applause, and several approving head-nods?

[Roger Mexico]

Ewart will probably be another one to 'retire'.  She went up to Oxford in 1977, so that would make her about 63, making it more plausible than Greenhow.  Her behaviour to Ranson was poor and the 'top doctor' stuff pathetic, but just as seriously she was pretty ineffective during Covid (even ignoring those embarrassing media briefings).  Like far too many Manx civil servants she seemed to confuse reality with what they have on paper, bad enough in any country but ridiculous in a place as small as here.

When she first came I was encouraged because at least she realised that the role of public health was more than ritual finger-wagging about whatever the latest health scare story was.  To be effective it needs data and local data at that.  But she didn't really seem to move on from that or do anything much based on the data.  And the Covid response showed that she fell into the standard civil service routine of mindlessly copying the English response to everything, whether relevant or not.

[Roger Mexico]

7 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

Who is the lady who provided the polite applause, and several approving head-nods?

Sarah Maltby (MLP Douglas South).  Most of the approval seemed to relate to things done at the Treasury (or praise for their staff) since Ashford moved there, and as she's a Departmental member you'd expect her to approve.