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Should civil servants be accountable for delivering policies and services?
March 3, 2020 125 Comments
It has been fashionable for many years to set up so called independent state financed bodies to carry out functions of government away from direct Ministerial supervision. Thus transport Ministers created a Highways Agency to run the main roads, the Environment Department an Environmental Agency to run water, anti flooding and a range of other environmental policies, and the Treasury set up the Office of Budget Responsibility and a so called Independent Central Bank to limit Ministerial control over economic policy.
Some MPs seem to want to transfer more and more things to such bodies. The ultimate of course was the mass transfer of powers to the EU. The public often say this trust the experts approach is a good idea, until the policy miscarries or mistakes are made. Then they expect Ministers to intervene, sort it out and take the blame.
The problem is independent civil service activity often does go wrong. I have chronicled the bad mistakes of the Bank of England in recent years which helped create the ERM recession, the banking crash and the recent economic slowdown. The Environment Agency policy of discontinuing pumping and dredging led to bad floods in Somerset and the need for Ministerial intervention. The EU invented the Common Fishery Policy which did so much damage to UK fish stocks and to our fishing industry.
Well paid senior civil servants in or out of quangos are set targets and asked to run particular programmes or services. There is nothing political about ensuring high quality and efficiency in most cases. Should these targets be used to influence promotion? Is there a level of performance so bad that it warrants loss of job? Should senior civil servants stay put in a role for bit longer than the current average, with named responsibility for what they are meant to be managing?
In a democracy there can be no independent branch of government. The public through their Parliament or Congress can demand that anything changes or gets better. Ministers cannot go on saying a branch of government is independent of them when it is doing harm or failing to perform.They will be forced into changing the structure and or the personnel, in order to get the change of policy people want.
Indeed, you make exactly the right points. You say:- "The problem is independent civil service activity often does go wrong." It almost invariably goes wrong it is not their money nor they who get the value. So they care not what they spend nor what value they get. They are probably more interested in their power base, career, salary and gold plated pensions.
The civil servants do not even have to face elections every five years so there is no real democratic control over them what so ever. As we see it is even very hard to fire them however incompetent they have been.
What is needed is for the senior appointments to be on a contract basis only. The contract may be broken if the Minister is changed. A good civil servant with no political bias will be assured they will still have a job. One with political bias will consider their position as shaky and not apply in the first place.
At the end of the contract, the civil servant might return to a lower position, be made redundant or retire if they are of sufficient age, no compensation for loss of office.
It is not merely fashionable to set up these "agencies", it is absolutely doctrinaire.
They are often limited companies, and so it is a form of privatisation. In turn that means that the employees will be excluded from the normal Civil Service pension provisions. That alone is reason enough for the fervent.
Furthermore – though this may now be modified – the companies can make demands upon employees which would be a violation of certain human rights – such as privacy and a right to a family life – if the State did it directly.
Such considerations motivate a great deal, perhaps nearly all out-sourcing from the public sector.
Pensions in quangos and state funded agencies are brilliant compared to the private sector
And emplyoment laws are the same for all employees.
As usual you are wrong Martin.
No, yet again it is you who is wrong.
The Human Rights Act protects us only from actions by the State.
A public entity cannot compel its employees to do anything which would infringe say, a right to a family life, e.g. by working short notice at remote locations. A private one can.
However, there have recently been cases where subcontractors' employees have been deemed to be controlled directly by the State in this regard.
You have now changed your argument to the Human Rights Act
Make your mind up.
Adrian Ambroz
And to think it took only a thousand competant civil servants to administer India with it's 228 million peoples speaking a variety of tongues.
I don't think you would find a 1000 in the present Whitehall set up to do that especially without their bonuses
A lot of arms of the state think they are above the law. In many regards they are, not because the law gives them any exemptions, but because they are part of the system which decides priorities of what to investigate and prosecute, and can spend large sums on lawyers smashing any ordinary person in court with sheer volume of resources.
There is a lot of transparency demanded by law, freedom of information, subject access requests, data protection, "gives you all the relevant information" from "Article 6 right to a fair trial" of human rights act, and so on. A lot of arms of the state blatantly break these laws.
The arms of the state charged with enforcing justice rarely decide to take on other arms of the state, even when outrageous behaviour and law breaking is obvious.
So, its not just to ministers that the civil service avoids accountability, but also to individual citizens and the law itself.
Much truth is this. Look at the Grenfell Tower disaster. This was almost entirely state sector incompetence from beginning to end. A state sector building, state sector building and fire regulations and oversight, state sector fire brigade senior officer gross incompetence ……. Yet we can be fairly surely they will find some people in the private sector to blame. I doubt that anyone in the state sector will be charged with anything much.
You have left out that it was an EU directive which required the building to be reclad. The cladding which was put on in 1974 according to British Standards was super safe. The EU directive overrode fire safety in the interests of climate control.
Is that correct? I hadn't seen that expressly asserted do you have a reference?
He gave you an example Martin.
Another is the NHS having exemption from food hygiene laws that apply to private hotels restaurants and care homes.
Private sector made the cladding.
Private sector designed the modifications to the building.
Private sector fitted the cladding.
Private sector outsourced building regulations consultancies were charged with assessing the safety of the work.
There has been NOTHING like this anywhere else in the European Union.
Incidentally, the chief architect on the project has just said that he did not read the fire regulations in that regard.
No one at his company did any kind of risk assessment as to the suitability of the cladding, I read.
Could you give an instance of such flagrant lawbreaking by the State?
It was attempted recently by prorogation, but the Court stopped that.
A right to a fair trial as I understand it refers to criminal accusations, not to civil proceedings. More is the pity, if so, that it does not.
nope its not just criminal law
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-6-right-fair-trial
James A Sutherland
Indeed I would say law enforcement is probably the one area which should be relatively independent – not in overall operation, but in individual cases. If a private company would be fined for a particular act or omission, for example, a local council or government agency should not be let off for the same deed on the basis "we're all on the same side", they should be held to at least as high a standard as the state demands of us. I'm not sure how we could best achieve that change of attitude, but it would be a big improvement.
But the law enforcers need proper impartiality rules which are enforced, and a properly independent compliant process, not independent in name only.
Independent complaints process needed I meant, no more independent in name only, don't let anyone run their own complaints process.
If we had had more referendums (for example on the following) we would almost certainly have made far, far better decisions than the politicians made.
For example:- Entering the EU under Ted Heath, the Millenium Dome, the Iraq War, Cameron's Bombing of Libya, HS2, Huawei, we would have a sensible, cheap and on demand energy policy, we would have far, far lower taxes, we would not subsidies the Arts so much they would be funded by people actually buying tickets, we would not have the BBC licence poll tax, we would not have the state sector with pensions about 4 times those in the private sector, we would not subsidise so many duff degrees, we would have police who tackle real crimes rather than hate and thought crimes, the Lords would have been reformed ………. The people are generally far wiser and do not suffer from state sector group think, they know what they want and what they do not want.
Shirley M
In addition, why does every large project end up taking 4 times as long, and cost 10 times more than the original estimate? If I employed a builder I certainly wouldn't use one that had such a reputation. Why does the government NOT learn from its mistakes, but continues to add more and more ill judged projects? Nobody can change history, but we can change the future. Why not include penalty clauses over time scales and costs, as happens in the real world? That way we may start with realistic costs and timescales instead of the worthless forecasts we suffer now.
If I employed a builder I do not pay them until they have delivered what was contracted. I also ensure the contract gives me suitable protection should they fail in this.
@LL; Indeed Mr Life, for example, had all the facts been laid before the people by way of a referendum we might never have had Right to Buy and the wholesale destruction of the UK's low rent social housing stocks – be careful, be very careful of what you rant for…
Nonsense they people were hugely and quite rightly in favour of right to buy!
@LL; The people are only told what the Govt of the day wants them to hear…
Were we told that not-for-profit social housing would become almost unavailable, were we told that many traditional high-churn starter homes would be removed from the open market because of the rise in BTL, were we told that private landlords would disproportionately control the cost of renting, were we told this would make it very difficult for many young couples/families to both rent and save (for a deposit) on a single income, were we told about the likely cost of such changes to both our society and economy.
Of course, as a Landlord, who appears to have benefited from all of the above you'll disagree, hence why I suggested you be very careful of what you wish for when calling for more referenda. Do you honestly think Mr Cameron, a europhile, would have called a referendum on our membership unless he had been forced to by the likes of the ERG and the Tory party grass roots?…
"…..wholesale destruction of the UK's low rent social housing stocks – be careful, be very careful of what you rant for…"
Excellent point.
I'm all for more direct government by the people – Successive governments have tied us into treaties without our permission and without explaining the consequences.
A recent example was when May signed the UN treaties to give immigrants special status – That comes close to treachery, but there were many other treaties that should never have been signed in that "I'm in power I can do what I want" attitude.
L/L Spot on as usual!
Leslie Singleton
Dear Lifelogic–Used to write here and very much believe that (pace Thatcher) having been elected is much overrated, often the voters making their choice based on whether they literally like the look of a candidate. Mystery to me why we don't move towards the Swiss system which has a balance including referenda. Some questions simply cry out for a vote by the populace. Once there was no choice but to elect and send delegates or representatives or whichever way round it is supposed to be but not any more.
Also, with a referendum we wouldn't have mass immigration
We wouldn't have had privatisation either.
If another were held today, then much of it would be reversed too.
The one to stay in the EC was also a thumping two-to-one victory for Stay.
But, some and the right wing media just would not accept the – genuine – Will Of The People.
There is no great desire to reverse privatisation apart from trains.
It comes very low on lists of voters priorities.
If staying in the EU was a 2 to 1 ratio then we would not have just had a massive Conservative majority in the last election where they were the only leave party you could vote for.
@Edward2; Not so sure, it wasn't the pledge to renationalise the utilities that destroyed Labour's GE campaign last year but -as you admit- their position on Brexit.
Leaving the European Union was very low on people's priorities until a media campaign with billions behind it ramped up the topic with endless distortions over several years.
It just shows how effective mass propaganda by the powerful can be.
@MiC; "until a media campaign with billions behind it"
