Prescott Strikes again

[Smiler.]

Just heard him on R4 spluttering on in way he does.

It's not his fault, it's the civil servants.

"Ministers can't be hands-on on everything. How about getting one of them on here to explain" he said, as I imagine his his fat face turning red & about to burst out of it's skin.

Well quite.

BUT, perhaps if you spent a little less time playing cricket on the lawn of your grace & favour abode or not putting one up your secretary when you should have been concentrating of the affairs of state, you might have seen things going wrong.

FAT

USELESS

CT


http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=1...

[thinfourth2]

I'm starting to like Prescott as he's a fat northern fool who paints himself as a fat northern fool which is a rare piece of honesty

[PugwasHDJ80]

actually i agree with him on this

he's not in charge of running the project personally- he's more like a figurehead chairman- the actual executive in charge would have been a civil servant......

who are without fail terminally useless at running big schemes like this...

and are NEVER held accountable for any decision they make......

no wonder this country is fooked!

[turbobloke]

It's Presclot. The backlog of deserved ridicule will never run dry.

[Dracoro]

Actually, there is a good topic here to discuss but if people just want an anti-Prescott rant then it won't go anywhere.

I don't like Prescott much but he appears to make some decent points on this, this is OUR money being wasted and the people that are REALLY spending it appear to keep out of the public eye. It then starts to get party political (as seen in some posts above) and completely misses the issue at hand.

You may not like Prescott and, yes, much of what he's said and done is crap, however that doesn't mean EVERYTHING he says is rubbish. If he said the the earth is round, would people disagree with him simply because of who he is?

[turbobloke]

Dracoro said:

Actually, there is a good topic here to discuss but if people just want an anti-Prescott rant then it won't go anywhere.

I don't like Prescott much but he appears to make some decent points on this, this is OUR money being wasted and the people that are REALLY spending it appear to keep out of the public eye. It then starts to get party political (as seen in some posts above) and completely misses the issue at hand.

Good start, there is always room for an anti-Presclot rant, however if you don't like Presclot how come you're so forgiving over his rank hypocrisy on this matter - he is simply not interested in stopping any waste of public money as he was one of the chief liebore wasters. He can bleat from the sidelines and posture away but hopefully very few will fall for it.

Dracoro said:

You may not like Prescott and, yes, much of what he's said and done is crap, however that doesn't mean EVERYTHING he says is rubbish. If he said the the earth is round, would people disagree with him simply because of who he is?

I'd have to go out and check

[Dracoro]

For sure he's a hypocrite and this has been done to death, however your post proves my point. People don't appear to want to discuss the actual issue at hand, just have a rant against a former MP. This will STILL be happening under the incumbent government too. But hey, whilst everyone has a nice little anti-Prescot rant, it will continue to happen.

[Zod]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

the actual executive in charge would have been a civil servant......

who are without fail terminally useless at running big schemes like this...

and are NEVER held accountable for any decision they make......

That's not true. They get moved to run another big project in another department.

PugwasHDJ80 said:

no wonder this country is fooked!

[turbobloke]

Dracoro said:

For sure he's a hypocrite and this has been done to death, however your post proves my point. People don't appear to want to discuss the actual issue at hand, just have a rant against a former MP. This will STILL be happening under the incumbent government too. But hey, whilst everyone has a nice little anti-Prescot rant, it will continue to happen.

GSOH applies.

There is room for debate, and it'll happen anyway, however it would be mean spirited to shut down any Presclot slagging off as he was and is such a loathesome incompetent odious git. And as you say there's the hypocrisy too. Apart from that and a hundred other distasteful things he's OK.

[Puggit]

Either it's Prescott's fault for cocking it all up, or it's Prescott's fault for not holding the civil servants under his remit to be accountable.

Either way he loses, so which one is it?

[Eric Mc]

Politicians -


things go right - take the credit

things go wromg - blame someone else (like Civil Servants)

Despicable lot.

[anonymous-user]

OK then, if it's the Civil Servants who carry the responsibility, why exactly do we need Ministers?

I'm sorry, Prescott and the rest of the incompetents in the last Governmnt must take responsibility.

They presided over possibly the worst economic period in the Country's history, but none of it was their fault? Really?

BTW, one only has to look at Prescott's biography to realise that we must have been the laughing stock of the civilised world having this clown second in line. Not to rant but what qualification or justification does he have to be in that position?

We all know that Blair only put him there because he then had a whipping boy/village idiot who was no threat to him but was it worth the embarrassment caused for us as a nation? Not for me.

Tell me one good thing that Prescoot achieved during his over long tenure?

[anonymous-user]

thinfourth2 said:

I'm starting to like Prescott as he's a fat northern fool who paints himself as a fat northern fool which is a rare piece of honesty

That's an unusual word to hear in connection with John Prescott. Honesty. Hmmmmmmmm.

If he had a shred of honesty or decency about him he would have disappeared with what little grace he could have, instead of continuing to be a burden on the state with the Peerage he said he would never accept.

