by David Turver
The election is over and we all know Labour has won with a massive majority. New ministers have been appointed to the Department of Energy and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the hard job of Government has begun.
Labour has appointed six ministers to DESNZ. However, analysis of their background and experience (see below) reveals two with PPE degrees, one with a degree in history, another with a degree in political studies and one with a degree in history and politics. There’s also one minister gaining a degree in Russian studies before studying law. Not one of them has a background in science, engineering or maths. Almost all of them have worked in the public sector for their whole lives, so between them, there is precious little experience of the commercial world and no experience of the energy sector. Ed Miliband and Miatta Fahnbulleh have qualifications in economics, but the latter describes herself as a “heterodox economist” and she has advocated “flooding the market with cheaper renewables” and introducing “free basic energy”. It can only be ‘heterodox economists’ who think more expensive, intermittent renewables are cheap and think energy is free.
There are three spads listed for Ed Miliband. Jonty Leibowitz studied history at Cambridge. Tobias Garnett studied law at City and then went to study at the Harvard Kennedy School where his thesis was entitled ‘A Just Transition to a Fairer Economy: Labour’s plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.’ Eleanor Salter is the final spad, shared with DEFRA, and it is unclear what her degree subject was but she writes for the Guardian and apparently she is particularly focused on “integrating nature into the climate offer”. No evidence of STEM backgrounds amongst the spads either.
You might think this does not matter, because ministers simply oversee the department and it is civil servants that really run the show. There are seven senior civil servants listed on the DESNZ website. But when you look at their background a similar picture emerges (see below). There are degrees in modern history, geography and modern languages, but precious little evidence of a STEM background anywhere. Only the Chief Scientific Advisor has any sort of science background and that is in chemistry, with a special focus on astrochemistry. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the senior civil servants have any significant experience outside the public sector. There is no evidence of experience in proper commercial businesses in any sector, let alone energy.
The rot does not stop in DESNZ. The department might turn to advisors like the National Grid Electricity System Operator, who have recently published their future energy pathways. Their Strategy and Policy Director, Claire Dykta, oversaw the work and wrote the foreword to the new document. Claire describes herself as a “leading influencer in the energy industry”, as though she was running a TikTok channel. Claire graduated from Aston with a degree in management, business and law, so no evidence of a STEM background either.
DESNZ ministers might look to the Climate Change Committee for advice or instructions. The CCC is currently without a chairman and CEO, but former chairman Lord Deben has a degree in history and former CEO Chris Stark studied finance and law. Despite never delivering anything more taxing than pizza, Stark has been drafted in to lead mission control to deliver a decarbonised grid by 2030. It is thought that Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of renewables cheerleader Energy U.K., is going to take over as CEO of the CCC. Emma has a classics degree from Oxford and began her career as a climate campaigner for WWF. Again, we find no evidence of any STEM expertise or proper commercial experience. The CCC does have some engineers and scientists on the board, but many of them have drunk the Kool-Aid, have interests in renewable energy or get their funding from billionaire climate activists.
Not only does Mad Emperor Miliband have no clothes, his entire entourage have Net Zero garments. We have the blind leading the blind, advised by clueless cronies who do not have the faintest idea about energy, engineering or the commercial world. They simply don’t know what they don’t know and are totally ill-equipped to challenge the tendentious twaddle put before them. Their idea of delivery is drawing boxes and triangles on PowerPoint presentations. Some of them might even be numerate enough to plug numbers into spreadsheets, but they do not have the faintest idea what their models mean in the real world. This is how we get plans for energy that halve per capita energy use by 2050, and nobody bats an eyelid. The entire energy policy establishment is broken.
The biographies of DESNZ ministers and senior civil servants are reproduced below.
DESNZ Labour Ministers
Labour has appointed six ministers to DESNZ:
- Ed Miliband as Secretary of State
- Sarah Jones as Minister of State
- Lord Hunt of Kings Heath as Minister of State
- Kerry McCarthy as Parliamentary Under-Secretary
- Miatta Fahnbulleh as Parliamentary Under-Secretary
- Michael Shanks as Parliamentary Under-Secretary
Let us look at their background and experience.