What campaign, specifically, are you referring to, and who donated such sums (after all that sort of money, even buy a few thousand individual supporters would have had to be declared and is thus in the public domain – or weren't you referring to campaign funds?…
The mass propaganda came from remain and their media establishment pals.
And still it failed.
This was not related to this particular comment, this was linked to the general information level of Nick Cs contribution which is very weak and often wrong
In your pro EU myopic view.
Martin, But the 1975 referendum vote to remain in the EEC was respected without any attempt to prevent the will of the people being implemented by Parliament.
Please, please, do us all a favour. Think about what you write and then, comments on only about half of what you comment on now, and you will probably get more of the facts right.
But Hans, where is NickC factually wrong?
the 1975 referendum was on whether to stay in the Common Market/EEC and parliament and judges did not strive to undermine that decision. There was no disruption of the assimilation process at all.
This despite only 30.9% of the population voting to remain.
The fact in Nick's comment above was correct.
If you think otherwise then explain bill.
Nor would we have joined the ERM still less the EURO.
Nor did we join the euro.
A common problem with a lot of these "so called independent state financed bodies" is that there are no real impartiality rules in place or enforced. A lot of "knowledge is power" games are played where organisations hold onto and actively hide information that should be owned by the individual citizen or made publicly available. And where complaints processes exist, for ordinary members of the public to use, they are almost universally not really independent in anything but name.
Indeed, a good general rule is that any organisation which feels the need to claim it is "independent" or have it in the name very rarely is.
Hi John, I thought I should let you know about the effect of removing entrepreneurs tax legislation…
My wife has run her own small business for 10 years, flexing in and out of work whenever a contract came up. She was offered a permanent role a year ago, but kept her business open as a future plan B. She instructed her accountant to close it down last week, saving over £10,000.
Once again the evidence shows our government is doing the right things regarding Brexit, but is certainly not a fiscally conservative government…
Well we will see in the budget next week – any overall increase in tax from the currently hugely overtaxed position would be a very big mistake and would not even raise more tax in the end (this as it would strangle even further the private sector geese that lay the golden eggs, push other overseas and deter much of the UK investment).
Just the absurd complexity of the system and often a lack of certainly over taxation is a huge additional tax in itself. IR35, making tax digital, workplace pensions and the absurd taxation of "profits" that have not even made (for landlords) are or will be hugely damaging. Let us hope the new Chancellor can grasp these facts.
The ultimate non unaccountable bodies are Quangos. Cameron was going to have a bonfire but like much of government promises it didn't happen.
All are run by left wing activists at odds with government policies.
We need a Donald.
Indeed did Cast Iron, low tax at heart Conservative, a bonfire of quangos & red tape, I will stay on and serve the EU notice the next day……… Dave Cameron keep any of his promises? Did he even ever intend to do so?
He turned out to be a pro EU, tax borrow and piss down the drain totally dishonest socialist! He had such a golden opportunity too with two sitting duck oppositions. All that was needed was for him to be what he claimed he was.
We do in many ways need a Trump. Boris (though in many ways superior to Trump) has made some very big mistakes already. HS2, Huawei, on delaying again airport runways, failing to set a smaller state/low tax vision. Particularly too in falling for the hugely damaging (idiotic and unscientific) climate alarmist, net zero carbon, renewable energy & premature electric car agenda and in letting some of the appalling Benn act traitors back into the party.
Boris needs to change his mind on the above, he could still be a great PM is he does so. I am certainly grateful to him for saving us from Corbyn/SNP and the dire Theresa May.
He also need to wake up to the very real and immediate Covid19 threat he does not seem to have done so yet. He needs to be made to understand the science and maths of it.
Of course the bonfire didn't happen. It was what the people wanted – and that won't do will it. Just like an end to mass uncontrolled immigration of freeloading criminals. Just like the govt are doing their best to continue throwing billions of our taxes to the EU, while cutting our services more and more, etc etc The likes of us are only the little people – only here to work and be taxed. That is the only way they see us. The govt will only be happy when they realise they have turned this island into a place full of 3rd worlders.
Turboterrier.
Totally correct. But it will never happen
The rise of political activism across the State sector and other areas of public concern threatens democracy itself. The capture of State bodies by a political cabal with the sole intent of imposing their world view onto others using various methods of influencing legislation to promote their poison, propaganda and other forms of political activity to influence central government Ministers and their Depts of State
OFCOM is a classic example. The CPS is another. Both bodies now under the control of a certain mindset loyal to the progressive left and determined to minimise any issue that is inconvenient to its goal
The EC (Electoral Commission) is another that's become infected. The Peterborough by-election and the abuses we see revealed the biased nature of the EC, when they refused to intervene to correct this most appalling abuse of our electoral system by the left
The BBC is now another organisation now under the direct control of the progressive left and determined to impose their social engineering and woke fascism down our throats and they will succeed as another spineless, useless Tory PM takes power and wimps out of the fight to save this nation from the indoctrination of leftist propaganda
When people vote Tory they're not getting Tory policies but progressive policies. We want reform of Labour's progressive, leftist, activist client state. Unfortunately, we will see betrayal once again starting with the BBC being allowed to pump out its poison and propaganda without reform
What is the point of voting Conservative when you implement social engineering and progressive policy madness on our nation?
Exactly. The only point is that Corbyn/SNP would be far worse.
Certainly right on the clear electoral abuse of postal voting etc.
Yes well..I totally agree with you.
However, people have sat and watched, applauded even, the annihilation of the right wing.
This is supposed to be a democracy but folk have lost their jobs for belonging to the BNP.
And before anyone jumps ( yes that is where they have brought us to) …the PTB have also recalibrated morality so that most actually believe right wing thought to be per se evil.
Not a good state of affairs.
And watch them weaponise this virus!
There are quite a number of things this Government should do to confirm the electorate was right. Repeal things, terminate things, review organisations – OFCOM CPS for example.
Doesn't seem to be any on the horizon – I wait to be impressed.
Boris yesterday on the Coronavirus "as and when, if and when" …. "is likely to become more significant" and "this country is very very well prepared".
Rather more than likely mate it is virtually certain and the NHS is not remotely well prepared.
It is odd that there is such a huge different between the £ hundreds of billions they are wasting on (and the certainty they ascribe to) the highly questionable Climate Alarmist CO2 "pollution" agenda (for a trivial risk in perhaps 100 years time) and their rather pathetic under reaction to this virus which is clearly a very serious problem hear and now. The BBC reporting reflect this too.
True there is not all that much that can be usefully be done, but some things certainly need to be done that are clearly not being that could save very many lives.
It is not when and if mate, it is here and now. It is certain to become very significant indeed. Perhaps even as high as 1% of perhaps 12 million = 120,000 deaths, and ten times this number needing medical treatment and huge economic damage too. Cancel HS2 and use the money far more sensibly now. How many isolated, intensive care beds (and ventilating systems) does the NHS have currently free? I doubt is it is much more than 100.
Yet they might need several thousands in a few weeks time.
The Chinese built new isolation hospitals in days.
There is not a snowball's chance, that the private sector reliant UK could do anything remotely like that.
They converted an old office block.
They built nothing.
Let us hope she this comment does not get held up on moderation.
Governments decide policy and Civil Servants advise and implement. End of.
It was government policy to join the ERM. The BoE was not independent of government back then.
As to the CS, the clue is in the name. Service / Servant. They exist for our benefit and no other.
Post BREXIT we need to go back to what worked. Those that cannot, or will not adapt can leave.
Yes, the clue is in the name.
Civil Servant, servant to the civil, that is.
If they are not treated with due dignity and respect, by the evidently uncivil, then employment law has been broken.
I don't like targets as the sole arbiter. I have seen too much abuse of them in both the setting and achieving. In one company I worked we developed a 'light touch' approach. Hit the big numbers needed, so beloved by the Minister and spouted showing the programme was successful. Economic value, close to zero. Cue HMGs recent apprenticeship policy.
Nonetheless I am getting from your post that performance management in the CS or at the top of it is poor/non existent and this cannot continue.
Every persons career prospects both advancement and retention plus financial reward has to be based on performance against a set of objectives linked to the business plan. We hear of all sorts of people getting the 'vapours' when asked to step up but what people forget or fail to mention is that people in any department know who put a shift in and who are there for the ride.
A number of attitudinal surveys I have been involved in, in the City, all show that employees detest weak management that allows poor performers to continue, in reality putting more pressure on the good ones. I suspect the Civil Service is no different.
I agree with you Nig1, sometimes though the process to deal with poor performers takes months and months, especially if they start to bring protected characteristics up for the first time ever.
Pay grades are supposed to be there to reward exceptional talent in a similar position as someone that does just enough or bare minimum. People are happy to go up the grades, but if their performance slips or they stop being able to carry out aspects of the job they expect the same grade enhancement.
The public sector must start to reduce, if 10% of a department are no longer required those people should be able to transfer their skills from one department to another and when people leave they should not be replaced with extra people until the workforce is properly balanced. Margaret Howard on here the other day said there are over 72,000 civil servants in London alone!
Surely such quangos are part of the problem we have in the UK, they being part of the establishment that runs things without being responsible for failures.
There needs to be a massive reduction in externalised bodies.
We hear so much about quango exec's jumping from one over paid role to another, which makes a mockery of the system because they simply escape their disasters, and it seems Parliament can do little about it, and WE end up with the problems.
Yes, quango exec's and civil servants must be made accountable, but first let's abolish those quasi-NGO's that can be better managed by those with full accountability to the British people.
The failure of so many departments appears to be due to a lack of what I would call simple old fashioned management.
The person at the top accepts complete responsibility, but they delegate down by splitting responsibility amongst others who report to them, sensible targets are agreed and set, and performance is monitored, failure to perform results in either demotion or sacking, positive performance can lead to promotion or enhanced salary/bonus etc.
The whole management structure and the various roles and responsibilities needs to be clear and transparent.
UK Qanon
In this day and age NO ONE takes responsibility or is held accountable. NO ONE makes decisions in case they make the wrong decision. It is the blame game, "nothing to do with me old boy". I have witnessed this first hand working sub-contract some years ago for a major UK corporation. Meetings, meeetings, meetings and no one will make a decision yet all participants are MANAGERS!!!!!!!! So much time and money wasted.
Having had service problems with two local authorities of late, you describe the situation precisely.
On both occasions I got so frustrated I even wrote to the very highly paid CEO's to try and get some action and common-sense, I got an immediate resply, but still very slow action as it went through the process you describe.
Neither problem has been resolved to date.
Both so inefficient it is almost untrue.
It seems not so much that the process is wrong but rather that the people involved are incompetent.
