We've come by a transcript of the half-year performance review of a 30-something Labour Party SPAD.
* * * * *
Supervisor (Senior SPAD): So, Sparquin - what do you feel are the highlights and the disappointments of your work over the past 6 months?
Junior SPAD: Well, Molly - the Election, obvs! I reckon I came up with some pretty good 'Lines To Take' when the awkward questions started coming in from the Beeb fact-checkers during the run-up. Nothing as awkward as the last three weeks, natch! But at least a couple of my 'Lines' made it onto the One O'Clock News. One even got into the papers the next day. Oh, and I managed to get that idiot - sorry, Secretary of State! - Pete to tone down his promises for how many units he was going to get built by 2028. Pretty f-ing mental, he'd just made that number up, you know? But I'm fairly sure we're off the hook now: his Department is really pleased.
SSS: Yes, good catch, we all noticed, and Sir Humphrey loves what you did, the civil servants hate concrete targets - though you might want to tone down the crowing over it, you know? Pete doesn't forget shit like that and he's a nasty bastard as well as a dumb twat. Just a suggestion. Anything else?
JS: Well, in response to the diktat that we're all to come up with 'collaborative, self-directed, value-adding, no-cost workstream initiatives', me and three other J-SPADS have formed a little team - we call ourselves 'Spad-u-like', nice, huh? - and we've *self-directed* ourselves on a couple of little projects to improve departmental effectiveness around here, plus morale, too! Oh, and before you ask, yes, we're totally diverse! Though to be fair, we did all go to the same college ...
SSS: Great! And disappointments?
JS: You need to ask?? FFS - it's getting a £5k reduction in salary! And being on tenterhooks for three weeks before even that was confirmed. I'm 34, fuckit - I've given the best part of six years to this Party! And now we're not even allowed to take freebies off that hedgie wanker who used to bankroll our office when we were in Opposition. Do you know what rents are like in Homerton?
SSS: Tell me about it - and I'm in Shoreditch!
JS, under breath: (You wish! Half a mile north, more like it). Out loud: Oh well, Polly Toynbee says we can expect lots of money to be found down the back of the sofa before Xmas! Hahah, silly cow.
SSS: Anyhow, it's for the Cause, right. Just hang in there, it'll all work out. Now, how about looking forward - what personal goals are you setting for the next 6 months?
JS: Finishing the Spad-u-like project to scupper the Gray woman, obvs. We've made a great start over the past two weeks, made some good networking contacts, called in a few favours at the Beeb, all the good stuff. Even forged some vibrant links with a couple of career civil servants that she's, errr, interacted with in the past. Well, she's history, you just watch. We're targeting end-November. Finish laughing, clean underwear all round, then a big piss-up before Xmas at the Boom Battle Bar. Hey, wanna nominate some faces for the axe-throwing targets ..? ...
As leaked to ND
18 comments:
Sparquin.
Very good, ND.
Uneerily accurate & at the same time deeply depressing
Thank you, ND
My favourite diversity joke, which really did happen.
My team is wonderfully diverse: I've got a chap from Peterhouse, a chap from Caius, a chap from King's, and a girl from Oxford.
This is the calibre of people running the country! Do I blame them - well, yes - but not entirely. The voters have the majority of the blame. If you want better government, start with a better electorate.
Starmer is in control, we know because he said so, and people in control always have to remind everyone because they're so in control, you might forget.
I know I'm always confident in an airline pilot when they mention every 5 minutes about how in control of the plane they are, whilst the airline staff pinwheel past me like a Matrix fight waving at me to pop the oxygen mask on.
"Matt said...
This is the calibre of people running the country! Do I blame them - well, yes - but not entirely. The voters have the majority of the blame. If you want better government, start with a better electorate."
But only one in five voted FOR Labour. Might one say (and I am no fan of PR, but what happened in July is a problem for FPTP, in that it produced a huge electoral majority but no moral majority (sure, yeah, yeah, yeah) for the new government to go radical.
