Westministenders: Hey Hey we're the Monkies.

[RedToothBrush]

Welcome to the Listening Parliament.

Have you noticed it yet?

The Three Monkeys of See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil have been in a bit of a fight with didn’t fair well. Its funny how politicians of all shades and levels are desperate to prove just how good they at listening and how they see the problems.

Its quite incredible to think that officials elected to serve the public are even in this position where they are having suddenly think about how they show they are listening. It rather shows up that they have been accustomed to telling the public what to think and what to believe.

What they are still to work out, is that in saying they are listening, they also have to demonstrate they are listening and be credible.

The trouble is, that even though some of the monkeys have been killed off, we still have a lot of monkeys in parliament. 'Monkey say, Monkey do' actions still lurk. Politicians who imitate others without understanding the consequences.

There is no point in listening if you are only listening to one group and don’t understand the consequences of simply repeating the words of others.

Politicians saying they are listening when you can find dozens of incidents where they have said completely the opposition, without having the gumption to explain they have changed their position and without having the grace to explain the evidence that has lead them to change that position rather undermines the idea they are listening.

U-Turns are not a bad thing. U-Turns can show that you were making an error but were wise enough to admit that and why you were wrong. U-Turns are bad when you fail to acknowledge your failings and only do it to chase votes. This is where cynicism creeps in and lack of trust in politicians occurs.

Listening also requires actions to reflect words. There is no good in saying one thing, if your actions don’t reflect that. This is where the Listening Parliament is already failing. And I’m sure we will see it more.

Above all, listening is only part of a conversation. A politician is supposed to be accountable. They are supposed to have their eyes open to evil, not deaf to it and not unwilling to speak inconvenient truths where they recognise the evil.

Any politician who tells you they listen needs to back it up somehow. They need to demonstrate and justify their positions accurately. If they don’t they aren’t listening properly.

Isn’t it funny how it was in Hartlepool that the monkey got hung for being a Frenchman? No one was there to explain differently.

Bear in mind Cummings was preaching a soft Brexit immediately post-referendum. He billed it as being because the vote was so close, but really he started panicking then as he realised it wouldn't work.

One possible branch of the future indicating mistake is just a very pompous way of saying it's a failure now.

Quite Tatiana. Pompous and immature sums him up.

Sam Coates Times‏Verified account @SamCoatesTimes

Gosh. Look how far Boris Johnson is down the ranking for Tory activists

Lurking your point about Farage asking a different question is one I say a lot. Ask whether you are asking the right question at all. Framing a debate in an upside down way is one really good way of doing it. Start from the most basic questions and see if the wisdom that stems from that is actually true.

It's a basic principle of managing change effectively which if you go on a management course the chances are you'll come across it.

I'm not surprised it's something that's come from the lips of Farage. Farage's thing has been to ask different questions and give them a platform. The problem with him is often not so much the questions he raises but the answers he gives in response.

There was one the other day on MN. It asked for opinions on partners staying over on maternity wards and whether you agreed with it. The trouble is the framing of the question puts one group v another in which one will always be thrown under the bus. The debate should really be about asking why women feel the need for partners on wards. Followed by why are we failing vulnerable women of different groups in different ways and pitting them against each other. Why are we not providing support for both? Why is maternity care in Europe so different? The stock reply us 'because there is no money'. Yet there is plenty to say that the economic and social cost of the status quo is higher. It's about reframing learned ways of thinking as you say.

Grenfell in its horror asks lots of this type of question in a macabre way.

Brexit imo actually hasn't done this. Therein lies a point.

The stock reply us 'because there is no money'.

Except that has been shown to be a load of old bollocks now.

It's a basic principle of managing change effectively which if you go on a management course the chances are you'll come across it.

Sorry that comes across directed at you in a patronising way. It's more a point about how this principle is a popular one and well and widely taught but perhaps not well remembered or implemented. It's one that is particularly forgotten by government, as there's too much getting bogged down in ideology.

Except that has been shown to be a load of old bollocks now.

Quite.

There is always money where there is political will. A lack of money demonstrates a lack of political will.

That's the long and short of it.

I'm not surprised it's something that's come from the lips of Farage. Farage's thing has been to ask different questions and give them a platform. The problem with him is often not so much the questions he raises but the answers he gives in response.

The thing is, the only response to his question was his own. Unless I am spectacularly un (or under) informed, no one of any standing has commented on that question: "Why do we need to chase growth ?". It's almost as if any solutions have already been narrowed down to ones that generate "growth".

I don't like rigged debates - they invariably support the status quo. Like the need to prop up the economy where the only solution was to pump untold billions into the banks rather than gifting 1/10th of that amount to every citizen as £1,000 gift (which would cost what - 60 DUPs ? 3 Tridents ?).