Oh dear..interest rates to be cut on March 26th apparently.
More redistribution.
To save us all from the Coronavirus so I have read!
Mayhem, panic …cui bono? Not Joe Soap.
We have just seen yet another report, this time the National Probation Service run by your MOJ detailing a total failure leading to the murder of a woman.
Yet again your spokesperson said lessons have been learned etc plus the obligatory useless apology. When will someone bloody well say 'and the people involved have been disciplined are no longer employed by us'
And shortly a report is due out on a major charity which allegedly will talk about more establishment cover ups re the mistreatment of women by some senior men.
In a future post instead of a nice rounded piece often posing questions, please tell us what is being done about the abuses/failures in the public arena that we are seeing regularly.
It seems that ER might be scrapped. Further encouragement perhaps, if any is needed, to set up in Ireland. Why set up here and pay twice the Corporation Tax, including on so-called profits retained in the business when it's sold, then to get clobbered with full-rate CGT?
Can't see that moving product from ROI to UK should be a problem either.
Civil Servants have become political activists in their own right and now work with non-UK governments, political pressure groups (Labour, Stonewall etc etc) and other organisations (BBC) to impose capture over the actions of elected representatives in government.
As private citizens we have ZERO representation and put our faith in the integrity of politicians in government. In a nobbled democracy that is now no longer enough
London centric political activism has the ability to circumvent the majority and impose changes in legislation using lobbying techniques, naming and shaming MPs who vote against their aims, direct intimidation of MPs which allows them to influence voting behaviour in Parliament and impose self-censorship allowing activists to dominate the public arena
We are being exposed to politicisation and the demoralisation of our nation. This is the poison of the left. Cultural Marxism taking control of peoples actions, thoughts, language, speech and mood. It is vile, deliberate and causing harm
Robert McDonald
Any organisation that allows / indeed encourages it's senior staff to move every two years or so, as happens in the Civil Service from all reports, is one that cannot build enough expertise based on experience to be competent. Moving positions so frequently is also a way for staff to avoid responsibility, and for their seniors to do the same. The penalties for failure cannot be allowed to be dodged in this way. There must be some form of accountability, sadly bureaucracies do not like accountability. I have seen this outcome in both Local Government and indeed the BBC. How to change their culture I cannot advise, but it must be changed, Priti Patel must be backed by Boris and the likes of you.
Yes they should be responsible under direction from the minister. Quangos are a way of diluting responsibility. If within Transport you wish to compartmentalise Highways by all means do so but under the direct responsibility of the boss civil servant in Transport and ultimately the Minister for Transport.
Yes the Minister and the Civil Servants should be judged on performance just as they would be in the private sector. It is within the remit of the PM to sack ministers and should be within the power of the Minister after due consultation to sack senior Civil Servants.
Just as Government and MP's are generally bad and extremely inefficient at spending our (taxpayer) money, so called public bodies without oversight are equally as bad.
The overriding principle should be if it is not your own money you are 100% responsible to deliver and be transparent on how you deliver to your paymaster(the taxpayer in this instance). There should be no get out of 'jail free' license, any deviation is fraud.
MP's do at least re-present themselves to the voters every so often. So it stands to reason that any body supported by taxpayer has oversight by a political body/or their contracts renewed after each election. A Civil Service is only as good as the results they produce on the current political mandate, if they are un-happy with that they shouldn't be there.
A Civil Service that fights or briefs against Government, is fighting the taxpayer and is in breach of contract.
It should at all times be reinforced that if you are in receipt of taxpayer money you are directly responsible to the taxpayer before anything else.
To get change we must have a PM who is prepared to instigate it and see it through and yet, as soon as one of his appointees is criticised for being tough he moves into appeasement mode. The MSM and other opponents shout a bit, he backs down. It looks as if sparks won't now fly after all. Which other Minister is going to take on the CS establishment now and in any event the Home Secretary is weakened.
When was an enquiry ever set up to come back with a result stating that there was no problem and no action needed to be taken? Those conducting it will feel compelled to come up with something otherwise they will be accused of a 'whitewash'. Weakness and cowardice will prevail.
So Boris will sacrifice his Secretary of State and the CS will have won. If he doesn't want this he should have stood his ground. He will be proven to be an empty shell, he will have no credibilty or authority and our parliament might just as well be dissolved and all authority formally handed to the CS and its political arm, Common Purpose and all the other subversive Marxists.
And so dies our democracy.
Would a partial solution to the difficult management problem faced by Ministers be to mirror the USA's inspector general programme (created by a 1978 Act) that aims to detect and deter waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct in Government programmes and personnel, and to promote economy and efficiency in those programmes?
If 'you resign' from your Post, is that constructive dismissal?
If your employer makes your position untenable, then yes. You have to prove that though, consequently a Tribunal has to be the next step. However watch it quietly disappear with the offer of a shed load of money and a lordship in return for a confi agreement.
Yes it is, as the law currently stands.
Most of these claims focus on the Employment at Work Act, which requires that every person in the workplace is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.
Yes it is constructive dismissal, but outside the civil service, there are procedures for an employee to follow with a grievance that could lead to your resignation. In the same way that an employer that wants to terminate your contract has hoops to jump through, warnings, improvement targets, time to reassess, further warnings, other than gross misconduct and then the employer has to hold meetings, present evidence and not have just made the decision to terminate without listening to the defence.
This man who resigned, I wonder if he went through due process? If he didn't the government and Priti Patel must stand firm and defend herself robustly and in court if necessary.
I am particularly annoyed about the legislation stopping dredging and maintenance of our rivers especially in light of what has happened in these recent weeks. A mile down the road from us is flooded. The area floods every year but not in the way it has this year. The river Severn has burst its banks all along its route and caused untold damage to businesses and people's lives. Homes will be worth nothing as they won't be wanted by anyone and insurances will be sky high. The railways lost a million pounds a day because the trains couldn't run. Businesses in Shrewsbury had to close due to flooding. The town centre was closed. Our friends could only get in and out of their home with a boat. They have 5 working dogs which they have had to farm out to friends for 2 weeks now as their house has 2 feet of water in it. The damage done both materially and emotionally is massive. People who have had boats on this river for years have said in recent years they have often become grounded as the waters have become more shallow with so much peat and much in them. The Somerset levels didn't flood this year because they were dredged a few years ago. This episode has cost the country so much money and the damage to wildlife must have been pretty serious too. We are out of the EU now so lets go back to managing our rivers the best way for us and return to sanity so people can live peacefully in their homes and not have this nightmare again. When interviewed I have not heard one civil servant talk of dredging or maintenance. It really isn't good enough. Unless Boris gets his act together I feel many will becoming despondent over voting Tory.
I liked Donald Trumps approach when he got elected saying we are going to do things different its not business as usual, we aren't doing same old same old…..quango's, independent bodies, EU and civil servants slow government change and creates distance and mistrust with the public. No responsibility nor accountability…MPs must take control
Ps. Also reform the honours system. They are no more worthy than my local baker/butcher etc. Indeed these will work longer hours and give greater service.
The USA cured the problem ingrained in the British system by having all the elected representatives in the legislature (Congress). It separately elected the head of the executive (President) and he appoints / employs at his pleasure; a Cabinet, from the great and the good of the land that are sympathetic to his plans and qualified to be CEOs of major departments and agencies.
The weaknesses in the British government system will become ever more obvious now the British cabinet will no longer be propped up by the EU executive.
acorn,
what weakness is currently propped up by the EU executive?
This may well be the Conservatives last chance to turn the country round.
The blinkers are off, we see the rigged game for what it is.
Indoctrination starts within Education, and then spreads to the BBC, Civil Service, Universities, in a self promoting circle.
Farage has broken the mould and shown us what is possible.
Next time the Conservatives won't have Corbyn to save them.
Stop fighting the last war and focus on the next.
The minute responsibility and accountability are divided, you are in trouble.
I always sign letters to the Civil Service thus
'You are, Sir, my obedient servant'
They probably file those ones straight in the bin!
" 'You are, Sir, my obedient servant' "
Trouble is, Lynn, most of 'em don't see themselves as servants – other than unto themselves. Certainly not to the country, and most certainly not to the public who pay their salaries.
It's all about job for life with big salary and fat pension. Oh, and of course promoting Blair-ite political correctness. The civil service is riddled with it.
To an extent this is one of the things Boris is having to wrestle with at the moment. I suspect we shall see more high profile resignations in the future.
Ian terry
The answer to today's entry :-
Yes every time all of the time.
It's clear "the long march through the institutions" is almost nearing completion. It seems it doesn't matter how we vote when all our institutions are infested with left-leaning activists and they are running the country from behind the scenes.
Personally, I don't have an issue with outsourcing, per se, especially if it provides a new and innovative perspective for achieving the required outcomes. However, administrations (whether CS or agencies) remain obligated to answer to those who are ultimately responsible. If those with delegated authority are permitted to corrupt the specific parameters and objectives of their role over the years due to laissez faire governance, Ministers will lose their jobs because, quite frankly, they've let it happen.
I say again, a Performance Related Pay structure would support the difficult changes to working practises government needs to introduce. Delegated authorities, standards and desired outcomes could then operate within its framework and key areas tested for ongoing robustness by the responsible Minister. I would surmise that the current furore is probably a reflection of this sort of rigour.
The cappie who is taking the gov to court for forcing him out of his Job is wrong because he has broken his contract of being impartial tips to who is in the office of government at the time. He not there to have or start arguments inside his own department, he is there to serve the peoples elected government and its Ministers of a party or individuals.
At this stage, I would have to make redundant 5% of the top of that department and interview the staff which are left down to the mailroom to move up the ladder and put the savings after redundancies each year to build flats and houses for the homeless.
I don't mind being accountable – just give me the money and the authority and keep out the way.
Stop flooding? simples, build a 20 mile channel lined with concrete tunnelled under that hill. Or of course I could let the weeds grow, follow green fads and achieve nothing – much cheaper.
Enlarge motorways? simples, compulsory purchase people's gardens, widen to take roadway plus hard shoulder. Or I could save that embarrassment and deliver something not very safe and just as expensive.
Lester Beedell
The latest madness to be unveiled is that there will be more wind farms, what utter folly, Tories are the new Green Party, it calls into question my continued membership of a Party that I've supported and been an activist for all my adult life as were my parents
And even now I'm getting begging emails asking for donations, I donated quite enough during the election campaign but no more!