Ed Miliband
Ed and his brother David are the sons of Ralph Miliband who has been described as “one of the best-known academic Marxists of his generation”. Ed Miliband studied PPE at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, received a master’s in Economics at LSE and was then briefly a researcher for A Week in Politics before he was recruited to work as a researcher and speech writer for Harriet Harman, later becoming a spad for Gordon Brown in 1997. After a brief sabbatical at Harvard, and more advisory work on the Council of Economic Advisors, he became the MP for Doncaster North in 2005. In 2008, he became the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and announced that the U.K. would oblige itself to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, instead of the previously announced 60%.
Since then, he has held various positions, including Leader of the Opposition. However, it is noteworthy, that he has held no job outside of politics and media, and certainly has no first-hand knowledge of energy or engineering.
Sarah Jones MP
Sarah Jones read History at Durham and joined the Labour Party in 1992, and worked for Labour MP Mo Mowlam. She has also worked for Shelter and as the Head of Public Affairs for the NHS Confederation. Sarah served as a senior civil servant helping to deliver the 2012 Olympics and held various other roles, including working for Gatwick Airport. She was elected to Parliament in 2017 and, since then, she has chaired an APPG on knife crime and been a Shadow Minister for Housing and, later, Shadow Minister for the Police and Fire Service. Again, it is difficult to find any specific energy or engineering expertise.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt graduated in 1970 from the University of Leeds with a degree in political studies. His working career was in the healthcare sector, and since being elevated to the Lords, he has held ministerial positions in Health, Department for Work and Pensions, DEFRA and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is difficult to find any evidence of him ever working (other than as a minister) in energy or engineering, or indeed outside the public sector.
Kerry McCarthy MP
Kerry McCarthy read Russian Studies at Liverpool University before studying law at the City of London Polytechnic. She has worked as a lawyer for Abbey National and Merrill Lynch and held senior positions at Britain in Europe and the Waterfront Partnership. She was elected to Parliament in 2005 and has held various shadow ministerial positions, becoming Shadow Minister for Climate Change in 2022. Once again, we find no experience in energy, engineering, or STEM.
Miatta Fahnbulleh MP
Miatta Fahnbulleh studied PPE at Lincoln College, Oxford, and then gained a PhD in Economic Development from the LSE. She has described herself as a heterodox economist and, whilst head of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), certainly advocated some, shall we say, unconventional policies. These include “flooding the energy market with cheap renewables and introducing free basic energy”. Miatta and NEF have also advocated an additional windfall tax on oil and gas companies. Miatta was promoted to a ministerial position just a few days after first being elected to Parliament this year. Perhaps she might find these cheap renewables under a magic money tree. Again, no STEM experience and no experience of the private sector.
Michael Shanks MP
Michael Shanks graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in History and Politics. He worked in a charity for a while before becoming a teacher. He taught Modern Studies at a school in Scotland. He was elected to Parliament in a by-election in December 2023. Yet another minister without STEM experience and no experience of the commercial world.
Senior DESNZ Civil Servants
There are six senior civil servants in DESNZ, supported by a chief scientific advisor. These are:
- Jeremy Pocklington – Permanent Secretary
- Clive Maxwell – Second Permanent Secretary
- Jonathan Mills – Director General Energy and Markets Supply
- Ashley Ibbett – Director General of Energy Infrastructure
- Lee McDonough – Director General of Net Zero, Nuclear and International
- Ben Rimmington – Director General of Net Zero Buildings and Industry
- Professor Paul Monks – DESNZ Chief Scientific Advisor
Jeremy Pocklington
Jeremy Pocklington is the senior civil servant in DESNZ. He graduated from Oxford with a degree in Modern History and later gained a master’s in Economics and Social History. His entire career has been in the Civil Service with spells at the Treasury, the Cabinet Office, DECC and MHCLG. He became the Permanent Secretary in DESNZ in February 2023.
Clive Maxwell
Clive Maxwell graduated from Oxford with a degree in geography in 1992. The experience in his LinkedIn profile does not begin until July 2000, when he became the Head of Environmental and Transport Taxes and Savings Incentives in the Treasury. He then worked his way up in the Treasury before moving to the Office of Fair Trading, where he eventually became the Chief Executive. He subsequently returned to the Civil Service, where he held various senior positions in BEIS and DfT, before becoming the Second Permanent Secretary in DESNZ.
