posted 19 Feb 2015, 05:33 by Peter Webb
‘Wolf Hall’ reminds us that
William Tyndale suffered a heretic’s fate for translating the bible into
English for the common people to read. Today Cardinal Osborne doesn’t know how
to describe the nation's financial situation. The
deficit in the ‘national accounts’ for 2012-13 was £85bn. In the conventionally
prepared but audit qualified and very late Whole Government Accounts it was
£179bn. That is a big difference. His Treasury has long been
all at sea and he can’t seem to see that. In that sense how unreal and
terrifying is politicians’ talk of "austerity” as if a policy choice and for-ever deferred
deficit elimination. And they wonder why we don’t want
to give any of them a resounding vote of confidence…….. With the General election approaching and an ever more certain
view of the need for government to repair itself:
- 1.
Government
continues in the stone age with today’s political parties centre stage. They
are secret societies because not themselves accountable or interested in
governance, managerial competence, accountability process and voter engagement
and servicing. They take us for fools.
- 2.
The senior civil
service has grown apart from modern needs and while it is being tackled as such
it is not much use if ‘truth’ spoken to power is enhanced unless
‘power’ is also enhancing its ability to employ ‘truth’.
- 3.
The State runs
without a proper financial system and cannot even decide what the deficit is.
- 4.
There is a pervasive
culture of extended decision - execution - feedback - response time which results in re-direction and correction later rather than sooner which will be costing us undiscovered £billions.
- 5.
The government to
citizen relationship is medieval.
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