Will Anyone Notice?

.
The Public and Commercial Services Union have announced that 270,000 civil servants are to stage a 48-hour strike on 8 and 9 March in a dispute over cuts the government are making to public sector redundancy terms to which five other civil service unions have already agreed.

A number of other unions have announced plans to take strike action in the next few months, most notably the threat by British Airways cabin crew.

The question is: In contrast to the possible disruption caused by other planned strike actions, will anyone notice the absence of civil servants for two days?
.

Why Bother?

.
This morning’s papers carry stories as to how ‘Bronco’ Brown proposes to save £12 billion over the next four years. The plans include ‘streamlining central government’ (whatever that means), cutting the civil service, getting rid of some quangos, etc., etc.

Having had these cuts announced in the papers, Brown then ‘announces’ them to at audience at the Royal Society.

Three questions arise in my mind.

Firstly, why has he bothered to make announcements to the good folk of the Royal Society? After all, we had only to look at our morning papers for this news.

Secondly, why doesn’t he tell Parliament what he proposes first rather than let his press department hand it out in advance?

Thirdly, and more important, why hasn’t he implemented these proposals years ago?
.

A National Disgrace

.
The Civil Service mentality is often beyond comprehension, and their sense of timing appalling.

Quite rightly, the MoD has been roundly criticised for applying to the Court of Appeal to cut the compensation awarded to two British soldiers, amounts which had already been increased by the High Court.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, it is unimaginable that anyone with a brain in government sanctioned this court action, especially on a day when the bodies of four men killed in Afghanistan were brought home. What message does this legal action send to serving soldiers, their relatives and to those men and women thinking of joining the forces?

‘Bronco’ Brown should exercise his prime ministerial authority and order that this action be withdrawn immediately.
.

Open Government?

.
Many people will fondly remember the comedy sit-com series, Yes, Minister, and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, which aired on BBC between 1980 and 1988.

Devotees of the half-hour programmes, which now and again are aired on the satellite channels, marvel at the tussles between the minister (or prime minister in the sequel), Jim Hacker, and his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, which we all suspect mirror exactly the ponderous and often devious workings of Parliament and the Civil Service.

So last night I was delighted to see the very first episode of this hugely popular comedy series and was intrigued to see that Jim Hacker, the new Minister for the (fictional) Department for Administrative Affairs was proposing a White Paper entitled ‘Open Government’.

‘Open Government.’ Doesn’t that conjure up an image of a new government keen to open up its affairs so that everything it does is transparent and subject to scrutiny by the public?

What a shame though, that this fictional programme thought of such a policy as long ago as 1980 - and that absolutely nothing has happened since then!

But then, it was a television programme. Much like Parliament today, come to think of it!
.