[Smiler.]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

actually i agree with him on this

he's not in charge of running the project personally- he's more like a figurehead chairman - the actual executive in charge would have been a civil servant......

who are without fail terminally useless at running big schemes like this...

and are NEVER held accountable for any decision they make......

no wonder this country is fooked!

I don't understand. Either he is involved or he isn't.

If he is the figurehead, then the ultimate st (or success) falls in his lap.

If he has no involvement, then don't associate him with it.

My point stands. He is a FAT USELESS CT who couldn't run a bath because his main priorities in life are (not in any particular order):

• Lining his nest
• Desperation to show that Liebor aren't a bunch of useless, 2-faced lying tossers
• Pies (ooh, also topical)
• Proving to himself that is isn't like a pedo joke at a parent/teacher evening that he so clearly is
• Justifying his existing in the political arena

But, please carry on & show me the error of my thoughts, and how in any other situation, he wouldn't have been down the round after the word "hello."

[Dogwatch]

I understood this to be part of the EU regionalisation project hence no expense spared, no questions asked.

Prescott was involved right up to his great fat neck and as usual it all fell apart. While I deplore the waste of our money at least the sheer incompetence has stopped Brussels from achieving another objective.

[230TE]

Dogwatch said:

I understood this to be part of the EU regionalisation project hence no expense spared, no questions asked.

Is that so that if there is a big fire and we are short of fire engines, they can send one over from France?

[Sticks.]

REALIST123 said:

OK then, if it's the Civil Servants who carry the responsibility, why exactly do we need Ministers?

I'm sorry, Prescott and the rest of the incompetents in the last Governmnt must take responsibility.

Indeed, ministers are ultimately responsible for what a deprtment does, civi servants only advise on how to do it etc. Taking responsibility was a quality often missing from the last govt - how many resigned and were quickly backin another post - and afaik blaming civil servants was something which hadn't been done before.

'Backlog of deserved ridicule' I like.

[PugwasHDJ80]

Smiler. said:

I don't understand. Either he is involved or he isn't.

do you think the head of BP was personally involved with running the particular well that failed in the gulf of mexico? he was ultimately responsible, but he wasn't the person that fked it up- the two are different things.

Smiler. said:

If he is the figurehead, then the ultimate st (or success) falls in his lap.

indeed- but that doesn't preclude other from being held personally accountable too. As an employee it might be my boss who is ultimately responsible for what happens in my department, but if i spend half a billion pounds on something unneccessary because i'm a retard, then i would certainly expect to be fired

Smiler. said:

If he has no involvement, then don't associate him with it.

if you heard the interview he said he takes responsibility, but is pissed off because no one else is ever held accountable

Smiler. said:

My point stands. He is a FAT USELESS CT who couldn't run a bath because his main priorities in life are (not in any particular order):

• Lining his nest
• Desperation to show that Liebor aren't a bunch of useless, 2-faced lying tossers
• Pies (ooh, also topical)
• Proving to himself that is isn't like a pedo joke at a parent/teacher evening that he so clearly is
• Justifying his existing in the political arena

how do any of your opinions here preclude anyone else from ALSO being responsible?

Smiler. said:

But, please carry on & show me the error of my thoughts, and how in any other situation, he wouldn't have been down the round after the word "hello."

no one is disagreeing that he's an odious self serving politician, just that a fair few of us who have had dealings with the civil service (from a business perspective), know that the failings of a major project are rarely a direct failing of the politician at the head of the department, but almost always due to the failings of an unelected civil mandarin who always beleive they know what to do, but rarely actually do.

My experience of any capital, logistical or structural projects are thus:

1. the civil servants involved like to do things by comittee as slowly as possible without taking any personal responsibility
2. No civil servant loses their job no matter how much money they waste, how corrupt they are, how inept they are, or how inefficient they are- all that happens is they are shunted sideways into non-jobs where they can't harm too many people. They then can't understand why most of us in business help them.
3. They allow private companies to walk all over them!
4. They do not understand how to control the relationship between them and suppliers, and setup structures that try and help, but actually make it impossible to find suppliers who want to work, and are efficient about it- just look at the tendering processes.
5. They often lie when asked questions and are FAR more worried about how they look to their peers then hhow they actually perform.
6. When things go wrong they take very few decisions quickly and in a timely manner, which in itself usually creates more problems.

The civil service we have was designed to run an empire that spanned the globe- we actually need about 1/10th of the civil service we currently have, but as they effectively control our politicians we will never actually reduce the cretinous workforce without someone like Maggie coming in and taking them on.

If they all went on strike, the only people who you would really miss would be the frontline lot who make up about 15% of the workforce!

Edited by PugwasHDJ80 on Wednesday 21st September 11:29

[Mojocvh]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

actually i agree with him on this

he's not in charge of running the project personally- he's more like a figurehead chairman- the actual executive in charge would have been a civil servant......

who are without fail terminally useless at running big schemes like this...

and are NEVER held accountable for any decision they make......

no wonder this country is fooked!

spot on

[Chris Type R]

It's Lord Prescott, surely.