Jonathan Mills
It is not clear what subject Jonathan Mills studied at university, but he is listed as having an MA and MPhil in his biography on the website of De Montford University, so we can be reasonably certain that he is not from a STEM background. Since 2017, he has worked in several senior civil service roles. His career before 2017 is not listed in his biography.
Ashley Ibbett
Ashley Ibbett has been a civil servant for over two decades and has worked in a wide range of roles covering trade, science, innovation, competition and energy. It is not known if he had a career before joining the Civil Service, and his degree subject is not listed.
Lee McDonough
Lee McDonough is a career civil servant with an MBA from Imperial College. She has worked in several departments such as DEFRA, Health, BEIS and is now in charge of Net Zero, Nuclear and International at DESNZ. Her original degree is not listed.
Ben Rimmington
Ben Rimmington is a career civil servant with a degree in modern languages from Cambridge. He joined the Civil Service Fast Stream in 1995 and has worked in the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Business Innovation and Skills, Leeds City Enterprise Partnership, DfT and now DESNZ. There is no evidence of commercial experience, and clearly, he has no STEM background.
Professor Paul Monks
Professor Paul Monks graduated from Warwick University with a degree in Chemistry and went on to gain a doctorate in the same subject from Oxford. His career since then has been in research and academia, including a stretch at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre where he worked on astrochemistry. He became Chief Scientific Advisor to BEIS in 2020 and to DESNZ in 2023. At last, we have found someone with a STEM background, although in Chemistry with a special interest in astrochemistry. There is no evidence of experience in the commercial world.
David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where this article first appeared.
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Good run-down needs to be done for all governments around the world.
not just governments – it’s all the inter-related NGO Quangos and billionaire funding vehicles. I saw a mapping of these relationships many years ago, today it’s probably impossible to do.
Wont find many electrical engineers in government – starting pay is low and social skill requirements for advancement are high.
DEI, all the way down.
How could this end badly? Let me think on that for a while.
Within the year the power grid will be switched on to 100% solar and wind power.
Guy Fawkes could have a better plan.
Bonfires with effigies of the above rather than the Pope?
We are seeing DEI (the new complicating effect) compounded with pre-existing and known Dunning-Kruger effect, the D-K effect being a pronounced myopic cognitive bias in which the people involved exhibit limited competence in a particular domain and consistently, w/o hesitation or self-awareness, then overestimate their abilities.
With these two factors in play, we have now blown past what was the formerly operative The Peter Principle that used to limit the height to which idiots rose to power (in a normal functioning meritocracy/society anyway.)
Kewl, what a climate-combatting team. Awesome you super heroes – go get that temperature down a couple of degrees, or a couple of trillionths of a degree – whatever. Just talk in a very serious and concerned voice on the BBC.
How did human genetics arrive here ??
We made things too easy for ourselves. When every day is a struggle to survive you have no time and little patience for incompetence.
re: “How did human genetics arrive here ??”
“Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men. <———– We are here
And, weak men create hard times.” <—- Proceeding to be here
― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain
But those weak genes do not suddenly appear, they must have survived the Stone, Copper and Iron ages to be able to come to the fore now. So survival of the fittest is also junk science, those unseen bureaucrats prove it.
Fittest to survive to reproductive age and then procreate, not necessarily fittest in strength and athleticism. When language was invented so we could lie to each other and bartering came into existence, then weaponry, then taxation …… I’ll stop there.
kommando
I fear not.
The genes or behaviours have been encouraged recently amongst the population as a whole – #Social Security.
Before about 1900 – even 1950 – that was the preserve of the wealthy classes, but now the taxpayer – aka Other People#s Money – does encourage this.
Today – Rachel Reeves, (new, Labour = Socialist] Chancellor of the Exchequer [Finance Minster] for the UK has rationalised the Universal Winter Fuel Payment, until now given to every pensioner [including His Majesty the King, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, owner of Ineos].
Now it is means tested.
Comfortable middle class folk probably don’t need it [extra pressies for the grandkids, or a bigger payment to the local food bank], but those just above the cut off will wonder why they didn’t spend like a drunken sailor – so they would qualify [and have the good memories].
Until governments stop promising to give a majority of people their own money back [less 20-25% for the Civil Serpents who administer it], this will continue.
