Has to one of the most cringe worthy interviews ever. He’s not living that one down ever.
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That was just fucking weird. You’d think by now the Tories would have learned not to try and act like normal people. They invariably end up looking even more ridiculous than they already are.
Not an area I’m particularly knowledgeable on but this feels pretty seismic and like there’s something else going on behind it.
Boris Johnson could cut up to 91,000 civil service jobs - BBC News
I think what is going on is that they have no idea what is going on so they come up with an announcement that sounds like “cutting red tape” but, at best equates to outsourcing work to the private sector at greater cost (that is what happened to my job - I ended getting a pay rise as many of the TUPE staff took up better paid jobs elsewhere).
If you look at the figures the reduction is taking the staff numbers down from the existing level to the pre-Brexit levels. Some of that is presumably achievable because it will be based on staff that were hired for the transition but it doesn’t take into account all the extra bureaucracy that they have created for themselves.
One thing you will see about this current government is that they will make a lot of noise about things and then nothing will happen. They really are as clueless as they look.
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Thanks. With my Engineer (capital E) and Project Manager hats on, chopping resources like that either means they’re over resourced, they’re not going to do anything going forward or the work is going elsewhere. Outsourcing seems the most logical and to me, and a real concern. I have little faith in private firms delivering value for money for services based on a non competitive framework, even if it’s tendered. I’ve seen it time after time. I liken it to hiring a plumber to run a bath for you.
You’re 100% right on the noise and progress side as well.
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I doubt civil service is over resourced. Probably just spin from a government wanting to appear efficient and doing something to tackle cost of living crisis - through future tax cuts. But in reality i dont see that helping. Demand on civil service has increased since 2016 - look at what additional work needs handling since brexit for example such as customs and trade for starters.
From what i read a couple of years ago civil service staff tend to be older so big chunk coming up to retirement soon. BBC article suggests they are looking to freeze recruitment rather than do any big redundancy or privatisation. Recent article in FT suggests the wage gap between private and public sector is growing significantly. That might cause more people to leave jobs in government.
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I found the private sector to be hopelessly inefficient for government work. If anything comes in, the first thing was to refer it to the line manager to see if it was within the contract. If it was it would then be assigned to the SLA and would be scheduled to meet it and not a second earlier. It would then be assigned to someone like me but I couldn’t just go ahead and do the work, it had to enter the whole change control process which involved filling out several forms, attending a change control meeting, arguing the case for the change and whether this was actually chargeable work or not, and, once approved by the change board, the work was then assigned to an underling (often based in an overseas call centre) to actually carry out the work. This then had to be checked by me so that I could see that it had to be done and communicate it back to the originator to see that what they wanted had actually happened.
To give you an example: Someone would have been off on holiday and forgotten their password that was changed the day before their annual leave. They would be given an SLA of 7 days because that’s what it says in the contact. They would then sit twiddling their thumbs for a week whilst the outsource firm held all their meetings.
One thing I did notice is that the outsource firms would tender contracts at a loss and make up the difference by charging back all the work that didn’t fall in the contract, getting some cheap skilled labour recruitment via TUPE and then subcontracting the actual work. In my case, they often rented me back as a consultant (at extortionate rates) so I could give ministerial advice on data which was half of my original job anyway. TBH, Brexit was the kick up the arse I needed because since we moved to Germany I am vastly better paid with a fraction of the crap I had to put up with.
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That’s not unique to this government, that’s politics in general. Give it 3 weeks and we might see a story about 90k vital jobs being saved due to governmental investment in critical jobs. Yes Minister over and over again:
Over 40 years ago. The more times change the more they stay the same as Granny used to say.
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I can believe that. Budgets are still being squeezed in the public sector and we’re still outsourcing a lot. Profits need to be made and that is reflected in prices. There is also a massive resource shortage in certain areas and that is driving salaries higher.
Except, back then, lying to parliament would have been a resignation matter
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And still is. I don’t think anybody is defending BJ and I’ve repeatedly said he should be deported or hung drawn and quartered (or similar)
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Plenty of the lieing bastards have defended him, hence we are still stuck with his fat arse in charge
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We’re stuck with his fat arse in charge (well, one of the reasons) because the leader of the opposition isn’t a barrister of high legal standing capable of holding the PM to account for his utterly disgusting conduct.
He’s a fucking useless barrister of high legal standing. That’s ironic beyond belief.
Doesn’t matter who or what the leader of the opposition is though.
Any PM who is found to have lied to parlement should resign without any need from the opposition. His own party should be holding him to account but they are happy to ride along on his coattails
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I’m not and never have argued otherwise, stupid haired twat should fuck off now. What frustrates the crap out of me is that we have a leader of the opposition who can’t throw bricks at the floor.
I’m not as cut and dried on the whole lying to Parliament thing. I think he can reasonably argue that he said what he understood to be true at the time.
Where I have an issue with is the culture within Downing Street that pervades, over which he presides. He should resign given the disrepute that his office has fallen into, on his watch. He’s culpable for that.
You see, this is what I’ve always admired about the French because they’re definitely up for that shit. They have form on it.
Is it?
Boris bluffs his way through scandals that would have sunk a PM in any other time. I don’t think you can pin this on the leader of the opposition.
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I would argue it’s ideological.
The Tories are following a Republican Party mantra. Small government, deregulation, free market, greater individual liberties.
A big concern is another theme of this government is that the checks and balances have been attacked. Will be interesting to see where the cuts are.
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