They Seek it Here…

Following the general election of June 2010, it took Belgium a further 589 days to negotiate, agree on and formally recognise and enable a government. It didn’t seem to bother the Belgians greatly. In fact, beginning in December 2018 they seem determined to repeat the process and have only recently installed a caretaker Prime Minister to oversee the coronavirus issue. Given the inability of the diverse and disparate parties to agree, this could become a permanent arrangement, in which case the Belgian people would be justified in wondering what was the point of having elections at all. (Pretty much the ultimate ambition of the EU, as it happens.)

The fact is some roles in society, many of them extremely well paid, perform no useful function and would not be missed. Such roles are often so obscure that most people are unaware they exist at all. A whole plethora of functionaries can be described as rent-seekers. Rent seeking is when somebody seeks remuneration without contributing any productivity and is particularly prevalent in publicly-funded bodies, although many advisors and consultants in the private sector are equally leech-like.

The fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is well known, but regularly goes unheeded while parasitic charlatans continue to practise their blood-sucking with impunity until they are revealed for the thieves they really are. Thief isn’t too harsh a word, either. The exotic con man who persuades your middle-aged aunt to part with her savings for love is doing exactly the same thing as the life coach who convinces you that you need help to wipe your arse. They may tell themselves that the money was offered freely, but in their hearts they know exactly what they are doing.

But these are relatively small beer and such lone scammers’ careers are often short-lived. In large organisations, however, there are plenty of places to hide and the insertion of rent-seeking blood-suckers has been incorporated directly into the core of the entity’s paradigm. Remember all those ridiculous mission statements that were all the rage not so long ago? People were paid to come up with those. Just as the Iron Law of Bureaucracy decrees that bureaucrats document a company to death, once you have one non-job in place the infection soon spreads and the nonsense quickly follows.

Addicts often have to go cold turkey rather than try and cut down or substitute one dangerous substance for a slightly less dangerous alternative. Many recovered addicts report that they do not miss the thing they once thought they utterly depended upon. And especially in these times when we have had to tighten our belts no doubt most of us have carried out an audit of our lives and discovered all sorts of things we can give up. We all understand buyer’s remorse and sometimes even feel shame for our folly, but in the end we see the funny side and laugh at the stuff we bought, but had no real need for.

We have a resident Face Painter???

The best way of working out if something is necessary is to see if you can get by without it.  If you can, you didn’t need it. If you didn’t even notice it was missing you never needed it. Now, ask yourself, during lockdown did you experience any great craving for any of the following: human rights lawyers, sociologists, race relations advisers, inclusion and diversity officers, customer experience managers and any of the other costly and pointless non-jobs? What, in all honesty, did they bring to the table? Whose lives did they enrich other than their own? I reckon it’s way past time for that audit and high time for us all to have a  bloody good laugh.

Bring Out Your Dead!

In the overall scale of things the corona virus is relatively small beer. Yes, it is. I know it is highly infectious and yes it has killed older people but even on the scale of China and Italy the mortalities don’t measure up to the regular winter seasonal toll from other, more well known diseases. And while it may be nastier, at least until the population begins to develop a resistance, is it really a good idea to slow economic activity to a pace at which entire countries begin to go bankrupt, with consequences for years ahead?

There are pitfalls whichever way we turn. Ignore it and let infection run rife with the possibility of direct terminal outcomes for a minority, or run away and hide with longer term, equally fatal consequences for possibly many more because of a lack of resources for health and social care? Do you push one off the train to save hundreds, or do you sacrifice the lot? Economics, in the wider sense, really couldn’t care less; it will take you if you are in the line of fire, regardless.

For what it’s worth, the so far pragmatic approach of the UK government, advised by the best that are available, is reassuringly British. Carry on, but brace for the worst and rely a little on common sense and providence to lighten the burden. We don’t much like contact with strangers anyway, so this is a perfect opportunity to utilise our characteristic coolness under the guise of self-isolation. Sorry boss, I can’t come into work today; I hate you all. A tad boring, perhaps, but we’ve always looked down on the frantic, over-the-top, ‘forrin’ ways of coping with crises.

So, for the near future at least, it is mostly business as usual and one activity which has shown no sign of slowing down is political opportunism. The usual subjects, in the usual way, have seized the chance to condemn Brexit, racism, The Tories, toxic masculinity; you name it, it’s to blame. The Labour Party, possibly due a lack of a solid, traditional education, seem to mistake the role of opposition, believing it to mean simply opposing every single thing the government does. Oh, and every one of them – caring, as they are - seems to be gleefully hoping that only Conservatives contract the virus.

But all they are doing, these sneering, jostling look-at-me commentators; the David Lammies the Femis, the Toynbees et al is exposing to ridicule their pointless crusades. When the country is challenged it needs to do what it has always done and come together to make common cause. Those who continue to carp from the sidelines will be exposed as the useless pouting, pontificating meatheads they really are. And the true worth of every diversity champion in every organisation will be exposed as approximating to zero.

So, the real casualties of the Winter of Corona, I hope, will be all those who make a living from invented victimhood, from confected notions of privilege, from fomenting dissent against this most welcoming nation. I hope the metaphorical funeral pyres are piled high with the figurative corpses of customer experience managers, human resources twonks and people who conduct surveys to produce pre-conceived outcomes. Rid of the sheer expense of all the professional naval gazers we might actually be able to begin to heal the country after all.

