Departmental Plans-Do you agree with the Speaker?

[Moghrey Mie]

Are they worth the paper they are written on or the cloud space they occupy?

'At the end of the day' I find them full of useless phrases and visions of the future 'going forward'.

Now that chatBGT can give you a policy in the blink of an eye do we really need civil servants spending hours creating departmental policies?

chatGBT will give you a good generic Education, Sports and Culture Policy. Job done.

[Dirty Buggane]

And at little or no cost and no pension.

[Twitch]

3 hours ago, Dirty Buggane said:

And at little or no cost and no pension.

...and probably 5 senior managers to supervise it...

[Andy Onchan]

Anyone who thinks AI will replace Cyril's Servants is deluded. 

[asitis]

6 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Anyone who thinks AI will replace Cyril's Servants is deluded. 

No you're probably correct, the I in AI certainly won't be required ! 😁

[Holte End]

I don't agree with the Speaker, he should be dragged in front of a committee about his impartiality in his role,  just look at the southern constituency starred question in Keys this week.  Glover, Callister, Ashford and Moorehouse all get stick for not being on a Department and self promotion, but Mr Benn takes the biscuit.  I think he believes he is the opposition or he just hates Alf Cannan. I would love to know how many times he has said Castle Rushen High School in the last two years compared to any other high school in his 17 years as a MHK, the same with the southern swimming pool. He is just a one track pony, that jumps into the Speaker role because of the costume and no responsibility  of Government, just easy criticism.  Did we ever get a final costing of his portrait. 

[Moghrey Mie]

2 hours ago, Holte End said:

I don't agree with the Speaker, he should be dragged in front of a committee about his impartiality in his role,  just look at the southern constituency starred question in Keys this week.  Glover, Callister, Ashford and Moorehouse all get stick for not being on a Department and self promotion, but Mr Benn takes the biscuit.  I think he believes he is the opposition or he just hates Alf Cannan. I would love to know how many times he has said Castle Rushen High School in the last two years compared to any other high school in his 17 years as a MHK, the same with the southern swimming pool. He is just a one track pony, that jumps into the Speaker role because of the costume and no responsibility  of Government, just easy criticism.  Did we ever get a final costing of his portrait. 

He has to read all the departmental plans that come before Tynwald and so he is entitled to make an observation about their content and quality.

[GreyWolf]

I’ll pop out from behind the couch and say I 100% agree with what the Watty fellow said the other day but he really does need to forget the pomp of the speaker nonsense or ambitions to be president and get stuck into the nitty gritty of real politics. Isn’t he after all our longest serving mhk and should be looking to be chief minister or his long political career coasting along taking the easy route will be deemed a failure.

[Moghrey Mie]

He's only 43. Time to ditch the wig and morning dress for Tynwald. He could be.a real reformer if he chose.

 

[Dirty Buggane]

57 minutes ago, Moghrey Mie said:

He's only 43. Time to ditch the wig and morning dress for Tynwald. He could be.a real reformer if he chose.

 

Yeah

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, GreyWolf said:

I’ll pop out from behind the couch and say I 100% agree with what the Watty fellow said the other day but he really does need to forget the pomp of the speaker nonsense or ambitions to be president and get stuck into the nitty gritty of real politics. Isn’t he after all our longest serving mhk and should be looking to be chief minister or his long political career coasting along taking the easy route will be deemed a failure.

He might aspire to be CM but I doubt he'll forego the dressing up box.

[piebaps]

Struggles with travel sickness on busses at least. Seems to be OK with planes though.

[The Phantom]

4 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

He might aspire to be CM but I doubt he'll forego the dressing up box.

If someone invented a special CM outfit (the more elaborate and olde worldy the better) I think he'd be on it like vomit. 

[Holte End]

2 hours ago, Moghrey Mie said:

He has to read all the departmental plans that come before Tynwald and so he is entitled to make an observation about their content and quality.

So when these departmental plans come to Keys will he excuse himself, because he will be conflicted. I doubt it.  

[Roger Mexico]

Watterson is perfectly right on this and particularly when he says that all these 'plans' and the like are a substitute for action.  Normally when someone produces a plan for something it's because they want to achieve various objectives and are exploring the possibilities as to how to do so.  With the Isle of Man Government. it's the opposite, it's because they want to not do something.  As Watterson says in the sound clip, if you want to put something off for a year, you produce a Plan; if you want to put something off till after the next election, you produce a Strategy.

Then when the public asks politicians what they are going to to do about something, they can reply that they've produced a Plan (or whatever) and this is supposed to satisfy everyone.  It never does of course, but it keeps the politicians happy in their bubble and when the voters complain, the politicians just complain about not being appreciated.

We mock Watterson (rightly) about his dressing up fetish, but the amount of money spent on producing these endless reports and plans and strategies which are also designed to make politicians and senior civil servants feel good would buy enough gold brocade to go to the moon and back.  More importantly it means that important things that should be progressed never are, while all sorts of pet projects get prioritised without any examination.