Is the state becoming harmful to its citizens?

[wrighty]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

 

The Chief Minister should be a directly elected position in the same way Mayors are in the UK.

Absolutely agree, I've said so before, on here probably.

Parallel election for MHKs and Chief Minister - the latter island wide.  If elected chief minister is also in the top two of the MHK vote in his/her constituency then that constituency gets 3 - the other two to be the core MHKs dealing with local issues, the Chief being freed up from calls about dogshit to look after national issues.  That also gives us a 25 member house of keys with less chance of 50/50 splits in voting.

[Andy Onchan]

19 minutes ago, wrighty said:

Absolutely agree, I've said so before, on here probably.

Parallel election for MHKs and Chief Minister - the latter island wide.  If elected chief minister is also in the top two of the MHK vote in his/her constituency then that constituency gets 3 - the other two to be the core MHKs dealing with local issues, the Chief being freed up from calls about dogshit to look after national issues.  That also gives us a 25 member house of keys with less chance of 50/50 splits in voting.

Just out of interest when was the last time there was a 50/50 split in voting?

[Andy Onchan]

50 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

The last one was so unaccountable he was shoved out. So was the former head of the DOI.

I don’t get the option of turfing Cannan out. I don’t even get the option of turfing out the MHKs who supported Cannan, as neither of my MHKs did.

The civil service isn’t a political role. If you want it to be then fine, but look at America to see how well that doesn’t work.

 

The point is (and going back to the OP), is the elected & executive government and the processes they use more about looking after itself or the people who, incidentally, pay their salaries? The whataboutery is semantics.  

[Roger Mexico]

7 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

Just out of interest when was the last time there was a 50/50 split in voting?

It happens sometimes, but the Presiding Officer just uses their casting vote to maintain to position ie vote against change.  But the total number in Keys/Tynwald doesn't really matter because you just need one absentee and you're back to even numbers again.

[Ringy Rose]

5 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

The point is (and going back to the OP), is the elected & executive government and the processes they use more about looking after itself or the people who, incidentally, pay their salaries? The whataboutery is semantics.  

So much to unpack there. None of it is whataboutery.

The idea that the CS is this homogenous blob that does what it wants is simply wrong. Politicians who claim it is the case are usually making that claim to distract from their own incompetence. Liz Truss is the obvious example but we have plenty of examples here.

The Liverpool landing stage is one example. The politicians who started the project set out what they wanted and where they wanted it and the CS had to work with it. For those politicians to then turn around and say they had a brilliant idea but it was all the CS fault it went over budget is disingenuous at best.

As for “looking after those who pay their salaries”, given the top taxpayers pay most of the tax…

[Dirty Buggane]

So, how high are you in the tiers of the civil service.

[Vaaish]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

The idea that the CS is this homogenous blob that does what it wants is simply wrong. Politicians who claim it is the case are usually making that claim to distract from their own incompetence. 

Well indeed so. I also can’t reconcile this oft repeated mantra that our politicians are in thrall to the civil service. Really? All of them? And how is that achieved? If it’s true then we must have the most lily-livered, shrinking violet set of politicians anywhere in the world. Don’t get me wrong; I can see how politicians could be manipulated. Take Crookall as an example - he’s simply thick; a 7 year old could out manoeuvre him. But the entire political community cowed, intimidated, and made to toe the line by the civil service? Nah. 

[Chinahand]

Couldn't resist. 

Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.' Ibn Khaldu

Quite a lot of government injustice around at the moment. 

[Non-Believer]

6 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

The last one was so unaccountable he was shoved out. So was the former head of the DOI.

Those two being quietly shown the door with no sanctions, no adverse publicity and huge payoffs (and continuing alternative employment in the case of Black and Longworth too, FWIW) is absolute peanuts and bagatelle compared to the fuck-ups, damage to reputation and embarrassments that this Island has sustained in recent years, without even mentioning the generations-worth of costs to the taxpayers.

[Yibble]

14 hours ago, Harry Lamb said:

They are predicated on greed and selfishness. Remember MT 'There is no such thing as society' ? We are living with the results. 

Have you 'point and laugh' leftards really not learned what happens when you use that quote out of context?

[Context]

 

[Jarndyce]

17 hours ago, Harry Lamb said:

Remember MT 'There is no such thing as society' ? 

That’s why I changed to Sure.