Listen again to Sammy Wilson's question on this today. He deplored the environmental destruction of cutting down trees and cutting up peat to install wind farms.
Rose. Too right. The devastation is rife in Scotland with the public paying to turn off turbines more often. Ancient peat bogs were destroyed to be replaced with rafts of concrete the size of Olympic pools.
Indeed they should be repealing the dire climate change act and abolishing that absurd committee chaired by the deluded history graduate Lord Debden (Selwyn Gummer). We need cheap reliable on demand energy. Please especially with serious viral infections will need to keep warm.
Welldone
But we don't live in a democracy..if we did we'd have proportional reprepresentationalism..instead we live in an old fashioned medieval system with first past the post with kings and royalty and Lords not to mention Sirs.. well what do you think? I think it's a load of old nonsense..
If we hadn't had FPTP we would never have got the referendum, and we would subsequently never have got its implementation. That would have been the ultimate undemocratic result.
As for monarchies, just look at the republics next door to them, and decide which have the freest people. I would say the subjects are freer than the citizens every time.
Monarchies need other hereditary elements in order to survive. By abolishing the constitutional role of our aristocracy we have greatly weakened our monarchy, which was no doubt what Blair intended.
I agree on FPTP. We would have had endless dire, weak, left wing coalitions. Rather than dire, weak, left wing Conservatives or Labour PMs like Heath, Wilson, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May ….. and even Thatcher made some very big errors like Closing grammar shools, appointing John Major and the ERM. On Boris I reserve judgement until the budget a week to day. He has however already made very big errors on HS2, Heathrow, Huawei and pushing green crap, expensive energy, carbon "pollution" religion.
Agreed, Rose. I was always on the side of PR until we had the political quagmire in Parliament from 2017 to 2019. It would be like that on a permanent basis with PR, with back benchers governing Parliament and totally ignoring the manifestos upon which they were elected.
I just wish we could break the LibLabCon cartel, who are all the same on the inside, ie. only democratic when it is forced upon them.
PR results in MP's being selected by party leaders and not by the people they are supposed to represent, us. FPTP may have its failings, but democratic representation is not one of them .. the people directly select the people they want to represent them.
And the people directly contact the MP they have elected. With PR there is not this direct personal link which goes back centuries.
OFF TOPIC – well maybe not.
Chris Packham vs HS2.
Well done Chris Packham!
Govt. hoisted on its own green petard really…as with Heathrow.
We tried this stance with the destruction and total lack of concern for wildlife with windfarms and got nowhere. They only adhere to the rules and regs when it suits them.
Well I agree with him on HS2, but certainly not on the absurd climate alarmism or on Extinction Rebellion!
JR has only highlighted half the problem; the other half is the inane and often unpatriotic decisions taken by politicians. Accepting that politicians cannot opt out of their responsibilities to supervise those areas of the economy not under private control, how can the system be changed so that we the public are no longer continuously the victims of unforced errors?
The very obvious way to improve the performance of MPs is to open up their monopoly to serious competition. This can be achieved by reforming the electoral system so that votes are translated into seats: the so-called wasted vote would become a thing of the past. Very soon the HoC would be full of people who do not want to have themselves replaced by the third world through mass immigration, who do not want to close down their economy by 2035, who do not believe children should be taught outright lies about history or biology or that we have an obligation to assist ME states in expanding their borders at the expense of others and a consequent flood of refugees heading our way. Perhaps we would have people who would listen to a senior industry manager when they are told that the car company that they control needs to become a manufacturer of luxury vehicles rather than mass produced vehicles because the later route is unviable.
The other area that needs improving is the quality of education received by most politicians and civil servants. Being able to write an essay is not a skill which is necessary or sufficient to become suitably trained to understand problems and to solve them. An understanding of mathematics and logic, science and the scientific method are essential to not only ensure that a decision taker is prepared for his task, but that he is also intellectually competent to do so. Most Arts degrees should be scrapped because they are not only unacademic or irrelevant, but they are also vehicles for the indoctrination with the latest '-ism' hatched within US academe to undermine Western Civilisation.
I see the government is considering banning large scale gatherings like the London Marathon. If the London rush hour is not a large scale gathering of an order of magnitude greater than the London Marathon, I'll eat my hat. Logic, Maths, Science.
After over 40 years of arm-wrestling with the Civil Service, including at the Humphrey level, so much of what you say rings true.
There are some good ones but they are repressed by the bad.
They are collectively arrogant with a superiority complex in the established belief that they are unaccountable, untouchable and undemocratically immovable, unlike the Elected.
One measure I urge you to pursue with the PM is to establish very clearly in their closed minds the new understanding that they serve the People and Elected Governments and are not their irreplaceable masters. Remove the word 'Permanent' from all the Humphrey titles: that can be done at a stroke. No more Permanent Under Secretaries instead let them be simply Senior Civil Servant (SCS, Not PUS) to [insert Dept Name Here]. Put them in their place.
Remove any expectation of Knighthood and elevation to the anachronism that is the Lords where they continue to meddle. This is a no cost measure which ends their established belief of continued entitlement to unelected power.
Enact the Civil Service Code into Law in order to establish Public-facing accountability including advice to ministers such that contrived undermining advice can be exposed and sanctions applied.
I think the rumble I just heard was Sir Humphrey turning in his grave.
Finally, to all readers, you may have thought 'Yes Minister' was a comedy when in fact it was an informed and skilfully scripted documentary.
An interesting topic Sir.
I find two of your points particularly pertinent considering what is going on lately.
Firstly the Environment Agency's cessation of dredging has undoubtedly led to the ruination many homes and lives. As I understand matters, the Environment Agency was following EU orders in that regard.
Surely therefore, it would be fair to expect the EU to compensate those affected, since the problem was caused by the EU in the first place. If not, then the Environment Agency must be held to account.
Secondly – CFP. I see that our country is being openly threatened by the EU, in as much that Macron who is hiding behind Brussels coat tails has also got the Danes to do his bidding.
The French are also saying that Calais will be blocked if we don't let give them access to our territorial waters.
I note a government spokesperson as saying in response that UK fishing grounds are not going to be traded off under any circumstances.
May I remind government that this had better be so. If there is any yield to French threats, it will be the end of the road for Boris and the conservative party.
I would expect that if Calais was blocked again, government would be prepared to send the Royal Marines there to prevent French attacks on British citizens, livestock and property (as happened before) and get our people home safely.
As you must surely know, Sir, we Brits do not take kindly to threats, especially threats that come from France.
As an Englishman and a voter I suggest now is the time for government to be seen to show teeth to the ungrateful French led EU.
Might I also pose the question: do the French and the rest of the EU think we liberated them from tyranny, and at great cost to our nation, just to accord them some kind of right to threaten us?
One might suppose the French led EU is playing some kind of game, but whatever it is it isn't cricket.
I suggest the best way to deal with this is to walk away and default to WTO rules. Then if the French want to 'ask us nicely' for access to our fishing grounds, they can consider behaving in a civilised way with us stands more chance of gaining our respect.
Thank you for your time Mr Redwood.
Steve I totally agree with all you have said.
beautifully expressed.
Well said Sir!
I can assure you the Danes would neve do any bidding for the French
Whilst we have a sensible Conservative government all your comments are valid. In the event of a Brown, Corbyn, or similarly inclined Government, the Civil Service and Quangos would be our only defence against ruinous far left Socialism. Although I fear the CS is not the bastion of right-thinking Right it once was. The march of liberal-leftiness in university faculties is seeing to that.
But, currently, you're right.
"Thus transport Ministers created a Highways Agency to run the main roads"
Your party has been in government for a decade, whose plans and rules were these Agencies working to for this ten years?
For example, with smart motorways – who decided to press ahead with this project? Who allowed the Highways Agency to award the contract to someone who was allowed to take over four years to have the hard shoulder incorporated on a four junction section but gave permission to close the entire run down at the same time even though they couldn't possibly and didn't work on such a large section?
When it was a hard shoulder and someone broke down or had a tyre blow out, the traffic never had to reduce their speed to 40mph for a whole junction and more behind the stationary vehicle, now this regularly happens.
People need diverting off the motorway if a motorway is being shut much sooner. The Highways Agency should have vehicles to deploy to close off on-ramps and the motorway two junctions back- leading everyone off the motorway if they know from the scale of the accident it is going to be closed for at least four hours.
How many times do we now see slow down, restrictions to 40mph with a notice, debris in the road for miles and miles with no debris in the road and signs left on for a long time after any danger passed? Lots of times and who has to answer for that – no-one! That is why Agencies are made up, so no-one is responsible for disrupting people, productivity and performance.
margaret howard
" The EU invented the Common Fishery Policy which did so much damage to UK fish stocks and to our fishing industry"
It is NOT the EU who have damaged our fishing industry but greedy fishermen selling their fishing allocations to others in a quick dash for cash that caused it.
They followed the example of many of our other industries who sold their companies to foreign investors or hedge funds.
The short termism that has been the cause of our industrial decline.
You keep repeating this nonsense Margaret.
The quotas were so bad that many went bust
Some managed to sell out before they went bust as their quotas were uneconomic.
Greedy fishermen…like to see you stand on a harbour wall and tell the locals your opinions.
Edward why doesn't the tv news actually level Margaret's accusations to British Fishermen and let them respond to these frequently aired opinion.
I think that Priti Patel versus the mandarin is an example of a deeper problem. There is still stubborn resistance to Brexit throughout what Nigel Farage has called the Deep State. Nothing less than a thorough cleansing of the Augean Stables will cure the problem. I will leave it to the PM, his advisors and parliament to deal with CCHQ, the Conservative candidates list and institutions like the BoE and the BBC.
As I have advocated before, we should reform the House of Lords and the Supreme Court by creating a system of indirect elections. In both cases, appointments committees – about 15 strong – would be elected by universal suffrage (say 11 for England, 2 for Scotland and one each for Wales and Northern Ireland). These committees would appoint peers and supreme court judges. The current peers would be required to resign and 100 Eurosceptic peers could be appointed PDQ were the House of Lords appointments committee to be so minded.
I note with some amusement the body politic's embarrassment over the judiciary's Heathrow decision. Of course, it should not be a judicial decision, but the Government has created a rod for its own back by writing the requirement for zero net carbon emissions by 2050 into law. What the Government now has to do is to produce a plan to meet this target, taking into account that increasing population, increased air travel, the roll out of 5G and import substitution of manufactured goods all tend to increase emissions. Then the Government can go back to the courts. I doubt if the Heathrow Airport company will be successful in its appeal to the Supreme Court without Government support. We are still in the transition period of exiting the EU, so presumably the ECJ can still interfere. Ugh!