We're back to dodgy surveys which exclude certain responses to present a result showing x% support

... and Back to Brexit

Your move.

It's a basic principle of managing change effectively which if you go on a management course the chances are you'll come across it.

The problem I have repeatedly encountered - certainly in the UK - is a total failure of anyone (except myself ?) to acknowledge that no change is still a change.

(as Rush put it:

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

)

By which I mean, if you decide that you don't need to change, then the facts and process which led to that decision need to be captured and recorded, so they can be reviewed when needed in the future.

One of the UKs perennial bugbears when it comes to industrial efficiency is the Stepford Wives we've always done it this way response. It was something I imagined would change as I "grew up", but I just find that where most thinking was set in the 1960s when I was studying, it's now set in the 1990s. Which - let's just have a head wobble - were 25 years ago.

It would be Dilbertly-amusing, but I know one company that lost millions (and may yet still fold) because they clung on to "industry wisdom" which turned out to be (word of the day) absolute bollocks.

(Interestingly, the problem they had foreshadowed what's happening in political demographics now ... a presumption that people of a certain age years ago would grow to be people of that certain age+ today. But they didn't. The feckers changed - and took their lolly with them ....)

to acknowledge that no change is still a change.

Or 'no change' can be an active choice - if you review the facts and decide that the status quo is the better option for now. This is very much not the same as sticking your head in the sand and saying you don't like change, and allowing things to drift.

The 'its the way it's always been done and that's how we like it' mentality is ingrained in a large proportion of Brexit supporters. It's a fundamental paradox.

The protest vote for Brexit who wanted change was limited in its influence and restricted to those outside privileged positions.

Leave voters by their nature by and large don't like change.

The problem is their inability to realise that change has already happened making it impossible to return to the set of conditions they like. You can't change things backward no matter how hard you try.

It's therefore difficult to see how they will like ANY further changes that Brexit forces (for good or bad) in trying to reform and return to a Britain that never was.

One of the UKs perennial bugbears when it comes to industrial efficiency is the Stepford Wives we've always done it this way response.

You can add - " we tried that before and it didn't work." Whereas what is needed is the analysis of why it didn't work. Circumstances which were against that change last time, might not be now.

A propos the new gameplaying with actors from NI by the Con's.

This is interesting. It is about a banner honouring the killer(s) of the Miami Showband. They were a music band who were returning home from a gig. It wasn't too long ago that a nearly empty Westminster parliament was treated to a speech by a DUP'er eulogizing on how wunderbar the UDR were. Most places it would have been the state arming a partisan group to go get. Easy route and contacts for paramilitaries and handy collusion in cover-up or tampering with evidence. The person who took down the first banner honouring the UVF was charged with theft. Although the UVF, some were also members of the UDR and they used these contacts as a conduit.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/replacement-banner-paying-tribute-to-uvf-murderer-in-co-tyrone-village-is-legal-psni-35892278.html

"The band was travelling home to Dublin late at night after a performance in Banbridge. Halfway to Newry, their minibus was stopped at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, where gunmen in British Army uniforms ordered them to line up by the roadside. At least four of the gunmen were serving soldiers from the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) but, unbeknownst to the band, all were members of the UVF. While two of the gunmen (both soldiers) were hiding a time bomb on the minibus, it exploded prematurely and killed them. The other gunmen then opened fire on the dazed band members, killing three and wounding two. It is believed the bomb was meant to explode en route, killing the band and framing them as IRA bomb-smugglers, and possibly leading to stricter security measures at the border.

Two serving British soldiers and one former British soldier were found guilty of the murders and received life sentences; they were released in 1998. Those responsible for the attack belonged to the Glenanne gang; a secret alliance of loyalist militants, rogue police officers and British soldiers. There are also allegations that British military intelligence agents were involved. According to former Intelligence Corps agent Captain Fred Holroyd, the killings were organised by British intelligence officer Robert Nairac, together with the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade and its commander Robin "The Jackal" Jackson." All above from Wiki.

There has been a lot of killing in NI. One expects the state
to uphold the law, though. And treat it's citizens equally. Even if there was immunity from prosecution for the murders, the public acknowledgement (and apology) that there was a dirty state element in other killings might at least make it less frustrating for the families of their victims. The state was not neutral in NI. Going that way again, maybe? The EU were at least regarded as a neutral honest broker with funding. I think everyone seems to forget (or maybe don't like, thinking of Gove) what progress has been achieved when they drive a coach and horses through the power sharing balance.

It seems that these Con's will have achieved is to get the UK out of the Single Market (Thatcher's particular 'reve humide') and mindlessly meddle with progress in NI.

...if I might add to that, the issue for me is that the individuals/government should take responsibility and be held accountable for the "no change" option. It's all too easy to shy away from change, merely because status quo is seen and felt to be the "no risk" option since doing nothing is not linked to the consequence of failure/penalty in the same way as consequence of an 'active" mistake. Likewise success/reward.