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The ancient Greeks invented a word for this. Kakistocracy. The rise of the unqualified and incompetent. It brings to mind the Mayan temple scenes in Apocalypto. Reason replaced by ritual and sacrifice. We rot from the core.
Oh dear that was gloomy.
There seems to be a prevailing culture in Government that it is just not done to understand anything. That’s for the little people. Living in the political world of propaganda and half-truths destroys critical thinking. They become totally gullible. Why is it so easy to pick apart Government plans?
“We rot from the core.”
Governments, like fish, rot from the head !
kindly stop saying that they don’t know what they are doing
they know exactly what they are doing and they are doing it on purpose, although most of them are simply ‘doing their job’ and/or “following orders”…
there is no such thing as ‘unintended consequences’
They will learn on the job. Then be thrown out after their learning proves too late but still end up on fat pensions to reward their incompetence.
Actually it all appears quite promising. With incompetent fools taking recommendations from incompetent academics, the power system will fail sooner rather than later. That will hasten the pivot to sanity.
“They will learn on the job.” And make it up with volume.
re: “They will learn on the job.”
I detest, really h8T, being in some incompetent’s larger OODA loop, b/c, with their wrong and/or nutty ideas the consequence of their bad decision making means failure on a much LARGER scale than if they had made stupid life decisions ONLY for themselves in a much smaller OODA loop.
OODA loop – observe, orient, decide, act.
When we read researched articles such as this we can connect the dots and realise just why we arrived at this point rather than some other much more climate optimistic position in the first place. These people have agenda driven careers in an agenda ridden society which hasn’t a clue what it is doing in any sense of that expression.
Just what genuinely original thoughts have any of these people had and expressed in writing in their lifetimes? Net zero?
“Just what genuinely original thoughts have any of these people had and expressed in writing in their lifetimes?”
Is an original thought even possible with 8 billion thinkers? Someone certainly thought this comment before I wrote it.
I think it is fair to say that the UK is doomed. The country is governed by incompetents and administered by incompetents. The only thing they know how to do is rewarding themselves handsomely.
Rome; Late stage.
Correct.
Zimbabwe and Venezuela somehow continue to exist. I wonder whether cold war era ideas like mutually assured destruction and institutions like the UN have removed the ability of a geographical area to fail so badly it loses its borders. Wars only seem to be allowed when it’s US- or Russia- vs-tiny opponent.
Most of the country reforming when I was a kid was former colonies accepting and owning borders that made not much sense locally, like aforementioned Zimbabwe (most recent constitution circa 2013). Israel, Bosnia, Sudan and Ukraine seem to have fluctuating borders but also seem unlikely to disappear.
Without war vs a “real opponent” I think UK is doomed to be UK “until the end”.
And if France hadn’t also vanished up its own oubliette, I am not clear who this ‘real opponent’ might be.
Does Lesotho or Liechtenstein harbour territorial ambitions?
Is it to much to expect a Condor Legion from Venezuela to arrive [on sailing ships, I guess – PDVSA is now terminal, and produces almost no oil] and take over, with the inevitable shortage of toilet paper?!
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Sorry – that should be ‘our beloved friends in Europe, the French’ …
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From 1960 – 2008 the annual UK GDP per cap grew at a slightly accelerating rate particularly in the later years.
For instance the GDP per cap for the 15 years 1992 – 2007 grew from 30K USD to 45K USD when the UK parliament passed the Climate Change Act.
In the 15 years since the Climate Change Act the GDP per cap has stalled growing from 45K USD to 47K USD and looks like it has peaked (Trading Economics).
Under the current oligarchic-technocratic government the GDP per cap is likely to start falling along with an inevitable fall in living standards, it’s just a matter of time before the UK electorate wake up to what their politicians and civil service have done to them.
Standard of living has to fall a long way before the enormous 19th century US coastal mansions of the Rockerfellers and Vanderbilt’s start looking like good places to live in to me. They must have felt cold all the time in those giant, drafty, marble palaces heated and blackened by burning wood. Except for the lower caste staff, they had no physical luxury besides acreage that a lower middle class American today can’t get.
