Three dire failings right at the heart of our public services. And as regular readers will be well aware, these are failings that have been around ever since we started BOM nearly four years ago. Cost? Taken together, these three underperforming services - schools, health and police - now cost us north of £180bn pa, or £7 grand per household. The really frustrating thing is that we know what needs to be done. Teachers need to be put back in charge of classroom discipline. Nurses need to be put back in charge of hospital hygiene. And policemen need to be put back in charge of policing. Plus of course, schools, hospitals, and police all need to be made directly accountable to their customers, not to the commissars. The fundamental reason that Sir Dick's airline works so much better than the NHS (or Aeroflot) is because unless he delivers what the customer wants, he goes bust. Whereas our state schools, state hospitals, and state police don't. Even when their customers get so pissed off they take their biz elsewhere, they still have to pay to maintain the dysfunctional state service. As it happens, I've just sampled the horror that is Sainsburys at Christmas. Now, there's a company that very nearly incinerated itself a few years back by getting too top-down, and losing track of customer service in the stores - our large store hit rock bottom when it literally ran out of potatoes one Xmas Eve. But now - while by no means perfect - its stock control has definitely improved, and most impressively, you can sense a change of attitude among the staff. Today, the manager came on the tannoy and told us he hoped we were having a good experience in his store - if not, he had stationed himself at the door and he wanted to hear about it so he could put it right. I've never heard that before, and I've never heard a store manager openly thank his staff and urge them on to greater efforts. It was an impressive testimony to the power of choice and competition*. The Commissars mouth platitudes about customer choice, but when it comes to action, they never relinquish power. All they can ever think of is to issue more top-down directives to deal with the latest crisis headlines (eg MRSA). Even though we all know by now that top-down direction destroys initiative and customer focus at the sharp end, where it can actually make a real difference. POSTED BY WAT TYLER AT 4:07 PM COMMENT (1) | TRACKBACK (0) Hang on a sec, though... when you list them out like that, it's funny how they all seem to involve him breaking news of some fresh new HMG initiative just before it gets announced by HMG. No... surely not... surely HMG wouldn't be using him as a tame pre-announcement conduit. I mean, why would a pre-eminent journo like Robert Peston need to get involved in anything as devious and downright shite as that? And just because everyone we know in the City thinks Peston is little more than Labour's deniable propaganda arm, doesn't mean it's true. Labels: BBCTUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2008
Tidings Of Discomfort And Misery
Shouldn't Father Christmas look chirpier than this? And where's his hat?
Three very familiar items from this morning's depressing papers:
MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2008
Super Show Darling
Indeed, so important has Peston now become, he himself didn't actually present the show at all. No, this was a show about him - a reporter and camera crew trailing him around the corridors of power on his mission to save the nation from evil bankers.
In reverential tones he was asked about this vital work, and invited to opine on"the way forward". We were treated to a potted life history, snaps of his early life, and even a glowing testimonial from his old dad - who just happens to be old Labour peer Lord Peston.
And what about those scoops, eh? What a cracking journo he must be, to ferret out all that secret info denied to the less talented:
Tuesday 23 December 2008
Peston in his youth
I've just watched a jaw-dropping BBC Panorama prog. "The Year Britain's Bubble Burst" was billed as a review of this cataclysmic year for our banks and the economy. In reality, it was a 30 min puff for our old chum Robert Peston, and that remarkable series of scoops he's credited with.
You'd almost think...
Just because he's the son of a Labour peer, doesn't mean he's a Labour supporter. In fact, he took the opportunity on this very programme to tell us he'd given up supporting any specific party when he became a financial journo: apparently, it's not appropriate.
And just because he and Darling were shown relaxing together, laughing about how they'd put one over on the evil bankers, doesn't mean Peston is in Darling's pocket.
Any more than those rumours of Santa's death are true.
PS Panorama normally goes up on the BBC's watch again iPlayer, so you can judge for yourself. Just make sure you equip yourself with a sick-bag.
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