The Invisible Hand of Government?

Don’t worry, this isn’t some paranoid fantasy about the ‘Deep State’ so beloved of conspiracy theorists of the far right and far left. It’s about me and you and our everyday lives and the part Government plays in them.

I can’t recall who it was, but it was an American academic colleague who gave me this idea from something he used to do with his students.

At the start of courses that had anything to do with Government I’d ask my students to put their hand up if they’d had an encounter with Government so far today?

Generally, they’d look a bit blank – especially if it was an early morning course. A few brave souls would put a hand up and I’d ask what it was. Usually it was something obvious like a student loan letter.

Then I would say simply: every single one of you is wrong because you have all had multiple encounters with Government. You just don’t recognise them.

Christopher Pollitt RIP

My friend, mentor, critic and collaborator and great scholar Christopher Pollitt has died after a long illness. You will be hugely missed Christopher.

My thoughts go out to Hilkka and the extended family.

Christopher had a wonderfully dry sense of humour. When my wife Carole became pregnant with our son Alex (my first biological offspring), I emailed Christopher with the news. His response was typical: “don’t worry, the first 30 years is the worst”.

Putin, Trump and Cyber Warfare – Sir David Omand’s dramatic warning

Prof. Colin Talbot, Research Associate, University of Cambridge

Sir David Omand, former Director of GCHQ and former Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator for the Government, is to issue a strongly worded warning about threats of external subversion and internal sedition being enhanced by cyber-warfare techniques.

In a lengthy article published in the Journal of Cyber Policy,* Omand warns that the Russian government is continuing in the tradition of the Soviet Union in engaging in ‘hybrid warfare’ and ‘active measures’ (aktivinyye meropriatia) to subvert European and American governments.

(*Which I was given pre-publication access to by Sir David, for which thanks).

These can include highly targeted propaganda and misinformation; attacks on ‘critical national infrastructure’ and increasingly extending into the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) – all assisted or enabled by cyber-space.

REVIEW: Post Truth – the new war on truth and how to fight back. Matthew D’Ancona

The idea we are now living a “post truth” era has become something of an accepted truism itself, and D’Ancona’s book is one of several to explore this phenomenon.

Let’s start by saying this is a very good book and well worth a read. I haven’t read all of the other ‘post-truth’ books (yet) but this is certainly one I’d recommend.

As you may have guessed, there is a “but” coming, or to be more precise several “buts” which I hope will be seen as constructive criticisms.

REVIEW; What Makes People Tick?

What Makes People Tick?
Chris Rose, Matador, 2011

In “Values Modes” theory there are three ‘worlds’ of Settlers, Propsectors and Pioneers who are separated by different ‘values’:

• Pioneers – need to connect actions with values, explore ideas, experiment. Networking, interests, ethics, innovation.
• Prospectors – need for success, esteem of others then self-esteem,. Acquire and display symbols of success. Look good and have fun.
• Settlers – need for security, safety, identity, belonging. Keep things small, known, controllable, and avoid risk.

(summary on page 23).

REVIEW: Public Policy Writing That Matters

 

Public Policy Writing That Matters
David Chrisinger
John Hopkins University Press 2017

 

David Chrisinger works as an academic and as a “communications specialist at the US Government Accountability Office”. And it matters, especially to a UK audience.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is roughly the equivalent of the UKs National Audit Office (NAO – and indeed it used to be called the Government Audit Office). But there is one very big difference between the NAO and the GAO – the NAO is limited, by law, to only examine the implementation of policy and the achievement of propriety and value for money. The GAO, by contrast, is free to challenge policy itself.

Nationalisation vs Privatisation (Part 93….)

With the Party conference season behind us the big idea back on the agenda is, apparently, socialism versus free-markets. Stirring speeches about the return to socialism rang out from Labour in Brighton, to be met by counter-blasts of free market rhetoric from the Tories in Manchester. It was all quite nostalgia inducing for some of us – forward to the 1980s! And, of course, thoroughly specious from both camps.

In reality the debate quickly descended from the lofty heights of imaginary alternative social systems – neither socialism nor free markets have ever existed and are ever likely to – to a rather more prosaic debate about nationalization versus privatization as almost as devoid of serious thinking as it was the first time around in the 1980s.