It will be along five years - but maybe it will finish off Labour just as the Conservative finished themselves off.
My view is that the electorate need to learn the hard way that they need to vote outside their comfort zones. Just jumping from Labour to Tory and back again isn't going to work any more. The electorate have realised how sh*t the Tories are, they now need to discover the same about Labour. Then and only then can we potentially find a way out of our current malaise.
I think Sobers is getting close. We are merely doing the same thing over and over.
No good moaning about the poor quality of the electorate, most of the world is dim witted and easily fooled. If we look across the democracies of Europe they seem much of a muchness. Farage offers nothing different. A little Fascism, perhaps a small revolution, but neither would help us.
Take a look at our media - mostly trashy and mouths much the same. The Times and Telegraph spout Rightish nothingness and the FT and Graun are held up as student rags. The rest are in the soft porn and shiny car category.
For economic success we might look at how the US and China do it. For the US all you have to do is feed Washington with votes or money and the huge power of a single nation of 300 million and a reserve currency are all yours. China operates much the same way but has not yet learned (or made the mistake) of allowing subject nations so much influence in Beijing.
Traditionally the Tories were very keen to be like the USA. Our Establishment is very USA oriented but we don't have the scale to be other than a lapdog. We don't dare suck up to China too much, our US friends won't like it.
One key problem is growth. Our scientists have been falling down on the job. Physics gives us many interesting new particles to play with - few of any use. AI and Pharma looks hopeful. But new drugs are for sick people and sick people are poor people. As for economists - they are probably irrelevant to the problem.
One cry is education education education. But we don't do it, instead we cut the budget. Why? Because if there is little useful to discover and put to use then what is the point of too much education. OK for foreigners who pay for the Harry Potter experience but tone down the product quality for the masses.
The key problem is we just can't grow much. But we can stop making so many mistakes and we can share the economic pie out a little more fairly. That is about all Starmer et al can hope for.
"For economic success we might look at how the US and China do it."
China does it in the completely opposite way to the US, more like the way the US did it for the first 200 years or so, if less explicitly.
We would need "a labyrinthine system of trade barriers; an artificially undervalued currency; an industrial policy focused on developing pillar industries and using export subsidies to give them competitive advantage; and pressure on foreign companies to transfer their production technologies" - basically a 180 degree about turn.
"We would need "a labyrinthine system of trade barriers; an artificially undervalued currency; an industrial policy focused on developing pillar industries and using export subsidies to give them competitive advantage; and pressure on foreign companies to transfer their production technologies" "
And don't forget cheap energy........
@ Elby
Labour, Tories, LibDems and Greens got 76.3% of the votes cast. Not one of these parties will do anything other than follow the same tired and broken political direction.
So, the electorate who could be arsed, overwhelmingly voted for Continuity WEF.
Which brings us onto the other 40% who couldn't be arsed. They have no one to blame for the state of the country than themselves as they could at least have made a protest vote.
That's well over 85% of the electorate that decided things didn't need to change. For me, that there is the problem.
"That's well over 85% of the electorate that decided things didn't need to change"
That's one interpretation. Another is the people are past caring. Certainly, that's my take.
Doesn't matter what the reasons are. The electorate need to change to make any meaningful change to politicians.
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Yes.
@Matt - I wonder how much of that is down to FPTP?
I didn't used to be a fan of PR, mostly as it appears to be the antithesis of stability.
However, the UK's stability appears to have turned to stagnation, so perhaps some crocodile clips to the nipples of the body politic, with the other side attached to a hefty battery is warranted at the moment.
Quite so. That one in five voting for a party can return such a huge majority makes that clear. I'm the same on PR. But had we had PR, mostly likely no Starmer, and had it returned the Tories + Reform, maybe the latter could have had a beneficial effect on the Tories.
Anyway, we are stuck with this mob of n'er-do-wells for the moment.
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