I have very little to say about what on earth is going on at No.10 and I don’t want to comment on the politics of the events unfolding; except to say that at any other time the idea that the Prime Minister’s fiancee may have decided the fate of his team members would be shocking.
To understand why, apart from the obvious political issues, it is worth looking at the UK’s lamentable record on productivity, 20-30% worse than our economic rivals and slipping further.
There are generally held to be four reasons for this performance, low levels of education and training, low investment by firms and Government, bad managers and family run firms.
The last two reasons go hand in hand, it just seems common sense that the best person to run a firm is not the grandson or granddaughter of the founder. This is sometimes explained in relation to the Tokyo Olympics; we are not going to pick our next Olympic squad from the grand-children of the Tokyo team. No one would think that sensible. Also how do you attract the brightest and best to work at a business if they know that, once they have graduated some niece or nephew will “work their way onto the board” after 6 months. Family relationships cloud the issues and distort decision making.
That is why I think that turning No. 10 into a place where the partner of the PM appears to be in charge of, or even influencing, hiring and firing seems a very backward step. This is not how a well run, professionally managed, public company would act; and if it did you would sell its shares.
https://jonty.substack.com/