Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

Custard T Yup I was moved into a series of agile teams in the 1990s. Specialists bought together from all over the organisation with the skills and knowledge to advance specific projects and given the necessary resources to do it . In several cases investment bankers, lawyers, consultants (on one occasion McKinseys) and civil servants were brought into teams as well. Strangely enough the Civil Servants coped just fine, as I recall they were fiercely bright, commercially aware and forward thinking and made a very useful contribution..... and they were not the ones who asked me to make the tea either

And I can't remember any of them ever mentioning Lacan......

Interesting analysis here of the fact that a significant cause of churn is the Austerity pay freeze slaps forehead
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50982413

I thought I remembered there was an odd story attached to his name:

A few years ago, Servotka had to have a heart transplant, after apparently contracting a virus from his dog !
Good to read he recovered so well and is back at work

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/08/mark-serwotka-heart-transplant-papworth

Cummings' role reminds me of the malign influence of Rasputin in Tsarist Russia

There also appears to be parallels with the rise and influence of certain (both elected and unelected) individuals in the 30s, with terrifying consequences

I had thought of Rasputin too.

His obsession with space would be endearing in an eccentric bloke down the pub who always wanted to be an astronaut

but not so great for the person pulling the PM's strings

He does seem unhinged

Also parallels with Bob Macnamara applying Quantitative analysis to military procurement and recommending the development of overweight aircraft that were jacks of all trades and masters of none, shot out of the skies by the Vietnamese MiGs until they put the gun back Bob had deemed un-necessary because of whizzy hi-tech missiles that failed around 50% of the time.

Macnamara's disasterous Vietnam policies were often the product of GiGo, with rosy assessments supplied to keep him happy. Famously, 'Anyone who's dead is VC.'

The irony of it all was Bob's ideas came from Ford Motor Co, who got them in the first place from .....the US Military. Bob was re-inventing the wheel, and making it triangular.

Also parallels with Bob Macnamara applying Quantitative analysis to military procurement and recommending the development of overweight aircraft that were jacks of all trades and masters of none

I cannot recommend "Pentagon Wars" highly enough to this threads regulars ... (who have probably seen it ...)

I really like history and also see it as'pivotal' to all our understandings of now. I also like now, looking forwards, finding new ways but am also happy to jump ship and out of the mud when new ways get stuck in the mud.

I'm pretty certain that many of us posters on this thread and elsewhere will find ourselves coalescing, distancing and regrouping along more issue-based lines.

The 'progressive' vote has existed since before most could even vote. It has only had a very narrow option of voting choices to choose from so far. No political party so far defines it and probably never will. The real Progressive Vote lies in non-party Politics - my own choice is pure Independents only.

Well, I got a warning for daring to point out The Other Place consists of about three posters, back slapping and forming vigilante blocks against dissent.

Apparently that was 'bullying'.

Personally I don't care. I just scroll on by those who try and goad on here.

Tho I don't get it. They won, so why the picking away at it?? Could it be some now recognise their Pyrrhic victory? 🤔

Anyway, whatever. Thanks to RTB, and others, again for the in depth analyses.

OMG, somebody give me a shake .....
I feel sorry for Boris Johnson
(a) he was a shit foreign secretary and always said the wrong thing
(b) he is safely away from the media
(c) Raab seems to have said the right thing
(d) NOTHING would be gained by him cutting short his holiday
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/boris-johnson-attacked-for-silence-on-iran-assassination
(e) His critics know all of that extra well and just want him to mess up

pmk

Keeping quiet, instead of rushing to endorse the assassination, is actually sensible for once
Condemning the US would also be unwise

I hope the govt remains stumm

From that article:

In a sign of irritation that the UK had not already expressed its support for the US,
Pompeo on Friday said the Europeans, including “the Brits”, “[had]n’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be”

This is one occasion when BJ being a lazy bastard actually works well for the country

The last thing the world needs now is him blundering around
He's shown with Nazanin he knows fuck all about Iran and would just make things worse

The word would definitely be a safer place if Trump also buggered off to be lazy somewhere

Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt [Tory said the US was playing a risky game.

“It’s an incredibly dangerous game of chicken going on because both sides have calculated that the other side cannot afford and doesn’t want to go to war ....

“So they are doing increasingly extreme things, not just the assassination of Suleimani … the bombing of the Saudi oil facility last September is another example.

It is true neither side wants to go to war but it’s also true that both sides are compelled to react when things like this happen.

That is the risk in this situation.”

< happy 2020 indeed >

Meanwhile, look what's been happening in elections .... in 68 countries

Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/04/cambridge-analytica-data-leak-global-election-manipulation

More than 100,000 documents relating to work in 68 countries that will lay bare the global infrastructure of an operation used to manipulate voters on “an industrial scale”
is set to be released over the next months.

It comes as Christopher Steele, the ex-head of MI6’s Russia desk and the intelligence expert behind the so-called “Steele dossier” into Trump’s relationship with Russia,
said that while the company had closed down,

the failure to properly punish bad actors meant that
the prospects for manipulation of the US election this year were even worse

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/04/britain-sends-warships-persian-gulf-protect-citizens-wake-qassim/

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/holidaying-boris-johnsons-four-letter-21215544

Straits of Hormuz... may God sail with our Navy then. (Navy brat here, it's close to my heart). I seem to remember just in the last few months various attacks on UK shipping with RN involvement in defence.

TBF if I was BJ and someone had phoned me with the QS news, Fuck would have probably been the first word on my lips. But also FUCK when I found out that villa could cost £20k a week.

Unfortunately 'agile' is a religion - if it fails you mustn't have employed true believers.
it works fine for relatively small scope stuff - it's hopeless for big change - anything big enough to need architecting / significant people impacts.
There are a number of serious agile catastrophes in public and private sectors with some evil failures about to be explained away.
if you research agile success stories you'll see that they all talk about successful implementation of agile - not successful delivery of anything.

We do python and agile. Small team. Works well. Interestingly my old boss (who was a narcissistic twat and nearly drove me to a breakdown) would probably read that job description and love it.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/sas-sent-iraq-evacuate-brits-21214445?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

fuck gribbie...

Yeah, fuck does seems to be an apt response - something I actually agree with BoJo about - hey, maybe the divide is healing over swear words.

At least they seem to be attempting to get uk citizens out. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1213593965838163968?s=21

Can I say double fuck now? I think he’s actually insane

Belated PMK, well 2020’s going well so far - thank God I’m not doing dry January!