text:
Q: Class property name and its data type for sub class using Reflection I am trying to get class property name and its data type dynamically for any class so that I can build schema model required for Db e.g. Google BigQuery.
I was able to get the string or int property name and Type but with array or list of custom class am not sure how to get their class property and name.
My model is :
public class StateModel
{
    public string State { get; set; }
    public string Gender { get; set; }
    public int Year { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Number { get; set; }

    public int[] Items { get; set; }
    public List<string> Values { get; set; }

    public Coordinate[] OrdinateArray { get; set; }
    public List<Coordinate> Ordinates { get; set; }

    public Coordinate CoordinateObj { get; set; }
}

public class Coordinate
{
    public int Point { get; set; }
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

My method to get class property is:
public static Dictionary<string, object> GetColumnFromClass<T>() where T : class, new()
{
    Dictionary<string, object> fields = new Dictionary<string, object>();
    T obj = new T();
    var type = obj.GetType();
    PropertyInfo[] properties = type.GetProperties();
    foreach (var item in properties)
    {
        fields.Add(item.Name, item.PropertyType.Name.ToUpper())
    }
    return fields;
}

Can anyone help me how to get Coordinate class details i.e.(Point and Value name of Coordinate class) from the below properties:
public Coordinate[] OrdinateArray { get; set; }
public List<Coordinate> Ordinates { get; set; }
public Coordinate CoordinateObj { get; set; }

Note: I needed to get the subclass details dynamically and not hard coded.

A: Please see if this will meet your requirement (Same property name in parent and child will lead to only one entry of parent, this can be handled with a recursion depth parameter):
private static ConcurrentDictionary<string, object> GetColumnFromClass(object obj, ConcurrentDictionary<string, object> fields)
        {
            //null type will not be processed
            if (obj == null)
                return null;

            Type objType = obj.GetType();
            PropertyInfo[] properties = objType.GetProperties();

            foreach (PropertyInfo property in properties)
            {
                if (property.PropertyType.IsGenericType && property.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(List<>))
                {
                    Type itemType = property.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments()[0];
                    if (itemType == typeof(string))
                        fields.AddOrUpdate(property.Name, property.PropertyType.Name.ToUpper(), (k, o) => o);
                    else
                    {
                        fields.AddOrUpdate(property.Name, property.PropertyType.Name.ToUpper(), (k, o) => o);
                        GetColumnFromClass(Activator.CreateInstance(itemType), fields);
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    object propVal = property.GetValue(obj, null);
                    if (property.PropertyType.Assembly == objType.Assembly)
                    {
                        fields.AddOrUpdate(property.Name, property.PropertyType.Name.ToUpper(), (k,o) => o);
                        GetColumnFromClass(propVal, fields);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        fields.AddOrUpdate(property.Name, property.PropertyType.Name.ToUpper(), (k, o) => o);
                    }
                }
            }
            return fields;
        }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


To become a Dark Lord is no easy thing. The simple ambition to hold dominion over the world and bend all to your will sounds straightforward but it's not. After many spectacular failures, Evil decided to lend more than inspiration to these would be tyrants. He wrote an easy to follow Dark Lord's Handbook. And yet the next Dark Lord that came along screwed up like all the others.
It had been hundreds of years, and the Handbook was lost in the annals of time, along with all that was mythic and exciting in the world. Then one day, a randy dragon had a chance encounter. Nine months later a Dark Lord was born.
The worn out "Chosen One battles the Great Evil" theme is turned on its head. I haven't laughed this hard in years.
Humorous , well written. Looking forward to second book. Straightforward storyline, but still interesting. The book even has a decent explanation of the sub prime loan financial crises.
Simply the best comic fantasy I have read in years. Dale manages to combine the social satire of Terry Pratchett with the comic plotting and dialogue of Simon R. Green. This book lampoons not only classic fantasy archetypes, but tackles Star Wars, Tolkein and the Global Economic Crisis of 2008 in deft and hilarious strokes.I laughed out loud repeatedly.
Be warned: this book is NOT for everyone. But if you have ever been to a sci-fi/fantasy/comic book convention, possess the LOTR box set, played D&D or own more than ten Discworld books, then "The Dark Lord's Handbook" is a must-read. I can't wait to jump into the sequel.


