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February 22, 2010
A comical and catastrophic failure of the Institutions of Government
It is not hard to extrapolate quite reasonably from the piece yesterday, to realise that we have been witnessing is not a failure of the public library service. Anyone could run a decent public library service- how to run good public libraries is totally obvious- but a comical, if catastrophic, failure of all those institutions we rely on and call our government and our society. All those institutions on that list have been unable, in the matter of public libraries to face their daily responsibility to the public and carry it out. It is natural to imagine their failure might apply to everything they do. Their response to every problem is to ignore the public and parade themselves in front of each other. Every single one of them. They cannot do the job for which the public has allowed them to be appointed-- any of them. They cannot bear to listen to or seek out what the public wants and they cannot contrive to work in pursuit of the general public interest. They find it impossible.
Ministers depend on Departments. In the avoidance of making decisions to benefit the public, Departments create quangoes. Quangoes seek Consultants to affirm their own existence; and Consultants seek the next appointments. Local Government defends its independence from national government more strongly than it works for its own residents. Nowhere in the cycle does man or woman claim a responsibility to the public and call for appropriate action.
If we were talking about improvement in Government this is what we ought to be facing - this is the real political issue. And it is hard because it has never been the central political issue, in our country, before. We do not have the language, the media or the method to deal with it.
The real 'Broken Society' lies not in the streets of our towns but in the boulevards of our capital cities.
Posted by Perkins at February 22, 2010 6:11 PM