I'm of the mindset that we needed some sort of political wake up call and if it wasn't Brexit it would have been something else. It's not so much about the EU as political problems in the UK though. Plus the EU thing would have rumbled on and on and not allowed us to get past that. I don't like where we are but I also get a sense that in order to stay in there was also an inevitably to the ref too. So we could make a positive decision about the benefits of the EU.

In that ratings by Tory activists, which pain posted :
Even if they've rumbled Bojo - DD has stratospheric rating; Fox, Gove also have high ratings
Why ?

You can add - " we tried that before and it didn't work." Whereas what is needed is the analysis of why it didn't work. Circumstances which were against that change last time, might not be now.

Yes, thanks .

The challenge to that is "show me the metrics from then, so we can re run them with todays figures".

No metrics: I call bullshit. And I would.

...if I might add to that, the issue for me is that the individuals/government should take responsibility and be held accountable for the "no change" option. It's all too easy to shy away from change, merely because status quo is seen and felt to be the "no risk" option since doing nothing is not linked to the consequence of failure/penalty in the same way as consequence of an 'active" mistake. Likewise success/reward.

UK drugs policy anyone ?

We're hitting all my bugbears today .

Another bugbear is how we allow governments to get away with making changes that have absolutely no preset metric of success or failure (not that industry is immune to that). The upshot of which is anything can be considered a "failure" or a success by just applying a different set of criteria after the event.

Let's return to UK drugs policy (for example). What's the point ?????. By which I mean, what are we measuring to determine if it's working or not ?

Luckily, the UK doesn't do evidence based policy, so no one really cares anyway.

Remember the Bedroom Tax ? It was supposed to save money (not that anyone really believed that). Since it hasn't, why isn't it consigned to the dustbin of history ?

(To be fair, that last question presupposes that "the dustbin of history" is an endless resource. It may not be, and any new rubbish needs to go on top of Theresa May, and - ultimately - Brexit).

Isn't it interesting how the City seem to have lost all faith that the British Gov't to negotiate for them and are reported to be bypassing them?

I heard France are going to set up English speaking courts with Common Law as their basis. Also Germany making noises about tweaking things to attract business.

EMA outlining their guidance on what Brexit means for the health product and pharma industry.

www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Other/2017/05/WC500228739.pdf

On exit, medicinal products will be imported products and will have to undergo full qualitative analysis, some quantitative analysis on at least active ingredients and quality analysis. This will be a few grand a pop.

www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/general/general_content_001707.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac0580a809a7

The financial sector won't be just able to have an EU office with a nameplate. They will be starting out in the EU again. There be more stringent rules to follow (after the crash). I'd imagine they may soon be asking themselves as to why they are keeping a UK office as well. The EU27 may not have everything in place or be big enough players right now. They will be more than happy to evolve.

It is incredible how the relative tiny anti EU actives have driven the country to this place. A couple of years ago, people were quite happy going about their business. The EU did not figure as a problem in their lives. It was a framework within which they happily conducted business.

Oh, that generation demographic thing ?

I suspect that another effect is upcoming generations are far more disposed towards coalitions, or a more flexible approach to politics. Savvy politicians will run with this, while unsavvy ones will just go back to their parties and roar "we need to be more

Those who wanted change via Brexit had very different aims, which aren't compatible:

• Some of those left behind in our economy just wanted to stop austerity and to have a better standard of living.

• Some just saw it as a chance to protest at Cameron and also every shit thing in their own lives.

• Others wanted to return to a white Britain which they feel had more authority in the world - typically comfortably off pensioners, who no longer have to worry about earning a living and have no idea how tough it is for the young

• The "elite" and the ideologues just saw the chance to rule over a low tax, low regulation tax haven and sweep away the remnants of the welfare state

• some on the right have always hated that the Tories, in order to win GEs, had to accept the Welfare State and NHS brought in by the 1945-1951 Labour govt. That minority view has continued in the Tory, waiting for the opportunity to turn the clock back to pre-WW2

There be more stringent rules to follow (after the crash)

Have you seen Solvency II ?!

(shudders)

I'm of the mindset that we needed some sort of political wake up call and if it wasn't Brexit it would have been something else.

Well, it ought to be a political wake up call. I don't see any awakening as yet from the political class. What was the real reason for the anti-EU vote? Austerity and neglect of the regions must have played a large part, but most parties are loathe to admit that and they are certainly not doing anything to address it. Money for the NHS comes under austerity - if the will had been there the money would have been found for it.

I read somewhere about some little EE country that is offering an EU "home office" to UK firms for a ridiculously low sum of £100 annually.
Apparently they had a flood of takers at that price , just on the off chance that it would work