These figures for GDP/head of population are based on official census figures. After the last UK census (2021) there was a great deal of publicity around supermarket sales and phone contracts which indicated there were probably between 5 and 10 million more people living here than the official number. It is likely that the majority of this disparity arose in the years since 2007. If this is so, the more recent GDP figure becomes a nonsense; secretly we are all aware of this, though it will never be “the narrative”.
The truly disturbing thing about this is that somewhere along the line there are engineers that are saying “Of course we can make renewables work. Just keep the money coming”. I say “engineers”.. a better word would be charlatans.
No, engineers just seeing that there’s money to be made, not charlatans. The charlatans are the people behind the engineers.
My son is a planning consultant. He is opposed to the windmills and solar subsidy farms but works with local councils and ‘green’ companies in planning applications. Has to make a living somehow.
That’s what they all say…
Reality check: Engineering companies, like any other company, exist to make money. And that currently means that if you, as an engineer, decide as a matter of principle not to work for any organisation that isn’t actively or passively dipping its fingers into the green/renewables/net zero market then you’ll very soon run out of potential employers. That’s the reality in the UK and I imagine elsewhere.
https://img.ifunny.co/images/b97b300eb03ba26352f0c682c4483be483bdbaef41ac758f4d70f001467d34de_1.webp
This is prominently posted on my office door.
If they don’t like they can leave. If they act like they don’t like it, they have to leave.
At this point in time, I don’t really have the time to get to the things that I am asked to get to (partly because I waste some of the time typing this stuff).
Pretty similar here in Australia. What does one need science for when we have expert “policy generalists”!
Yup, this says it all: ‘A Just Transition to a Fairer Economy: Labour’s plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.’
As misleading a title as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Same with the name of the Department of Energy Security.
The most depressing read of the year but well said. You’ve hit the button very nicely not just for the UK but the EU, US and Canada where career politicians with zero ability have all bought into the net zero groupthink.
“In his book “Too tall, too small” for example, Gillis (1982) reported that, in the twenty presidential elections held between 1904 and 1980, the overwhelming majority (80%) was won by the taller of the two candidates. Similarly, Borgmann (1965) claimed that the shorter candidate lost all presidential elections except one between 1888 and 1960.”
Height is one of many qualifications for leadership that “have always been” more important than book learning.
On another note: The world might not love being “managed” by engineers. Engineers are good at… engineering.
Federal Labor toying with an early election in Oz later this year instead of early next year at term aren’t facing a lot of enthusiasm for their heterodox orthodoxy-
Wake-up call on energy transition as voters switch off (msn.com)
We’re going to have an argument about a nukes vs fickles future which will be interesting as both will be relying on coal and gas for some considerable time-
Wholesale power prices surge on back of renewables shortfall (msn.com)
PPEs all round,,, hic!
LOL. My daughter has a PPE degree (also an LL.M and a BSc) but is teetotal. Made me smile, thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy,_politics_and_economics
re: “We have the blind leading the blind, advised by clueless cronies who do not have the faintest idea about energy, engineering or the commercial world.”
Wasn’t this termed “Cargo Cult Science” once upon a time (by Richard Fineman no less)?
“Do Not Trust the Cargo-cult Science” by James E. Hanley
Intro: After World War II, Pacific Islanders supposedly made headphones and microphones out of coconut shells and sticks in a futile attempt to call back the U.S. Army’s planes with their unprecedented supply of food and goods. Physicist Richard Feynman used this example to coin the phrase “cargo cult science,” meaning actions that mimic scientific behavior while being at best pseudo-science and at worst religiously cult-like.
https://www.aier.org/article/do-not-trust-the-cargo-cult-science/
AND REMEMBER –
When the science can never be wrong, cargo cultists are in charge.
Are the pigs running the farm?
Napoleon says, yes.
“The election is over and we all know Labour has won with a massive majority”
But with only 20% of the electorate, so we don’t have a democracy.
We never have had democracy. The history of the [Parliamentary] dictatorship is one of power moving back and forth between the elites, and occasionally between the elites and the serfs.
There has been emancipation first of men with means and later all men. Parliament lost out. And then the wimmin wanted a vote, too. Parliament wasn’t exactly minded to give them a vote.
You can vote to rearrange the deck chairs every five years, but Parliament – and it is their first loyalty – always wins.