On Tuesday, BJP has accused that the Gandhi family had "historical" relations with the family of UK National Christian James Michel, who is reportedly a 'middleman' in Rs. 3600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, has been established.
Ms. Irani said that the matter is sub-judice and as a Cabinet Minister she does not want to express her feelings about it.
"But one can only say that historical relations between the Michel family and the Gandhi family are established and the rest is left for the investigative agencies and the court of law," added Ms. Irani.


text:
R. Hell Site Forum Message
Entire: Hell's "Sid & Nancy" (pt. 2)
Posted by: Roy Suggs ('cuz@richardhell.com')
cont. from previous post
Nancy just wanted to he somebody (not necessarily herself). And you've got to hand it to her, she made it. She'd love that her name could be half a movie title and that we'd know right off who it was (though she'd know it wouldn't work without Sid's). But then she'd hate the lumpy face of the actress who plays her. She would do absolutely anything to get what she wanted, but her arsenal of persuasive means was limited. When I told her I didn't want to see her anymore, she started crying, and pleading, pulled off her panties, lifted her skirt, bent over, and swore she'd do anything I asked. It was not too attractive. There was really nothing between us.
The Sex Pistols were really something, though. I keep thinking how pure they were, an impenetrable phenomenon, like a mirror, or any given moment. Like life. They brought life back to rock 'n' roll. To write about them is to reveal yourself. They were pure chaos. Like watching a storm. Matter releasing its energy. To touch them was to burn (get burned), but they were so compelling, so tempting, so fascinating to watch. They weren't human, but it was a kind of inhumanity I understand, and a neglected teenager needs. They were the definition of white rock 'n' roll.
Mainly, a teenager wants to be heard, to make his presence felt. He sees how monstrous the world is behind its polite manners, and he resents being ignored and condescended to by such hypocrites. So he drops the manners and reflects the truth, which is to say he makes a monster of himself. Utterly exhilarating. The problem is that when it happens to you, like it did to Sid, when it's done naively, you're still allowing yourself to he defined and controlled by the society you're "defying," and unless you can grow up before you die, your destiny will be to self-destruct in some sort of misbegotten, half-conscious protest against it.
It reminds me of the night James Chance--another crazy inspired musician of the period--was furious because the mob proprietors of some New York disco refused to pay him after a gig. Chance stalked around the huge, darkened dance floor in a fury, cursing. The room was empty except for a muscle-bound bouncer and James and me. When James started kicking beer bottles, the bouncer began to approach him. James picked up a bottle by the neck, smashed it against a pillar, and screamed at the guy, "You can't hurt me!" Then he jammed the broken bottle into his own chest.
It's a weird syndrome of the powerless saying to the powerful "You can't hurt me because I'm willing to hurt myself."
Of course, Lydon and Malcolm were not such lost souls. Neither of them is done justice by the movie. To be fair, the movie isn't their story, though it is virtually a docudrama. But Malcolm wasn't the sort of cynical character it makes him out to be. Malcolm was having fun. He was shaking things up and making art. The mass media was his art form and he was a master of its properties. He was also quite honest, I think, and very politically sophisticated, which is to say thoughtful and consistent in dealing with people. He was something of a megalomaniac where his work was concerned, but an artist has to be. He was a lot like Warhol (Or Picasso for that matter) in that he took ideas wherever he could find them. But ideas aren't property, nobody owns them. They belong to whomever makes the best use of them. His collaborators in the Sex Pistols were eager volunteers, not captive victims.
I remember once talking to Johnny Thunders (probably the most unacknowledged legislator of rock'n'roll) about how sleazy rock life is, and he came up with the best characterization of it I ever heard. He compared it to professional boxing, with its sleazy, incompetent managers, gangster promoters, and other duplicitous parasites who live off the blood of the performers, performers who are likely to end up punch-drunk burnouts, while the owners get rich, but whose only other choices in life are jail or a cubicle in social hell. Malcolm was as far as could be from such sinister managerial types. He was an extension of the band. Without his energy, commitment, and brilliant strategy, they never could have approached the position they reached. He understood rock 'n' roll too--that its essence is that it's made by and for kids. It's not about virtuosity--it's about energy, passion, frustration, lust, and fun. Not to mention drugs (though Malcolm seriously disapproved of drugs). Teenage life. Life and life only. The Sex Pistols were, first, true to life. That's how they burned through the newspapers and the TV tubes to the kids, because the kids, whether they knew it beforehand or not, were sick of the self-important, posing, old, and isolated rock-emperors of the time.
The Sex Pistols had no pretensions. They'd only just learned how to operate their instruments. But they operated as one, with a common intention that was shared by half the youth of London. That intention was just to have some fun, for once, just to make something happen. Despite grownups. They created an atmosphere where kids could be themselves, despite everything. Things were (and still are) bad for kids in England. Every year, literally hundreds of thousands of them went directly from school onto the dole. There were no jobs. The welfare state was a listless, pathetic failure. The streets were ugly with bored and hungry kids.
So London was ripe to the point of rotten. Enter Johnny, who, like Malcolm, is not well served by Sid & Nancy. Rotten was heroic for his absolutely scrupulous refusal to ever promote anything but general chaos. It was just his nature. He was like some mythological imp, the imp of the perverse, who just liked to rub you the wrong way. At the first date my band, the Voidoids, played in London, 1977, Rotten came on stage after the set and harangued the audience into forcing us, with ten minutes of applause, to return for an encore (when we'd already played every song we knew). I'd never met him. Then when he came backstage later, the first thing he said to me was, "God, you've got a big nose." He was definitely into one-upmanship, but you had to admire him. All the kids in London did, because he didn't give a fuck, even about that. He just hated anything conventional and he was funny and street-smart. He was one of them, and he was a concentrated package of the part of each of them they'd been least able to express. He gave it release, and they really loved him for it. All those bands, from the Clash to Generation X (Billy Idol) to even Duran Duran, freely, publicly, admit that he--or the Sex Pistols--was directly responsible for inspiring them. This kind of acknowledgment is very unusual among members of essentially the same generation in such a competitive and egotistical business as rock music.
That's something that's missing from the movie--a sense of the emotional commitment and loyalty the kids had to each other. (It was true in New York, too.) Things were shared and people helped each other. It wasn't sentimental. They were a hard lot, for all their youth, but they believed in each other and their common worth in the face of the contempt and indifference of adults. (Everyone was much younger than they're portrayed in the movie.)
...cont. in next post: http://www.richardhell.com/cgi-bin/forum/showmessage.asp?messageID=205
back to R. Hell Site Forum Board
Richard and Sid by scoop punk, 25 Nov 1999 (33)
richard and sid by Mariana, 25 Nov 1999
Richard and Sid by Jeremy , 26 Nov 1999
Richard and Sid by scooppunk, 26 Nov 1999
info by serkan, 9 Aug 2001
Achille's Heel by MmeL'Enfer, 14 Nov 2008
sid and richard by JOE, 19 Feb 2000
Entire: Hell's "Sid & Nancy" (pt. 1) by Roy Suggs, 26 Nov 1999
Answering Roy by Gabriella, 27 Aug 2001
Just read about her by Gustavo, 8 Sep 2009
Answering Richard by Gabriella, 27 Aug 2001
the whole thing by BAM, 21 Oct 2000
THE usa w/o Hell's Angels by Karyn E. Mullin, 14 Nov 2000
Sid and Nancy by Deborah olin, 11 Dec 2002
Connie Gripp/ Ramone by Mandi, 1 Oct 2003
sort of.. by Loner punk, 10 Jun 2004
no - by Hannah, 10 Jun 2004
connie by Ruby Ramone, 29 Dec 2005
Connie's sister by Susan Gripp, 8 Jan 2006
Correction by jetboy, 10 Jan 2006
Connie by rick rivets, 14 Jan 2007
Connie Gripp Ramone by Missy, 1 Jan 2006
Connie Gripp/ Ramone by Mandi, 1 Jan 2006
About Your Mother by nichole, 12 Apr 2008
hi!!!!! by lovelyn gutierrez, 4 Dec 2008
connie gripp by annie, 28 Sep 2008
Connie by Anya, 29 Jun 2009
connie grip by Phil Staines, 15 Aug 2009
also... by alexis, 6 Feb 2004
Thanks! by Philip Obbard, 28 Nov 1999
Sid Nancy & Richard by scooppunk, 27 Nov 1999
Richard on Sid by Armi , 22 Jan 2000
Merch Links Site Index Lyrics 1st Page Bio Core Updates

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Book of Mormon includes specific population numbers which make it possible to evaluate the authenticity of Book of Mormon growth rates against known growth rates for similar cultures. In such an analysis, the assertions of population growth in the Book of Mormon approach the ridiculous. For example, by 187 B.C. the Nephite-Lehite growth rate was thirty times the rate that existed in the world as a whole during the same era.
For the Amlicite-Nephite war of 87 B.C., Alma 2:17-19 reports a total of 19,094 fatalities. On the basis of these figures John Sorenson, a professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University , estimated the total Nephite-Lamanite population to be over 600,000 at that time (about 200,000 Nephites-Amlicites and over 400,000 Lamanites). For an original band of thirty reproductive individuals in 590 B.C. to proliferate even to 19,094 by 87 B.C. would require an average annual growth rate of 1.3 percent sustained over the span of five centuries. To reach the 600,000 level Sorenson determined to have existed at that point, the growth rate would have had to be 2 percent, again maintained for five centuries. This is a level never reached on a global scale until 1960 and fifty times the actual world rate of the pre-industrial epoch. It is a rate that, even when attained, can only persist briefly.
In his Speculations on Book of Mormon Populations, Vern Elefson (1984) briefly discussed population figures contained in the Book of Mormon, and then reverse-engineered them to estimate the growth rate that must have prevailed for those figures to be reached. His "best guess" was an average annual rate of increase of 1.5 percent. His explanation for the explosion of Nephite-Lamanite numbers is the supposedly salutary effects of abundant space and natural resources, and the absence of other disease-carrying people.
Are These Numbers Even Possible?


