Quote of the day 24th May 2021

 "I am not impugning the entire BBC - which has many brilliant journalists - or the NHS, which has thousands of dutiful staff, or any other of the bodies listed above. All have a comprehensive ledger of good works as well as my admiration. I am also not making a case for the rectitude of the private sector. No, the point is that we need to wake up  to why organisations devoted to public service, which attract upstanding people, incubate so many scandals with the recurring themes of obfuscation and moral self-entitlement.

You might suppose that the answer was to be found in more rules and regulations. More checks and balances. But I would argue that these are, in a sense, peripheral.

the most important thing is to stop deifying bodies such as the NHS and the other sacred cows of our culture, placing them above debate and criticism. For it is this, above all else, that leads to organisational narcissism. And this isn't just dangerous for the public. It is a tragedy for the institutions themselves.


(Matthew Syed, conclusion of a Sunday Times article yesterday about why institutions like the BBC, the NHS, charities and churches can all too easily develop patterns of behavior which are both harmful and completely contrary to tier core mission if they are placed on a pedestal and encouraged to regard themselves as above criticism. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
It's a British Disease, other countries resolve the issues we just carry on regardless.
7:03 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
To be honest that is UK exceptionalism.

Britain is not the only part of the world where inertia and ignoring issues rather than doing something about them takes place.
9:17 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more