Failures of UK Government Machine Not Confined to War

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  • aka Calum Da Jazbo
    Late member
    • Nov 2010
    • 9173

    Failures of UK Government Machine Not Confined to War

    Chatham House view on Iraq and Afghanistan

    imv Incoherence, inconsistency and opacity and not restricted to the MoD, nor the Blair era but rather characterise the entire machinery of Government ... pace Mr Gove; Energy; Justice; Transport; NHS inter alia

    oh yes and where did Chilcott end up ..... locked away still!
    According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
  • Serial_Apologist
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 37559

    #2
    Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post
    Chatham House view on Iraq and Afghanistan

    imv Incoherence, inconsistency and opacity and not restricted to the MoD, nor the Blair era but rather characterise the entire machinery of Government ... pace Mr Gove; Energy; Justice; Transport; NHS inter alia

    oh yes and where did Chilcott end up ..... locked away still!
    My thoughts echoed entirely, Calum.

    When I find myself cheering Ed Miliband on for tackling Cameron's hypocrisy over this Co-op affair without using that whiny voice, things must have reached a pretty pass...

    Comment

    • amateur51

      #3
      I found it interesting that the Chatham House report apparently quotes evidence from Chilcot - so perhaps this is how the unpublishable report's findings will be played out to us, piecemeal in others' documents? A scandal either way.

      The Chatham House report certainly looks to be worth reading in full.

      I hope somebody somewhere uses it as a vehicle through which to re-open the whole Blair/Bush and Iraq business, so that neither they nor Cheney, nor Wolfowitz nor Campbell nor Rumsfeldt nor Powell can rest easy. Yesterday there were 82 civilian deaths in Iraq; the current total stands at at least 115,000 civilans dead since 2003.

      Comment

      • mercia
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 8920

        #4
        Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
        this Co-op affair
        yes its a shame Rev Flowers's activities weren't nipped in the bud earlier, but at least he has been uprooted now
        I ought to write headlines for The Sun
        Last edited by mercia; 22-11-13, 07:59.

        Comment

        • ahinton
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 16122

          #5
          Originally posted by mercia View Post
          yes its a shame Rev Flowers's activities weren't nipped in the bud earlier, but at least he has been uprooted now
          I ought to write headlines for The Sun
          You didn't mention deflowering...

          Comment

          • Richard Barrett

            #6
            Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
            I hope somebody somewhere uses it as a vehicle through which to re-open the whole Blair/Bush and Iraq business
            But don't you think it comes across to some extent as exonerating Blair himself and blaming the way the government/media/military triangle functions in the UK?

            In 2002–03, Britain decided to make a ground force contribution to the invasion of Iraq, with implicit responsibility for post-war security in that country’s southern provinces, primarily because politicians feared they would have problems with the British army if it was left out, and that these problems would find their way into the media.

            Primarily? I can't believe that. Surely it has a lot more to do with US/UK relations and the wish to share in the profits of war?

            Comment

            • aka Calum Da Jazbo
              Late member
              • Nov 2010
              • 9173

              #7
              i prefer the phrase the spoils of war

              the British Army was deeply humiliated by its ineffectiveness in Iraq, not often mentioned that .... even Portillo wrote about the severity of the reputational damage it brought upon itself

              but my point is that the entire government machine, not just the military, is bust and that the Chatham House study fails to see that the whole machine is rotten through and through and the military is bound to be a failure since our entire machine is a failure ...
              According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

              Comment

              • amateur51

                #8
                Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                But don't you think it comes across to some extent as exonerating Blair himself and blaming the way the government/media/military triangle functions in the UK?

                In 2002–03, Britain decided to make a ground force contribution to the invasion of Iraq, with implicit responsibility for post-war security in that country’s southern provinces, primarily because politicians feared they would have problems with the British army if it was left out, and that these problems would find their way into the media.

                Primarily? I can't believe that. Surely it has a lot more to do with US/UK relations and the wish to share in the profits of war?
                Well exonerating only in that it reveals our political class as being hopelessly ill-prepared for the enormity of the tasks facing them these days when they get into office, and the Civil Service as being way out of its depth since its roles have been muddied and muddled with the arrival en masse of unelected 'special advisers'.

                With apologies in advance to those worthy members of the legal profession on the Board, i do think that the mix of political ambition and legal training is often potent and dangerous.

                Comment

                • ahinton
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 16122

                  #9
                  Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
                  Well exonerating only in that it reveals our political class as being hopelessly ill-prepared for the enormity of the tasks facing them these days when they get into office, and the Civil Service as being way out of its depth since its roles have been muddied and muddled with the arrival en masse of unelected 'special advisers'.

                  With apologies in advance to those worthy members of the legal profession on the Board, I do think that the mix of political ambition and legal training is often potent and dangerous.
                  I think that both you and Richard have very valid points here. What is most worrying (to me, at least) is that, unless and until Chilcot is completed without interference or hindrance and the results published in full without redaction or reduction, the question of the extent and nature of Mr Blair's widely alleged guilt may never fully come to the surface and put to the test in public; the obvious danger of this is that, if indeed he is guilty, he might never be charged, tried and found to be so. That this is the case in tgerms of the Iraq invasion is made all the more dismaying in the light of the gung-ho attitudes that have led to similar and considerably more protracted involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan which should likewise be open to legal challenge.

                  Comment

                  • teamsaint
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 25190

                    #10
                    Doesn't the discrediting of the government machine, and "Government " in general, (even down to an inability to run the armed forces properly) fit in rather nicely with the neo con agenda?
                    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                    I am not a number, I am a free man.

                    Comment

                    • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                      Late member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 9173

                      #11
                      er no i want a better working effective government apparatus not a small state a la the posh boys, or a nonentity a la Tea Party; the left has had an undiluted and uncritical loyalty to rotten state systems and it is time to own up and argue for better systems of governing and public services delivery

                      the whole hegemony of the British Ruling System; Monarchy, class, Oxbridge, Whitehall &c is rotten, suffused with a self seeking careerist elite, a false managerialist creed, and stuffed full of gangsters in designer suits telling David Brent clones what not to do ...

                      see also



                      and

                      Last edited by aka Calum Da Jazbo; 22-11-13, 14:06.
                      According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                      Comment

                      • teamsaint
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 25190

                        #12
                        Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post
                        er no i want a better working effective government apparatus not a small state a la the posh boys, or a nonentity a la Tea Party; the left has had an undiluted and uncritical loyalty to rotten state systems and it is time to own up and argue for better systems of governing and public services delivery

                        the whole hegemony of the British Ruling System; Monarchy, class, Oxbridge, Whitehall &c is rotten, suffused with a self seeking careerist elite, a false managerialist creed, and stuffed full of gangsters in designer suits telling David Brent clones what not to do ...
                        I wasn't suggesting that it was a good thing, only that it fits in nicely with Neo con agendas.
                        Or were you replying to somebody else?
                        I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                        I am not a number, I am a free man.

                        Comment

                        • amateur51

                          #13
                          A long-retired civil servant tells me that this book reads rather well from his recollections of life in the DHSS..



                          So there's some non-war-related evidence ...

                          Comment

                          • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                            Late member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 9173

                            #14
                            sorry teamsaint i was replying to you but not reading you aright ...
                            According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                            Comment

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