British values

@hippyjoe1955 Duffield has always been at odds with the leadership of the party since elected. She was never expected to ever win in Canterbury so she was never a choice for mp they'd have made. It's a surprise she made it this far.

@hippyjoe1955 There is much scrutiny of him in the press (as there should be) but no real threat to his position. He appeals to a broad wing of his party and has a proven track record as a competent public servant (which is why the right wing press loathes him). The parliamentary majority is huge. Before Rosie Duffield went independent, the parliamentary party had suspended another 7 MPs for not toeing the line. Numbers will not be a problem for the government.

@SunshineGirl yeah the last thing you want in government is a bureaucrat.

@hippyjoe1955 he is just another scrote, like the rest of them. Helped waste away julian assange, member of the tri-lateral commission (think he stopped in 2022 but not too sure on that), people should look into his connections (and other labour stalwarts) to PIE.

And funny immigrants are mentioned because old kier starmer found "not enough evidence" to look further into the police when they murdered jean charles menzes in the back.

@hippyjoe1955 SunshineGirl said Sir Keir Starmer was a "competent civil servant" (before he entered politics).

Although she did not state his department or role, she did not call him a "bureaucrat".

There is a big difference!

@ArishMell If you were in the bureaucracy you are a bureaucrat. There is no difference. If you were a bureaucrat you should never be elected to office.

@hippyjoe1955 He was Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service and was knighted for his services. Because of the requirement for civil servants to be politically neutral, few seek political office. They bring with them the obvious advantage thay they actually know how government works and they often have good technical skills and a strong public service ethos. Contrast Starmer's background with those of the past four prime ministers: Sunak (investment banker/hedge fund manager); Truss (accountant); May (financial consultant); Cameron (political communications) . . I think most people would regard his pre-political career as making him the person best equipped for public office.

@SunshineGirl The last one you want running a government is a former bureaucrat. Full STOP! Not defending any of the other PMs you have had but the worst possible PM is a former civil servant.

@SunshineGirl I agree!

Incidentally I was a civil-servant, but for only about ten years before Tony Blair's lot sold us off cheap!

I won't say in what role or where but it was at a very modest level, initially Industrial and later Scientific grade, in the same agency; and that ethos of neutrality and service permeated the entire profession.

So when first the Conservative then Labour governments started dismantling huge chunks of the public services - cutting them drastically, selling them off abroad to any old spivs going or just destroying them - I don't suppose I was the only one who felt not only betrayed but, as we were not in the public eye like DHSS, NHS or school staff, also as easy targets for budget-cutting based on cost not value; certainly not on understanding the work of the various agencies.

I don't know what HippyJoe bases his plea on, nor his inability to differentiate a bureaucrat from an administrator (or come to that, from a lawyer or accountant, a scientist or a chartered engineer, a cleaner or a crane-driver, but all still within the Civil Service) so can only guess he is reflecting what he sees as his own country's experience.

Although David Cameron was the best placed out of that list you give, generally the ones I feel least qualified for senior political office are the money-traders, lawyers and the so-called "career politicians". These last gain a Degree in something like politics and economics, work for some years in their favoured political-party's head office then stand for Parliament. Though they gain considerable experience in party-politics' support roles so understand how Government and Parliament work, they have not had "real" experience in any of the trades and professions they develop policies and regulations for, whether in the public service or in trade and industry; at senior level or "on the shop-floor".

I was the latter, in both the public service and trade companies for which I worked, but I could not have become even a local councillor, and these days politics is becoming an ever more thankless, and sometimes even dangerous, profession!

@ArishMell So you can't figure out that the last person you want in government is a government employment. The rest of your drivel is just that drivel. As I learned in the military and as my very successful mother in law told me. Its not what you know that gets you promoted its who you know so long as you don't make you superior look bad. It has nothing to do with understanding the world around you and how it works.

@hippyjoe1955 Insults don't help...

I do not know how your country's government and military work, but in the UK you can not simply go from any Civil Service employment - of any profession at any level - straight into high-level politics.

It is one profession or the other: you have to give up the Civil Service work before you can stand for election, and that is as an ordinary Member of Parliament. A long way, and possibly a long time, from becoming the leader of your Party.

You can be promoted, in either profession, but you cannot just go from one to a high-level post in the other; and in fact there are quite strict rules on going the other way, too, from Ministerial-level political to private work. Whether they always work as they should, is another matter, but at least they do exist.

As for undue promotion or appointment, that can happen anywhere, and is far more likely in private businesses where there is far less oversight and regulation.

Your use of "bureaucrat" suggests only that you and you Mum-in-law despise the Civil Service in your own country, merely for being a public service, irrespective of what it does and what trades, professions, knowledge, experience and dedication I would hope it covers. Including those which supported your military career and the civilian public services you and her depend on in one way or another.

@ArishMell Bureaucrat is the common name for members of the bureaucracy. We don't try to dress it up. My mother in law was the head of her department and worked directly for her minister. She went in with an agenda and she worked her way to bring about her agenda.

@hippyjoe1955 I don't "dress up" bureaucracies.

I do not regard the majority of civil-service bodies as bureaucracies though - and they work according to the policies and laws set by governments.