That’s why net zero is coming our way. Not because we really voted for it.
Considering everyone but Reform had the same offer, to be delivered by the same civil servants, the same advisory committees, and very likely the same or indistinguishable “spads-for-hire”, I am afraid that Net Zero was bound to be the “democratic” choice.
Lack of PR or AV or whatever other system appeals to you is not the problem. This is not a problem with the voting system. It is far more deeply rooted than that.
I wondered how much scientific expertise there is among the leaders of climate activist oprganisations so I went to the Greenpeace website. It has information about their Directors. This tells yoiu about their experience in campaigning but nothing about their qualifications. This one is interesting:Helen Adams is a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London where she works on climate-related migration and transformational adaptation. She was a lead author on the latest IPCC report – WGII on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability – and was seconded to the UK Cabinet Office to lead on science engagement for the COP26 presidency. So when the civil service look for outside “expertise” they go to someone who is a Director of Greenpeace.
“” climate-related migration and transformational adaptation””
A travel agent.
Perhaps DESNZ should properly be called DENSE.
“Labour has appointed six ministers to DESNZ. However, analysis of their background and experience (see below) reveals two with PPE degrees, one with a degree in history, another with a degree in political studies and one with a degree in history and politics. There’s also one minister gaining a degree in Russian studies before studying law. Not one of them has a background in science, engineering or maths. Almost all of them have worked in the public sector for their whole lives, so between them, there is precious little experience of the commercial world and no experience of the energy sector.”
Reads like a perfect lineup to achieve national suicide in the shortest time, for the most money.
“Michael Shanks graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in History and Politics… taught Modern Studies at a school in Scotland.”
What on earth is “Modern Studies”?
re: “What on earth is “Modern Studies”?”
A complete opposite of the classics maybe? If so, they have shown their hand (and its not good) …
“Classics or classical studies – the study of classical antiquity”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics
What on earth is “Modern Studies”?
Analysis of Taylor Swift as Bard, Wealth Creator and Objectification.
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DESNZ is more radical on energy policies than Biden, as they are oblivious to these 2 basic facts:
Ronald, you missed the big one, until you can change the weather you cannot change the climate since the latter is an indication of the average of the former.
More bad news for Miliband and his DESNZ fan club in the Grauniad today, believe it or not.
They report Damien Zachlod, managing director of the UK arm of German energy company EnBW as saying
“the fastest that you could develop an offshore wind farm is 7 years” and “more often than not it takes 10 to 12 years”
Labour said it would quadruple offshore wind by 2030 as well as doubling onshore wind and trebling solar in its election manifesto.
Reading through the CVs of all these people is very depressing. I listen to the Post Office Inquiry for a hour or so when it is being broadcast. The story is the same, I was assured by staff (civil servants or POL employees) that the system was robust.It was just thieving sub postmasters trying it on. Not one of the people in this list is capable of asking difficult questions or understanding the answer it they accidentally do ask one.
Nobody was capable or cared enough to ask difficult questions like “show me”or “prove it”. Whether the staff carrying the message knew it was a pack of lies is hard to tell in all cases but some certainly did.
The only solution is to sack all top and middle management in the civil service after every election and make them reapply for their jobs. No relevant qualification of experience go and work somewhere else.
Ben,
Wash your mouth out.
The UK has an absolute ‘Rolls-Royce of a Civil Service’.
Didn’t Sir Humphrey tell you so. Repeatedly?
These same supernal beings have advised[and, often led] our [very] fallible politicians since 1945.
And, ummm …
I see the UK is now not in the List of Top Ten countries for manufacturing.
Taiwan is.
I weep for my country.
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The UK can take pride in the fact that they are well placed among leading nations in the race to the bottom that has now been underway for some decades. This new roster of “leaders” may be all that’s required to put the UK in an unassailable first position. Once the nation inevitably sinks under the weight of physical and economic reality it might well serve as a truly useful lesson to others. The UK as a wasted rusting backwater of irrelevance and bitter, cruel poverty is only a short hop away.
But won’t the tourists come to see our Morris Dancers [on Chinese-made ornithopters, getting sliced by one of the few remaining working bat-buster]?
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Certainly they can sell that to the progressive far left tourists who love nothing better than watching the decline and fall of anything that has merit.