I think all are agreed that what the British economy really needs is some more ivory tower, entirely out of touch, economic planners? Good, then Rishi is about to provide us with some more:
Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor, will use his first budget to announce that parts of the Treasury will move to the north of England as he unveils the biggest spending giveaway since 2001.
A significant number of the Treasury’s 1,500 posts will be transferred to an “economic decision-making campus” in the north in an effort to show northern voters who switched to the Tories in December that the government is serious about their priorities.
All that wisdom of the crowds stuff, self-reinforcing circlejerks and the rest. In order to get to any reasonable conclusion on anything – not just policy – you’ve got to have a multiplicity of views and experiences.
So, now we’re going to put the economic planners in Worksop are we? There’s no one within 100 miles with an economic IQ above 65. Plenty of people around to tell ’em they’re being damn fools of course but no one they’ll listen to. Those determining the fate of the nation never are going to listen to damn provincials, are they?
Of course, it’s true that having all the economic planners in London hasn’t done so well. But then that’s an argument – as was looking east from the Brandenburg Gate in 1989 – against having economic planners, not moving them to where they’ll be even worse at the job.
This is similar to Donald Trump’s plan to move functions out of Washington DC. It has the beneficial effect of reducing the size of the deep state. When he announced that a part of the Agriculture Department was moving to the Midwest, about 90% of the employees said that they would refuse to go. The only question is, would they burrow into another government job in DC?
Many a company move has been used to allow the removal of deadwood. Particularly value in the public sector, where firing incompetents is pretty much impossible.
The Midwest doesn’t want them. It implies that what’s happening to Virginia will happen there too: Federal employees in one part of the state in such numbers as can vote to foist leftism on everyone else. They have little measurable output, lots of time for political agitation, and will not assimilate to their new homes. But I do delight in political hacks being given a painful new dilemma and hope that many would rather move to the Productive Sector than to Missouri.
Also, the Civil Service acts as one big monster, easily networking across departments and ensuring a unified front against ministers and voters.
Central Planners are already damn dangerous. Break it up and ruin it’s ability to coordinate and it will weaken the beast. Turn the London based ones against the provincials. Civil Service, Civil Warfare!
We can’t kill the monster in one blow. So how do we weaken the monster with one thousand slashes? Which Slash first, ones it can’t resist.
Also bye bye London weighting for Salary……..
Good Mr Sunak. Now kick it again. Hard.
The purpose is to reward former Labour voters with jobs – they don’t actually have to be productive because the taxpayer will pay.
The part that scares me about the Treasury is that the average age of the department is apparently 26 years old so almost no one who has experienced anything works there
So a couple of years older than most “management” “consultants” then. Not bad.
But we’re not obliged to pay for management consultants on pain of imprisonment.
You can read chicken entrails anywhere, really.
“So, now we’re going to put the economic planners in Worksop are we? There’s no one within 100 miles with an economic IQ above 65. Plenty of people around to tell ’em they’re being damn fools of course but no one they’ll listen to. Those determining the fate of the nation never are going to listen to damn provincials, are they?” They don’t listen to anyone sensible now. So let them not listen while living somewhere not quite so amenable as central London. You never know, having to live among the troglodytes (as you obviously see them too) might teach… Read more »
One reason the average age of Treasury staff is so low is that they have a deliberate policy of paying less than other departments (sensible, as people actually want to work in the Treasury, while no one in their right mind wants to work at, say, what used to be called the Dept of Timewasting and Interfering), and those people tend to move elsewhere in government if they don’t get promoted. Moving them up north will probably make little difference – they don’t tend to have families or own property, so they’re quite mobile. The more experienced staff might not… Read more »
We used to have the Manpower Services Commission in Sheffield. It’s significant that I have no idea what on earth it did, and that they were abolished so quickly that my only memory is entirely in the past tense, leaving a huge building empty for decades.
Not sure the Treasury now is not one single monolithic Groupmind?