REQUIRED: PEOPLE WITH VISION AND IMAGINATION

There is a program on Radio Four under the title “More Or Less” which is at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00146b6

The notes relating to this particular broadcast are as follows:

Released On: 09 Feb 2022 - Available for over a year - Boris Johnson has been ticked off for misleading Parliament on jobs and on crime. He claimed that the number of people in employment has been rising - when it’s been falling. And he made a claim that crime has fallen - when it’s risen. We discuss the truth, and what Parliament can do to defend it.

It is worth a listen to. In effect it comes back to the Seven Principles of Public Life, and the Ministerial Code, that a Member of Parliament must not mislead the House. Mr Johnson has done so on a number of occasions. Despite having been informed of his false claims, and exactly why he is in error, he continues to repeat his falsehoods. He does not seem to care at all, so long as he can bluster about playing the bullish and up beat Prime Minister. He carries on as of nothing has happened. More tragically those on the benches behind him seem to be doing the same. What it is taking so long for the Conservative Party to develop some selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness and honesty when it comes to leadership? It is beyond me, or anyone else for that matter.

Fresh photographs from the Police investigation seem to have no effect whatever.  This is not word of mouth evidence; this is factual documentation of wrongdoing. I presume they are operating on the Lenny Bruce advice to cheating partner’s defence: 

“Even if they’ve got pictures deny it. Just say – we were just lying down next to each other to see who was taller”

What is apparent and clear, the longer this goes on, the more damaging it becomes.  One now has the spectacle of a Prime Minister seeking to promote himself on the world stage, together with his absurd choice of Foreign Secretary, both of whom have been ridiculed, in particular by Russia, and generally around the world. It is not as if their antics are unknown, what with headlines in Russian newspapers “Bye Bye Boris” and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, referring to Liz Truss’s effort as mere slogans and like having a conversation ‘of the mute with the deaf’.  This charade of a government is subject to serious ridicule across the globe. The pretence of a ‘Great Britain’ has long been blown with a leadership being propped up by a party that has lost all sense of reality, decency and connection with truth.

 

 

A government that demands respect, must uphold the basic tenets of its corps values. This is something the current Conservative Government have singularly failed to do. It sidesteps and obfuscates any legitimate calling to account, and proclaims they are getting on with the job, a job they are manifestly incapable of doing.

 

Mr. Johnson should take the hint and the example of Ms Cressida Dick. The Commissioner made a classic mistake of totally believing in the incorruptibility of her police force. She was well liked by her officers because she let them get on with the job and backed them all the way. She felt the glitches were just ‘bad apples’ which she could do little about. Like most commanders, she was of the view that she could protect her men and belief in the force.  They would do their job; they know what they’re doing. The blips are just rare occurrences. She trusted her officers. She has come to realise that some blips are fatal to the security of the organisation. 

Her job was to protect the public, not the force. Her job was to ensure that the force was educated, trained, fit and dedicated to protecting the public. She was to see to it that the people under her watch were doing their job based, primarily, on the same Seven Principles of Public Life, with the addition of Patience, Understanding and Professionalism. Being a Police Officer is not easy. It requires serious training, given the responsibility it entails. She forgot what she was meant to be concentrating on. Protecting the public requires equal treatment of every member of the public. A scrupulous adherence to honesty and a complete and thorough lack of prejudice of any kind.

 

Ms Dick resigned because she failed to provide the structure to revitalise a police department that is bordering on complacency and lacking the internal determination to keep its officers up to the mark. She was too much concerned with Public Relations than in a relationship with the public, and so trust eroded. It’s not in the image, it’s in the doing. She was not helped by a home office that is equally obsessed with public relations.  Appearing to be tough on crime and legislating for greater powers for the police, is not solving the social issues that create crime. Such repressive action only alienates those who come into contact with the officers on the ground who are insufficiently trained to deal with the public in general.  

 

So now we have Ms Priti Patel, a classic example of someone ill-suited to the job, deciding on who will be her replacement.  Given her makeup she will be looking for a hard liner, not a person with the skills and imagination to restructure and rebuild a force trusted and accessible to the citizen. Rebuilding trust is not just about, stop and search and arresting people. Arresting people is not stopping crime. It follows that if you stop crime you are arresting fewer people; but, it is up to the police force to enforce the law and protect the public, whilst is up to the civilian authority, the respective elected representatives, to create the conditions that reduce the commission of crime, not the other way round.

 

So Boris Johnson continually repeating that crime is on the decrease, when in fact it has increased by spectacular figures as regards fraud and dishonesty, is misleading Parliament and the public. For that alone he should resign.

 

When Members of Parliament stop concentrating on their careers and concentrate of actually doing their job, then perhaps something will be achieved. The first thing they can do is enforce the seven principles and codes of conduct of members and insist on the resignation of the current incumbent at number 10. They must find people, amongst their ranks, with the imagination and vision to bring a floundering country back from entropy. The current lot haven’t a clue.

 

It is ultimately up to the electorate, and one can only hope that such people as are required will put themselves forward for genuine public service. I know they exist as many of them work for the NHS. What is needed are political candidates with the same sense of dedication as the doctors and nurses I encountered in my own dealings with the NHS, which because of the current government is in serious danger of collapse itself.

 

Much has happened in this last week that makes my head spin. I continue to rant. I don’t know if any of the people in the United States, who might read this stuff, can follow my train of thought, but I do hope so. They have their own problems with the ‘gazpacho queen’, Taylor Greene, and the various gun toting members of congress, and Trumpzilla roaming the country out of the everglades of Florida.