Taking Politics Out Of Government

Wednesday 7th February

The trouble with Democracy is that every party, when they finally get into power is far more concerned with getting re-elected at the next election than doing the right thing.  Far too much power accrues to the Prime Minister (a sort of elected King) who not only hires and fires their own Cabinet but almost always dictates the Policy.  We now have a Prime Minister being pulled and pushed in all directions before deciding which Brexit road we will be dragged down.  And likewise, the entire Labour Party is waiting on tenterhooks for Jeremy to make his mind up too, whether to go soft or hard.

Let us look at two big issues.  The NHS is always short of funds, and at each election parties promise to fund it adequately, which they rarely do.  Wouldn’t it be far simpler to have a National Commissioning Body which decides in advance what actual funding the NHS needs, and it would then be up to Government to find the money.  Experts rather than Ministers would decide how much money a decent NHS requires. A similar system could work for schools.  But this will never happen…Taking Politics out of Government, you must be joking.

 

With Brexit itself, the sensible thing for any Government to have done on receiving the electorate’s decision would have been to have consulted widely and tried to hammer out some sort of consensus.  Difficult I know, but it could have been done if the Political Will was there.  Our whole strategy should have been decided and agreed on (as far as that is possible) before we triggered Article 50.  Instead our new PM made it a political decision.  She was more concerned with winning votes than doing the right thing.  The Cabinet are actually only meeting today to decide our end game.  This was far too important to have been dealt with in this way.

Prime Minister’s are concerned ultimately about their legacy.  How people will remember them.  And despite Mrs. May’s intention to deliver a splendid Brexit she will be remembered for yet another terribly bungled and ultimately very costly mess…Sometimes you just have to take Politics out of Decision Making, and do the right thing,