David Levy – What is Deemed Success? – Jul 21

It appears that all those people who we tend to admire and look up to gather titles and positions of power and influence like badges of office.   I guess that the slippery pole of their promotion is greased by the sweat and frustration gained by efforts repelling other candidates down the promotion trail.

Never more was this demonstrated than by Jim Hacker MP, waiting for a call from the Prime Minister following on from his successful election to a constituency seat.   His feelings of accomplishment only fulfilled by a Ministry position, with his constituency voters long forgotten in his lust for power.

Be careful for what you wish for!

From this most wonderful television programme can be seen just how politicians can be handled and manipulated by a Ministry and by career civil servants.

The Sir Humphrey’s of this scenario are adept at conveying a Minister’s wishes, without actually doing so.   The meaning is in the detail, and most Ministers are not in command of their brief.   This means they are reliant on their staff to provide policy decisions, which they do without having any accountability for the outcomes.

The shambles of the water companies discharging raw sewage into rivers, with the same involving factory farms discharging untreated sewage into rivers and coastal outlets, is a prime example of such manipulation.

In this context, the primary concern for policy makers is to duck any responsibility and especially do not rock the boat when it comes to financial golden geese.

Such inaction has been at the helm of DEFRA/ Environment Agency for decades and, in the case of human and animal sewage, has been the cause for a massive increase in the rise of the rat population and of human exposure to novel viruses.   This official response of inaction is a world away from the poor housing environments whose populations are exposed to these public health threats.

Such poorly informed politicians, briefed by equally poorly informed civil servants, is a recipe for disaster.

So when it comes to new Acts of Parliament, for a smidgen in time the informed NGO has an opportunity to influence and educate the political spectrum — that is if they can find a politician with the backbone to follow through and who is not merely be a badge hunter really only looking after themself.

The same truth can be said of the NGOs, for when I look at those who have led major NGOs in the past I find that, via LinkedIn, that they too have been climbing their own greasy poles to be on boards of banks and environmental polluters such as oil companies, and indeed go for any position of advisor which they can clamber into.

So in reality such voices are tainted by their own egos, with totally sullied forecasts when it comes to delivery of the solutions.   This is their version of success.

Personally I would rather be a voice in the wilderness than to stoop to such self-centred hypocrisy.

David Levy