On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 08:59:34AM +0100, Ian wrote:
On Tuesday 07 May 2002 03:39, Frank Shute wrote:
If our politicians are more `talented & dedicated' than most people, why does it take a Peruvian politician to understand open source software, nail the MS FUD & save his taxpayer's money & confidentiality?
You have to realise that this is one issue and it is not the main concern of most people.
But it should be of concern and politicians in this country should make a stand on it like their their Peruvian counterpart and get people interested in how their money is spent and their personal information held and used.
They might well be dedicated and talented in other fields and technologically weak.
If they were dedicated and talented in other fields then they wouldn't go into politics.
The Peruvian minister probably just happens to also have a background in IT and Open Source in particular. Now if you stood for parliament, Frank, and could get enough people to vote for you ......
Yes, and a squadron of flying pigs passes overhead... Feel free to write to the prime minister and suggest that I should become a `people's peer'. Best not to tell him that I think he's a w*nker though...or it's flying pigs time again. I hereby promise I'll take a principled stand on everything even if it's unpopular (especially if it *is* unpopular) and promise not to tow a party line. I also promise to forego wearing ermine....maybe a penguin skin instead;)
What, our civil servants have been `brainwashed' but our politicians who in their wisdom employ them and are fond of being as hospitable as possible to Mr Gates are `talented & dedicated? If you're not saying that, what exactly are you saying?
Hm, its a bit naive to believe that in these matters civil servants don't advise Ministers.
...and ministers advise civil servants.
My dealings with the Civil Service and BECTa lead me to believe that they are risk averse by nature - if not they would be working in the private sector doing entrepreneurial things.
That's right. But then they have promoted the culture of blame and have thus tied their hands with regards taking any vaguely risky decisions. Worth reading the Reith lectures that were delivered this year regards this.
Now if Ministers are lacking in technological savvy, how many CS will stick their neck out and tell the Minister to cancel the meeting with Bill Gates which is attracting every major newspaper in the land? Lot's of publicity, low risk. That is the nature of politics, its not corrupt but it lacks vision which is why Government is particularly bad at micro managing industrial processes.
My dictionary definition of corrupt is `morally depraved' which sums up that lot pretty accurately IMO. The whole point of being a politician is to take a moral stance on issues yet hardly any of them do that - that's corrupt. The government is obsessed with micro-management because they trust everybody else as much as they trust themselves. ie. not at all. The funniest remark I heard was by the health secretary describing the benefits of tax rises: `We're going to give the NHS huge resources and it's not going to be wasted because it's going to be audited by an independent committee who's members aren't going to be appointed by the government but...by a committee'. My questions: Who appoints the committee members of the committee that appoints the committee members of the committee that oversees the health spending and who's paying for the committees? Do we have these committees for just the country at large or should we have them at the local level too and perhaps regional and also Scotland and Wales...and... Oh sh*t, there goes our tax rise.... -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".