Off Topic Starmer/ Reeves: last man standing

I am sick of hearing this word austerity, why not just say it real meaning A politician that is a coward and had no clue what to do. The CS need massive prod improvements, yes job losses, not just the bottom of the food chain jobs which are the ones needed, a cull of mid layer jobs required.
I have seen a few articles this year on the military,
UK and Israels military about same size, Israel procurement dept 400 people, UK 10000.
The chief of staff had a zoom call to discuss getting to 5% gov spend, complained about the amount of people on call not required asking questions that they would know the answer to if part of their job meaning loads of time wasted answering them.
The chief of the navy complaining about amount of time to get problems fixed, saying the nuclear det subs now doing 6 months tours instead of three because of the paperwork to fix simple repairs on subs in dry dock.
Will be plenty of similar issues throughout the CS. Remember the joke how many Civil servants does it take to change a light bulb
10
1 to change it and 9 to make sure he does it right

 

So, IF I understand your point, you are looking for a Politician to take on, and beat, The Sir Humphrey Apppleby Brigade?

The examples you quote, The Military Procurement, is so apt that it is a Comedy Series on ot its own.
It would be interesting to find when the last large Contract to come out within the original budget.
Has such a thing EVER occured.
Given the number of times the so called system has been reformed, it is not unreasonable to expect that 'THEY' might have got the hang of how to do it by now.

The whole fiasco echo's just why Government and The Civil Service should not be left in charge of such things.
Put bluntly, they are incapable of doing the job.
Sadly, saying that is the easy bit.
Sugesting an alternative system is the hard part, and like so many 'armchair critics', I'm ok at spotting the problem, but not so good on the second problem - coming up with a realistic solution.

 

Problem is the chief of staff came up with solutions but that would mean making people redundant, something the unions would not accept, why do even basic needs ie light bulb need about 10 people sign-off.
Also when you see the cost over runs, it is normally some one changing something when everything has already been agreed and started. When a project is agreed ,a ship, planes etc, the build should be locked down so no changing of spec is allowed unless it is a massive improvement on original spec.

 

David Lammy, Justice Secretary, was a tad embarrassing in PMQ's. He's too highly strung and bites to easy.

James Cartlidge, shadow Secretary of Defence, on the other hand cannot count to six... as he pushed Lammy on the question "Since Kebatu was released, no other asylum seaking offendeder has been accidentaly let out of prison?"

Earlier this week Kemi Badenoch said that, when she is preparing for PMQs, she finds it helpful to think of it as a pantomime. As an assessment of how PMQs functions, that is reasonably accurate, although whether it should function like that is, of course, another matter.

Pantomimes have heroes and villains, and today David Lammy ended up as the villain. It was not entirely his fault, but he has had better days at the despatch box. But he did not mess up as badly as the fool James Cartlidge apparently did.

Lammy started off well, brushing off the question from Cartlidge, about the father of the victim of Hadush Kebatu not having had a direct apology from ministers, but then Cartlidge started asking if he could reassure MP that “since Kebatu was released, no other asylum seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison?” That was question two. (See 12.07pm.) As Lammy refused to give a direct answer, Cartlidge then asked a version of the same question four more times.

Presumably Cartlidge knew from the start that another asylum seeker had been inadvertently released. And presumably Lammy did too, and was faced with a choice between a) either confirming something hugely embarrassing in the most-high profile parliamentary slot of the week, or b) repeatedly avoiding the question, which would make him evasive and shifty.

Lammy settled on option b). To be fair, he tried quite hard to disguise his question-dodging. He started by implying that he could not answer because of the inquiry that is under way into the Kebatu release.

Let me just remind him that he was a justice minister that allowed our prisons to get to this state in the first place and it’s now for us to fix the mess that we’ve got into.

It’s important that Dame Lynne Owens can now continue her work and understand what is happening. He knows that early releases begun under their watch in 2021.

He unleashed an outburst of indigation.

Get a grip, man, I know I’m the justice secretary, that’s why I’m at the despatch box. We know that there have been spikes since 2021 under his watch. When did he come to this house and apologise?

And he repeatedly attacked the Tory record.

I spent 14 years in opposition and I did a hell of a lot better than he’s just done. I have answered the question. Under their watch, prisons were in a mess. Suicides went up. Prison officers cut – 20,000 neighbourhood police lost. We’ve deported more in the last year than they deported in the last five years. I’m not going to take any lecture from [Cartlidge].

But none of this could successfully cover up the fact that Lammy was avoiding the question.

So Cartlidge was doing quite well. But right at the end, he seemed to blow it. He miscounted his questions, and thought he had one more question than he actually did. Reporters in the gallery concluded that he was planning to use his final question to reveal that there had been another inadvertent prisoner release, but did not get the chance. As PMQs went on, the Tory frontbench seemed to be looking for another Tory MP willing to make this point. They even tried to recruit Rishi Sunak, it seemed, but the former PM did not want to oblige and stuck with his question about prostate cancer. In the end, Cartlidge had to use a point of order to pose what would have been his final question.

Kemi Badenoch probably won’t be asking him to deputise for her again any time soon.

 

The media are out for blood and have Lammy in their sights

 

I feel sorry for him, but he's embarrassing and unprofessional. Reminds me of Cleverly the way he wags his finger going "nur nur de nur nur"