Jobsworth

I almost feel sorry for Theresa May. Not so sorry that I don’t want her removed from office; to be honest she was a lacklustre and almost invisible Home Secretary and her slouch-shouldered, cringeworthy carriage does little to endear her to audiences. But she has done her job in a world which does not favour the bold any more and in managing to still occupy Number Ten after all the toxic briefings, leaks and open insurrection of party members she has demonstrated that she knows how to play the game of politics. Such a shame it is a game in which non-combatants take most of the casualties.

I have pondered the conundrum of the non-job economy which has proliferated over the last few decades. I can’t say I blame it on the EU, or on Tony Blair or any particular individual, but what I see depresses me. Some of the best paid jobs around bring approximately zero value to the world. Reciting the mantras of equality and diversity and trotting out the tired old memes that gender is a social construct, etc, requires no productive effort whatsoever. Yes, you expend a degree of mental energy in dreaming up new slogans, new arguments to cancel out the past and new ways to be offended, but what is the point of you?

The cogs in this right-on world somehow manage to mill money, to recycle wealth among themselves, but where did this wealth come from? The people who bake your bread and build your houses; the people who toil in manufacturing to make the things that clothe your world in luxury and convenience; the actual workers, who so many of you claim to represent are barely aware of your presence and if they do notice you, see you only as a detached talking head of no relevance to their own lives.

Millions of people are slaving away on minimal wages so that thousands can give themselves titles such as ‘head of customer experience’ in the NHS. They got sick, they saw the doctor, they got better. Customer experience? They are fucking ecstatic. And have you noticed how much more ‘diversity’ has been foisted upon us since they started coordinating it; what is it about the non-job universe that cannot see the damage they do? The rancid disease of identity politics infects young minds, poisons discourse and generally weakens the nation. Perhaps that’s the point.

And now, even the worlds’ top brains have signed a letter saying that science ‘might’ suffer if the UK leaves the EU. Et tu, scientists? Seriously, you people who live for the possibilities, search for the truth, uncover the meaning of the universe... you honestly think you can’t survive a change to your funding model? The mechanisms might differ but surely your enormous brains must be capable of explorative optimism and not the reductive misery of capitulation to non-job groupthink.

So yes, although I value Theresa May’s contribution to wellness in the world somewhere below where I would rate a half-decent doughnut, I appreciate it can’t be easy working out who you need to appease and then pretending to appease them. The bureaucracy of political correctness can often obscure your vision and blur the line between action and talking about action. But the talking is done now, so pleaser, Theresa, appease ‘em no more.

Charlie Says

The curious case of Charlie Gard is evoking Aylan Kurdi levels of public sympathy and outpourings of resentment against the naysayers. But the chances of him gaining any relief from further treatment, or even being aware of any such relief are vanishingly small. Medical opinion this side of the pond seems to suggest it would only prolong its suffering. People may say I’m heartless, but in my defence it’s true, I am heartless, or at least dispassionate about things I have no emotional investment in.

On the other hand, when it comes to medical science I’m all heart and kidneys and various other organs and I plan to donate what’s left of me at the end for medical experiments, so maybe those who wish to ship Charlie over to the USA are altruistically thinking of the possible future benefits for others? All the same it looks equally harsh, to me, that you should think it’s okay to donate this child for medical experiments. Ethics and morals; what’s to do?

And here is the problem for humanity; too much humanity and too little to occupy them so they flock to volunteer support for all sort of meddlesome causes, just as soon as they have consulted the oracle to check what their reaction should be. The case of Charlie Gard is perfect; people can express moral outrage that nobody is allowing this kid to be poked and probed and possibly tortured because, well because he’s a baby; it’s his human right to be experimented on!

They can express indignation and rage against the hateful authorities without knowing a single meaningful thing about the realities. But it also gives others the opportunity to look magnanimous and further their own aims. At the end of the day it has sod-all to do with me. Except for this annoying thread which I feel I have to tug on; non-jobs.

Making things, whether on a production line for mass consumption at rock bottom prices, or bespoke pieces for people with more money than taste; that’s a proper job. Passing on skills and knowledge to future practitioners in all fields; that’s a proper job. Reporting the facts of the latest scandal, invention, peace treaty or otherwise; that’s a proper job. Weighing up the evidence, reaching a verdict and sending the bad guys to jail; even that’s a proper job. They all have one thing in common, which is they can be justified, however poor we get.

But from whence sprung diversity coordinators, image consultants, opinion pollsters and the whole plethora of people without whose work the sum total of satisfaction with the world would be likely to increase a hundred-fold? The work which the devil has seen fit to gift these idle hands appears to do nothing but provoke division and unrest. Why should the meddlers make a living – sometimes handsome ones – from peddling discontent?

And why, when we have real concerns over prosperity, health, law and order and many other things do we even listen to the opinions – for this is all they are - of people whose self-created role is to find things to be dissatisfied with? If Charlie could speak, if Charlie had an inkling of the moralising and agonising over the minutiae over his case he might advise: physician, heal thyself.