If you have peanut or cilantro allergies, I would not recommend a visit to Taiwan. Crushed, pulverized, peanut powder is liberally sprinkled on many dishes, both savory and sweet, and cilantro is a common garnish on soups and savory dishes.
Here, a vendor scrapes a solid cake of peanut-studded sugar to prepare a sweet snack.
Jiufen (nine portions) is a gold rush town with an old-style street. In addition to being the shooting location for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's A City of Sadness, Jiufen is wildly popular with young Japanese and Korean tourists for its depiction in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.
This thin rice pancake with fresh peanut shavings and two scoops of a light vanilla sorbet rolled up like a burrito (35 NTD < $1.20 US) had a good crunch. I washed it down with a fresh almond milk. In many markets, the aroma of ground almond powder is intoxicating. I didn't buy any, though, because it doesn't keep well after it's processed.
A few days later, for breakfast, we had similar rice pancakes smeared with shaved peanut and cilantro and stuffed with shredded vegetables, bean sprouts, and a little bit of shredded chicken. I recall that this also cost approximately $1US.
In Taiwanese, this is called a roong byang! (no idea how it's actually spelled, and I included the exclamation point to emphasize the accent on the second syllable) and we think it's comparable to South Indian dosas. Most people were buying these to-go, but we sat and enjoyed them with hot soy milk.
The stand was at a market near my family's house. Despite Taiwan's modernity and availability of European-style groceries, to say nothing of 24-hour convenience stores (more about these in a future post), many people still do their daily food shopping at markets like these, often outside temples. These open-air markets sell everything from produce, fish, meat, and flowers to kitchenware and underwear.
More on peanuts–and cilantro–in an upcoming post on a very Taiwanese street snack.
The original temple was built in the 1730s but has been rebuilt multiple times after natural disasters, fires, and air raids. The current temple is a postwar recreation.
We ate oa geng (oyster soup), a light soup with plenty of fresh, sizable oysters.
Other snake restaurants, not this one, had gigantic snakes and tanks of huge rabbits and rats (food for the snakes—so I guess one is indirectly eating rodents when one eats snake). No pictures allowed, because they probably don't like being a tourist anomaly or attracting the attention of animal rightists.
Snake is kind of a pain to eat. It tastes like bland fish. Too many bones, most of them intercrossing. The broth was very good, light and a bit sweet, with Chinese herbs in it. Snake soup is supposed to be good for ocular health (glaucoma) and skin (people here love to eat things they believe are "good for your skin").
Within ninety minutes of touching down at Taoyuan Airport, I was once again at Yong He Soymilk Magnate.
My mom's warm savory soymilk with cut up pieces of yu tiao (fried dough stick) and scallions. I prefer sweet soymilk, hot or cold, depending on the weather (which, on this trip, has ranged from cool high 50s to a sticky mid 80s).
Just some of our post-flight breakfast spread. Each item cost between 15-50 NTD, so everything under $2US.
A closer look at the shredded radish omelette.
And a closer look at the fried dough-making process. They do this outdoors for a large grab-and-go breakfast clientele. Look at how small the dough sticks are before they puff up in the hot oil.
Note the extra-long cooking chopsticks and the prodigious amount of oil.
I'll be posting more in the days to come on night markets, things in edible wrappers, and food on sticks.
I was in Taiwan at the end of the Lunar New Year celebrations, which ended with Yuanshiao Jie, the week-long Lantern Festival. This year, Yuanshiao, the first full moon of the new lunar year, was February 28, my last full day in Taiwan.
The traditional food eaten for Yuanshiao Jie is tang yuan, balls of glutinous rice in broth. This was my first time eating tang yuan with filling—as a child, my paternal grandmother and I just made the plain small ones (yes, I realize that they are small round things, but playing with dough was fun.) Most commonly, tang yuan are filled with sweet black sesame, sweet peanuts, or the ubiquitous red bean paste, but there are also savory versions with meat.
Making filled tang yuan seems rather labor-intensive. Balls of filling are alternately rolled in rice powder, moistened, and rolled in powder again, repeatedly building up layers of chewy dough around the filling.
After finishing our tang yuan, my relatives and I went to the Lantern Festival near Taipei City Hall.
I also ate a lot of fruit while in Taiwan. There is nothing uniquely Taiwanese or particularly exotic about any of them, but they were all new to me.
It's wax apple season right now. Known in Chinese as lian wu, they're called "wax apples" in English because of their appearance. As far as taste and texture, they're comparable to Asian pears, a bit tarter, with the crispness of airy Styrofoam.
The best new fruit experience were these Buddha head fruits, so-called because of their resemblance to depictions of the Sakyamuni Buddha's hair. Eaten with a spoon, the fruit is creamy and sweet (hence the English name, custard apple) and contains hard seed pods like those of a lychee. Some people find this fruit almost sickly sweet, but not as much as a durian.
In contrast, a tart prickly pear passionfruit, which was served as part of a Japanese kaiseki meal I had, was also eaten with a spoon and the seeds were snappy and popped like pomegranate seeds.
I also had a lot of guava, which was crisp and not as sweet as the canned juice we have in America. I'd been introduced to regular small jujubes last year, but this was the first time I'd seen giant jujubes, which were not as sweet as the smaller variety but had the same texture, like a firm apple.
My eating trip began with a very traditional dessert, peanut soup, in the food court at Eslite Xinyi, a huge bookstore/department store chain with some branches open 24 hours. (Imagine if Borders and Bloomingdale's mated and the baby stayed up all night.) The one on the left is a warm version, and the one on the right is served over ice with doufu hua (literally, tofu flower), a very soft, sweet dessert tofu.
While in Taipei, I ate other desserts familiar to anyone who has been in Chinatown.
Red bean soup, the usual post-prandial sweet.
A deep fried glutinous rice and red bean thing rolled in sesame.
A variety of puddings and jellos, coconut being my favorite.
Some of the desserts I had were not particularly traditional in the sense that they did not exist in the Taiwan of my parents and grandparents, but they have become part of the Taiwanese vernacular.
It's strawberry season in Taiwan, and everywhere I went, markets had fresh strawberries. The Mister Donut chain was running a promotion of strawberry doughnuts. Pon are their standard ring doughnuts, which look like a bracelet of doughnut holes.
I bit these open so that I could photograph the insides. The one on the bottom is plain glazed, the pink one on top is strawberry.
The doughnuts in Asia are different—much lighter in the belly and of course with flavors like matcha and red bean. (McDonald's sometimes has fried pies with red bean and pineapple in addition to the usual apple pie.) Someone even told me that Dunkin' Donuts products have half the sugar in Taiwan because the American versions are too sweet.
One Taiwanese sweet that is known almost globally is bubble tea (or milk tea to me, since I always get it without the tapioca pearls—small round things, you know.) Though I decry the extra plastic bag they give to protect your hand from the condensation, it's admittedly convenient to dangle your bubble tea from your wrist while noshing on your skewers of fried squid and chicken.
People in Taiwan are very particular about bubble tea. Despite plenty of stands in Shida Night Market proper, my cousin insisted that we walk five blocks outside to her preferred shop. If you get annoyed by people ordering a grande soy mocha half-caf skim latte with walking room is picky, you'll definitely be bothered by regular orders for such specifics as 70% sugar, 50% ice bubble tea!
I'm not a very adventurous bubble tea drinker. Because I read Chinese too slowly to look at all the choices, my go-to flavors are almond and coconut, which appear on all menus. On this trip, I ventured into strawberry milk and pudding milk territories, but I think I'll stick with almond and coconut. The strawberry was fresh but otherwise unmemorable, and the pudding was inadequately sweet—although it was streaked with chocolate, it wasn't chocolaty enough (a common problem with Asian "chocolate" desserts—it's not chocolate, it's just brown) and the pulled through the thick straw, the pudding was the consistency of snot. I didn't even think of trying the milk tea with "frog eggs" (mixed bubbles, cubes of lemon and grass jelly)!
More to come about celebratory desserts in a future post.
Prior to going to Taipei, I read a lot of things defining night markets as places to get traditional Taiwanese snacks. For me, the term "snack" conjures images of chips or granola bars, not this nightly lollapalooza of steaming vats and sizzling grills that appear all over the city in predetermined spots around 4PM each evening. In a whole culture of "small eats", it's easy to make a meal of a few items eaten with chopsticks or sharp bamboo skewers.
Shilin Night Market, near where my father grew up, is one of the largest night markets in Taipei and it was particularly crammed this Saturday, being the first warm day and last weekend night of a rainy Lunar New Year holiday.
Oysters (Oa, pronounced oh-ah, in Taiwanese) are plentiful. This night market classic is Oa Misua, lots of oysters and some slices of pig intestine with fine rice noodles in a vinegary and garlicky broth with an extra dollop of minced garlic added right before serving.
This is Oa Jian, sometimes described as an oyster pancake or omelette, smothered in a salty, tangy sauce.
One of the few bad things about night markets is that it's sometimes hard to find seating. Fortunately, it seems to be acceptable to eat "outside food" as long as you purchase something at the establishment where you're seated. Also, if you want a dish from a nearby stand, the proprietors will gladly yell out your order to the neighbors and fetch it so that you don't have to leave your hard-won seat.
Another problem is the trash. Taiwan is pretty good about recycling and waste management, but the skewers and chopstick wrappers, plastic spoons, bowls, and bags have got to add up, night after night. I don't know what the solution might be. Corn or soy-based biodegradable containers? A concept dear to my Illinois heart, but maybe not as feasible for a small island whose main crops seem to be betel nuts and sugarcane. Bringing your own containers would probably be against health codes, but bringing your own chopsticks and forks might be a start.
The last thing I ate at the Shilin Night Market was a sausage wrapped in sticky rice. Usually, it's wrapped in a wax paper bag for eating out of hand, but we had ours sliced for sharing. I'm starting to see that "wrapped in sticky rice" is quickly becoming a theme for my eating in Taiwan.
I'm told that here in Taiwan, Yong He Soymilk Magnate is what returning overseas Taiwanese insist on between landing at Tongyuan Airport and going to sleep off the 18+ hour flight.
No matter how late your flight gets in, Yong He is open 24 hours a day (as are many establishments in Asia) for you to get your fried dough and soymilk fix.
The food is prepared just outside the restaurant so that pedestrians can grab-and-go for less than one US dollar per item.
This is a turnip pancake fried in egg.
This is a fried dough stick and dried pork tightly wrapped in sticky rice.
The quintessential Chinese breakfast is a fried dough stick wrapped in a sesame-encrusted, very flaky bread. One of my American quirks that people in Asia always comment on is my need to have a cold drink with every meal. I was thirsty, so I had two cold, sweet soybean milks. Hot soymilk is served in a bowl and can either be sweetened or savory.
An excellent way to start eating my way around Taipei. I also guess that this means that I should think about what food means "home" to me.
Sharon is a good food friend because she blithely ignores socially acceptable conventions on what and when to eat. She will gladly eat five meals a day, or seek out fried chicken and cheesesteaks for breakfast. Although she refuses to eat small round things (peas, lentils, tobiko, chickpeas, etc.) and eats really, really slowly, she is a consistently strong eater.
Sharon lives in New Haven, CT where she eats clam and bacon pizza, hot buttered lobster rolls, and steamed hamburgers.
What would your food bio say?


