While you might think free parking in NHS hospitals is a bit of throwaway populist fluff, it still tells you a lot about how populists think. If they do not see the immediate value in administration then it simply shouldn’t exist.
We then get some confirmation of how Lowe thinks from an interview with David Starkey. Lowe wants to recruit candidates who are accomplished business leaders (basically people like Rupert Lowe).
Regardless of what you think of Lowe’s values (there’s not much I disagree with), the bottom line is that he’s hopelessly naïve and has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. Starkey is right. Politics is not business. Businessmen are often successful because they take risks, and delegate the details to their people. It does not make them experts, and it does not mean their business success is transferrable to politics. Setting things up is a lot different to running things (as Lowe is about to discover).
Very often businessmen have very little understanding of the day to day running of their businesses. They hire people to do that for them so they can think about other things. We saw this during Brexit, where the media was asking CEOs how Brexit might affect their businesses, to find they were no more informed about the complexities of EU customs rules than the man in the street.
Read the whole thing as it is an interesting practical discussion about allocation of scare resources
As an American who knows neither Pete North, nor Rupert Lowe, it seems to me that Mr. North’s arguments are…um…silly.
The principles of running a business don’t apply to “politics”.
Here’s the problem I have…running the government isn’t politics, it’s administration, organization and leadership. Politics is the art of influence peddling, backroom deals and corruption in an effort to attain or maintain a position of power.
Politicians are good at the things that get them elected…administration, organization and leadership? Often not so much.
Here’s an example directly from the article quoted:
“Now you might think that parking allocations might be straightforward (as did I), but it turns out to be an intensely political job. Spaces are allocated (rationed) on the basis of disability, childcare needs, distance from home, proximity to bus route, length of service, hours worked and seniority. This ended up being quite a complex SQL stored procedure. Once a month we’d run a query into the very slow HR servers to see if anyone had left the company and freed up a parking space, and then we’d re-run the parking allocations script.”
That is the politician’s solution, not the businessman’s (and I don’t care that Mr. North, in this instance, was apparently supposed to be acting in his capacity as a business employee, he was acting as a politician).
These are exactly the types of convoluted “solutions” that invite influence peddling, “favors”, preferential treatment, etc.
It’s only difficult because they made it so. “Parking is allocated based on seniority in the company”. Problem solved.
“Why don’t I get a parking space?”
“What was your hire date?”
“xx/xx/xxxx”
“That’s why.”
Another way is “first come first served”. When the lot’s full, the lot’s full. Should have gotten here earlier. That one isn’t the best solution because you’ll have people missing work or being late every day because they “couldn’t find a parking spot”. Better for them to know ahead of time they need to take the bus. But it is a way less convoluted solution than that cockamamie “to each according to his need” approach outlined in the article. Say…that sounds familiar to me…wonder why?
“Much of what sophisticates loftily refer to as the “complexity” of the real world is in fact the inconsistency in their own minds.”
–Thomas Sowell
This one made me laugh out loud:
“Very often businessmen have very little understanding of the day to day running of their businesses.”
Seriously? He actually thinks politicians have an understanding of the day to day running of the government?
Whatever drugs he’s taking, I want some…that’s some good stuff.
The ability to understand one’s knowledge and skill gaps and delegate responsibilities to qualified people in order to fill those gaps is an indispensable skill in business…and translates extremely well to almost any endeavor in life…including running a government.
Most politician’s defining characteristic is their lack of this ability and their mistaken belief that the peasants aren’t capable of running their own lives and need the guidance and assistance of politicians to make the “correct” decisions and lead successful lives.
Lowe does appear to be effective in the committees. Holding civil servants to account. There is a difference between an entrepreneur and a manager. Begs the question which profession or class of people make good MPs?
So tell me, does it matter more for the operation of a hospital if a heart surgeon is late because he could not find a place to park… or if a janitor is late for shift? Or is everyone just a fungible lump of labour?