Failures of UK Government Machine Not Confined to War

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

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!

[Serial_Apologist]

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...

[amateur51]

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.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

[mercia]

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

[ahinton]

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...

[Richard Barrett]

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?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

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 ...

[amateur51]

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.

[ahinton]

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.

[teamsaint]

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?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

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

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?8641-The-Case-For-Our-State

and

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?8904-the-gangsters-win-because-the-state-is-corrupt

[teamsaint]

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?

[amateur51]

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

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blunders-Our-Governments-Anthony-King/dp/1780742665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385145448&sr=1-1&keywords=Anthony+King

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

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

sorry teamsaint i was replying to you but not reading you aright ...