[Roger Mexico]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:08 PM, Ringy Rose said:

The Liverpool landing stage is one example. The politicians who started the project set out what they wanted and where they wanted it and the CS had to work with it. For those politicians to then turn around and say they had a brilliant idea but it was all the CS fault it went over budget is disingenuous at best.

That's quite a revealing example, but not perhaps in the way you think.  Firstly it's not really clear who came up with the Liverpool Terminal plan.  There was a crisis caused by the proposed new cruise terminal removing the traditional docking arrangement, but it's not clear that the politicians provided much more than a vague belief that 'people' still wanted to be able to sail to Liverpool.  Why the original Peel suggestion was eventually rejected and who came up with the eventual plan is unclear.  If you talk to the likes of Cannan about it, they just mutter about people wanting to go to Liverpool. 

So it looks like they fell for the Politician's Syllogism: Something must be done/This is something/Therefore we must do it.  The whole thing has the air of an arbitrary decision, promoted and defended simply because they have no idea what else to do.  Possibly the civil servants were just as clueless but determined to push ahead anyway.

In any case if the whole thing had actually been dreamt up and ordered by the politicians, when those politicians then moved or or were removed, a rethink should be possible.  But even without that, it was still the duty -not just a possibility but the moral duty - of the civil service to go back to the politicians to say "Look this isn't working" and suggest alternatives.  It's this sort of thing that the likes of Truss complain about when reality refuses to change to fulfil their fantasies.  But it's an important part of a senior civil servant's job - indeed of anyone's job in a heathy organisation.  This clearly hasn't been happening because otherwise the civil servants would have been providing a lot of documentary proof of such warnings.

[Vaaish]

24 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

That's quite a revealing example, but not perhaps in the way you think.  Firstly it's not really clear who came up with the Liverpool Terminal plan.  There was a crisis caused by the proposed new cruise terminal removing the traditional docking arrangement, but it's not clear that the politicians provided much more than a vague belief that 'people' still wanted to be able to sail to Liverpool.  Why the original Peel suggestion was eventually rejected and who came up with the eventual plan is unclear.  If you talk to the likes of Cannan about it, they just mutter about people wanting to go to Liverpool. 

So it looks like they fell for the Politician's Syllogism: Something must be done/This is something/Therefore we must do it.  The whole thing has the air of an arbitrary decision, promoted and defended simply because they have no idea what else to do.  Possibly the civil servants were just as clueless but determined to push ahead anyway.

In any case if the whole thing had actually been dreamt up and ordered by the politicians, when those politicians then moved or or were removed, a rethink should be possible.  But even without that, it was still the duty -not just a possibility but the moral duty - of the civil service to go back to the politicians to say "Look this isn't working" and suggest alternatives.  It's this sort of thing that the likes of Truss complain about when reality refuses to change to fulfil their fantasies.  But it's an important part of a senior civil servant's job - indeed of anyone's job in a heathy organisation.  This clearly hasn't been happening because otherwise the civil servants would have been providing a lot of documentary proof of such warnings.

Given that Cannan and, for example, Hooper, frequently demonstrate absolute confidence in their own ability to be correct about everything, if they were presented with evidence that a plan/policy wasn’t working, or wouldn’t work, would they actually listen? 

[Holte End]

On 9/5/2024 at 12:43 PM, Andy Onchan said:

Just out of interest when was the last time there was a 50/50 split in voting?

Didn't the President use his casting vote on a motion. @Roger Mexico will know.

Edited September 7 by Holte End

[Roger Mexico]

27 minutes ago, Vaaish said:

Given that Cannan and, for example, Hooper, frequently demonstrate absolute confidence in their own ability to be correct about everything, if they were presented with evidence that a plan/policy wasn’t working, or wouldn’t work, would they actually listen? 

With both those two, it's not clear whether their certainty comes from their own independent opinion or whether they're just repeating what they have been told with absolute conviction.  Cannan in particular tends to get flustered if he's quizzed about details, so it may just be that he's faithfully following orders he doesn't understand.

But that's not really my point.  If civil service advice is overruled by a Ministerial decision, that is very carefully documented by the civil service.  There are fixed protocols for this, usually so that if a Minister insists on doing a favour for someone, it's clear who is to blame.   So if there had been objections during the Liverpool fiasco that the Minister(s) had ignored or countermanded, the evidence should be there and would have come out by now.  The fact everyone is keeping quiet and we can't even get an indication of what the existing costs are, suggests the civil servants are at least as culpable.