Nor do I regard the majority of civil-servants as "bureaucrats". Many of them are not actually administrators, either, because the civil-service includes all sort of trades and professions.

I don't know why or how your mother-in-law managed to direct policy, but although the minister may have had to rely on her advice he or she should have been directed by the politicians, not the advisors or administrators unless given the power and authority to work that way round.

@ArishMell Your opinion on bureaucrats and a couple of bucks will buy you a cup of coffee at McDonalds. Bureaucrats must be limited both in number and in power. They are not to be trusted with anything. Look at the mess they made of COVID and the untold deaths they have caused.

@hippyjoe1955 That was politicians, not the people you sneer at as "bureaucrats", who made the mistakes. The scientists and doctors did their best to advise them but it was down to politicians to make the decisions.

My Dad was a Chartered Electrical Engineer who retired after years as a "Senior Scientific Officer" in a Ministry of Defence research establishment. Does that mean he was a bureaucrat?

Was another member of our family, when one of the civilian staff of a Royal Navy base, a bureaucrat?

Are the people who pay my State Pension into my bank account, bureaucrats?

Was a friend, as the IT manager of a government-owned horticultural laboratory, a bureaucrat?

I have known storekeepers, crane-drivers, skilled engineering craftspeople, working in the public service. Are or were they all bureaucrats?

According to you they must be, because they were all Civil Servants.


I don't know why you as a former State employee, are so bitterly dismissive of all other State employees.

I do know we live in different countries so perhaps your motive is something at fault in your own nation's experience, or just in your personal experience, but that is for you to judge. You cannot apply it to all State employees even in your own land, never mind foreign lands.

Even though no humanly-established system, in any country, can ever be perfect 100%, for 100% of the time. Only we tend only to hear about it when things go wrong, never when it all works reasonably smoothly as it does most of the time.

@ArishMell were they employed by the government? If so they are a bureaucrat. You know bureaucrats. The guys who tell the politics what to do. Yes the bureaucrats have killed a lot of people with covid. What's more they would like to keep in killing. The bureaucrats also were the cause of the war in Ukraine.

@hippyjoe1955 Yes they were employed by the Government - as employees of State-run bodies, but none of them tell the Government what to do.

That does not make them - and for a time, me - "bureaucrats". The idea that a tug crew-man or a crane-driver or a professional electrical-engineer or a pensions administrator can dictate to ministers would be laughable if it were not part of your bitter, purely gratuitous insulting of people who are only doing normal, quite ordinary work.

The Government does have many senior-level advisors, from the civil-service, academia and commerce - but whether the politicians always take their advice is another matter.

Maybe your accusation of the civil-service dictating policy is true in Canada, but it certainly is not in the UK, even at high level where politicians seem to prefer to do their own thing irrespective of any advice from anyone.

In any case, you seem unable to grasp that there are very, very few civil-servants who are even in such a high position. The vast majority are just ordinary staff members.

@hippyjoe1955 kier Starmers manifesto is a cruel stab on the back to pensioners. If the British could revote now ,the Conservatives would wim by a landslide result.

@hippyjoe1955 What sort of career background do you think is the best preparation for political office?

@hippyjoe1955
In the UK, the term civil servant applies to a small number of people who directly serve a ministerial department, and a larger number of people who perform statutory functions that are too complex, sensitive or unprofitable to be farmed out to the private sector. They are generally technical experts and they are carrying out specific functions mandated by parliament. If you cut them back you directly impact public services and frustrate the democratic will.

@SunshineGirl here in Canada if you work for the government you are a bureaucrat unless you are in the military.

@SunshineGirl There are two other reasons why we need such services.

One is that they are "public services" - serving the public at large though not always obviously, so cannot make a profit in any sensible way, almost by definition. That is not their purpose although some might do so; and then what is not kept for internal investment goes to the Treasury.

If you contract or sell such a service to a commercial company you have to add a profit element lost in dividends and "bonuses" to the cost - and there is little control on what the directors are paid, nor who owns it. The directors, and many other staff, of private companies are often paid more than their State equivalents.

If you go further and sell it to foreign "investors" this merely gives tax-payers' money away out of the country, draining the nation's wealth and losing even more control over the service's ownership and activities.


The other reason is that of impartiality - though I accept you might already have covered that in "sensitive", and the two qualities can and often do overlap.

Although at the behest of successive governments' policies, and answerable to Ministers and Parliament, the UK's Civil Service has always striven to maintain, and be proud of, its separation from both politics and commerce.

......

There is also an advantage for the staff. Although their pay has been kept down for years by successive governments until everyone wonders why they are complaining now, Civil Service departments and agencies generally do obey employment-protection, health-&-safety, environmental and other corporate laws; and usually have better "industrial relations" than many commercial companies.

@ArishMell Always a hoot when bureaucrats or ex bureaucrats think they have to justify their existence by how important they imagine their job to be. Most of those jobs would be done much more efficiently and much less expensively if the private sector was doing the job.

@ArishMell You don't need to convince me, my 5 years at the Treasury was the most satisfying and engaging work I have ever done 🙂 Unfortunately we cannot pay the mortgage on two public sector salaries, so I have had to look for greater financial reward.

Most government departments are model.employers and years ahead of the private sector in terms of innovation and employee relations.