And here is the abstract.
Wildfire frequency and intensity in the Mediterranean region are predicted to increase with climate and anthropogenic changes in the following decades. Pines species often posses fire-embracing and fire-avoiding strategies that increase the probability of persistence and performance in fire-prone habitats. One such strategy is serotiny, i.e., the capacity to retain seeds in long-closed cones within the plant canopy; serotinous cones release seeds only when either a fire or a heat shock occurs. In this work, we used a simulation approach and Pinus pinaster populations as a model system to investigate how (i) an increased frequency of fire, (ii) genetic characteristics of serotiny, and (iii) observed differences in life histories interact to determine (a) risk of local population extinction and (b) temporal changes in the prevalence of serotiny in the modeled population. In addition, we tested whether the contemporary evolution of serotiny in the face of increased probability of occurrence of fires increased the probability of population persistence with respect to a scenario in which serotiny was not allowed to evolve. Our simulations showed that over the 300 years of simulated time, the evolution of serotiny did not substantially contribute to the persistence of populations. Extinction risk increased with the increasing probability of occurrence of fire and slightly decreased with (i) higher gene flow from outside the modeled population, and (ii) higher prevalence of serotiny at the beginning of the simulation. The prevalence of serotiny at the end of simulation time was difficult to predict and mostly driven by stochasticity.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on June 3, 2014 by admin.


Get along to Allan Border Oval on Saturday or Sunday to see a great display of top class Premier Cricket.
On Saturday Mosman take on Eastern Suburbs in day 1 of a 2 day match. With skipper Scott Rodgie on the sidelines this weekend, Ash Doolan steps in as the new captain, but with years of senior cricket experience.
On Sunday we have 2 x T20 games at 10.00am & 2.30pm with pace bowling legend Brett Lee turning out for the Whales.


DDS-11A-S is a high-intelligent, multifunctional, and easy-to-use desktop aqueous conductivity analyzer that can be widely used in power plants, nuclear power plants, chemicals, petrochemicals, paper, environmental protection and water supply, pharmaceuticals and other industries. Electrodes with a constant of 1 or 10 can be used to measure the conductivity of general liquids; with a 0.1 or 0.01 electrode, the conductivity of pure water or ultrapure water can be accurately measured. Particularly suitable for laboratory measurements of conductivity of high purity water such as boiler feed water and steam condensate. It has greatly surpassed the existing similar instruments in terms of the number of functions, practicality and convenience of operation, and belongs to the latest generation of products.
I. Main Features 1. High intelligence: The use of single-chip microprocessors to complete the range of automatic conversion, temperature compensation and instrument self-test, there is no function switch and adjustment knob.
2. Multi-parameter display on the same screen: Simultaneous display of conductivity and temperature on one screen. The use of high-brightness LED display module, the main display with red 0.56-inch digital display conductivity value, eye-catching, visible distance; Deputy display with red 0.5-inch digital display temperature. To meet the user's different usage habits.
3. Industrial Control Watchdog: Make sure the meter does not crash.
II. Operation principle of the instrument Measurement principle: In order to avoid electrode polarization, the instrument generates a square wave signal with high stability and is added to the conductivity cell. The current flowing through the conductivity cell is proportional to the conductivity of the solution to be measured. After the high-impedance op amp is converted into a voltage, a programmable signal is amplified, detected and filtered to obtain a potential signal reflecting the conductivity; the microprocessor alternately samples the temperature signal and the conductivity signal, and after the operation and the temperature compensation, the measured solution is obtained. Conductivity at 25°C and current temperature.
Principle of temperature compensation: The conductivity of the electrolyte solution is affected by temperature changes and must be temperature compensated. In general, the temperature coefficient of a weak aqueous solution is 2 c/o°C.
III. How to Use the Instrument The new meter must be set to "Electrode Constant" and "Temperature Constant" when used for the first time. The electrode constant is marked on the electrode. The temperature coefficient is set to 2.00% when shipped from the factory.
1. Function key description Key function electrode constant Press this key to quickly set and view the electrode constant temperature coefficient Press this key to set and view the temperature compensation coefficient OK Press this key to accept the setting Scroll (â–¼, â–²) can be used to change the labor in the measurement mode Temperature setting and changing the electrode constant and temperature compensation coefficient measurement Press this key to return to the measurement mode. When the instrument is powered on, the meter model and electrode constant value are displayed first. After 5 seconds, the instrument automatically enters the measurement state. H-1 is displayed.
The electrode constant indicates that the tester is in set mode and it is used to set or view the cell constants.
The temperature compensation coefficient indicates that the tester is in setting mode. It is used to set or view the temperature compensation coefficient.
Indicates that the automatic temperature compensation probe is connected and operational. Manual temperature compensation will be activated when the ATC signal is not displayed.
°C indicates the temperature value.
μS/cm, unit of measurement in ms/cm.
E-21 indicates the over-measurement range.
2. Parameter setting electrode constant setting Press the electrode constant key, the electrode constant light, the main display electrode constant value, press â–², â–¼ keys to increase or decrease the value, hold and hold, the speed of change will be faster and faster, to The required electrode constant value, press the enter key to accept the electrode constant setting, the electrode constant value flashes, the electrode constant will automatically return to the measurement state after the light goes out.
When setting the electrode constant, you can quickly change the electrode constant value by pressing the electrode constant key. Each time you press, the electrode constant is changed between 0.0100, 0.100, 1.000, and 10.00.
Note: The electrode constants set in the meter must be consistent with the constants marked on the electrodes used!
Temperature coefficient setting Press the temperature coefficient button, the temperature coefficient light is on, the main display shows the temperature coefficient value, press ▲, ▼ keys to increase or decrease the value, hold it down, the speed of change is faster and faster, to the desired temperature coefficient value Press the ENTER key to accept the temperature coefficient setting, the temperature coefficient value will flash, and the temperature coefficient will automatically return to the measurement state after the lamp is turned off. We suggest that when the conductivity of the water sample is less than 1μS/cm, the temperature coefficient is 4.55%; when the conductivity is less than 10μS/cm, the temperature coefficient is selected to be 4.00%; when the conductivity is less than 100μS/cm, the temperature coefficient is selected to be 2.10%; higher conductivity The rate is set based on the temperature coefficient of the main ions in the water.
Note: If you only want to view the temperature coefficient value without modification, press the temperature compensation factor key to view, and press the measurement key to directly bring back the measurement status.
The temperature is manually set to facilitate the user's needs in a specific situation, the temperature of the watch can be manually set in the range of 0 ~ 60 °C. Once the manual temperature is set, the ATC light will go out.
In the manual warm-up state, you can use the â–², â–¼ keys to increase or decrease the value, hold it down, the speed of change will be faster and faster. Can be set to the desired temperature value.


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