Special Episode: The Doomed Career of Dominic

Explicit content warning

11/21/20 • 28 min

Special episode on the Doomed Career of Dominic Cummings.Dominic Cummings has been seen as a controversial and divisive figure, but as with so many people at the political extremes, significant parts of his analysis can be agreed upon by disparate factions across the political spectrum.In this special episode we unpick the good and the less good from this lauded and demonised character, assess the reality he found himself confronted with and also assess where he went wrong. His intent to improve significantly the capacity of central government to produce meaningful change throughout Britain has been felt by many past radicals in and around no 10.And we have the unexpected good fortune to have a co-presenter - Ed Straw - who has been deeply involved in an attempt to achieve the same aims as Dominic Cummings - civil service reform. And who can spell out in clear terms why, regardless of his wit, intelligence and muscle, he was never going to succeed in reforming the government machine.Why does the Civil Service need reform? What might be the best way to achieve it? Why was Cummings’ attempt more on less doomed from the outset? Indeed, why have all 5 attempts, over 5 decades, at civil service reform - failed? Is this a symptom of something else?Find out in this hastily assembled episode, dense with anecdote, comparison and analysis.Links:The actual control room - Chile 1973: “Cybersyn", no doubt an inspiration for James Bond films.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_CybersynStafford Beer “The Godfather of systems thinking”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_BeerSalvador Allende, Communist president of Chilehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_AllendeArticle by Ed as accompaniment to this podcasthttps://www.edstraw.com/four-lessons-of-civil-service-reform/The Economist is on side:https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/11/19/remaking-the-british-stateEd’s 2004 report, adopted by Tony Blair - The Dead Generalist:https://www.demos.co.uk/files/TheDeadGeneralist.pdfPeter Hennessy, leading constitutional historianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_HennessyThe Thick of It - Available on Netflix, or here are some "deleted scenes”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im_KryFuPegYes Prime Minister - also on Netflix, I think - On The State of Education:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeF_o1Ss1NQ

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Previous Episode

Post-Crash Analysis and Preflight Checklist

For this final episode of series 1, I wanted to build on Buckminster Fuller's idea of our planet - our habitat and life-support system - as being like a spaceship - Spaceship Earth, as he calls it - and building on this idea to use two related models for our discussion: the post-crash analysis and the preflight checklist

First we look at the globally used post-crash analysis as a model for investigating governance - "It's important that they are not looking to blame someone," Ed says.

Then we get onto Ed's Preflight checklist - essentially a renewal of our global social contracts, or constitutions, as they are known, that would take into account the conditions necessary for our survival.

Finally we hear from Gerald Midgley, philosopher on human systems and founding father of systems thinking as an intentional discipline, spelling out with some excitement the impact of what in many respects has been his life's work.

Gerald Midgley:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Midgley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_systems_thinking

Ed’s preflight checklist for planet Earth:

https://www.edstraw.com/principles-for-systemic-governing/

Eileen Munro (Episode 2 Contributor) advocating post crash analysis model to address culture of blame in child protection:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/serious-case-review-child-protection

On checklists - great article overall, if you want to cut straight to flying fortress story go about 1/4 of the way in, paragraph opening “On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio...” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist

On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition for airplane manufacturers vying to build its next-generation long-range bomber. It wasn’t supposed to be much of a competition. In early evaluations, the Boeing Corporation’s gleaming aluminum-alloy Model 299 had trounced the designs of Martin and Douglas. Boeing’s plane could carry five times as many bombs as the Army had requested; it could fly faster than previous bombers, and almost twice as far. A Seattle newspaperman who had glimpsed the plane called it the “flying fortress,” and the name stuck. The flight “competition,” according to the military historian Phillip Meilinger, was regarded as a mere formality. The Army planned to order at least sixty-five of the aircraft.

On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Psychology_of_Military_Incompetence

9 Lessons from the Blue Zones:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/changing-the-way-america-eats-moves-and-connects-one-town-at-a-time/

Thoughts on Purpose:

Listen to Why Cornel West is hopeful (but not optimistic) from Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/future-perfect/id1438157174?i=1000486452652

Welcome to the Anthropocene:

https://vimeo.com/anthropocene/shortfilm

Perspective, via some very interesting maps:

https://earthtime.org

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Next Episode

Series 2 Preflight Checklist - Introduction

Welcome to The Hidden Power Podcast, Series 2 - Pre-flight Checklist, where we - Ed Straw, and Philip Tottenham - examine conditions necessary for a comfortable and flourishing life on Spaceship Earth, on the far side of the current climate emergency.

In this nice, concise episode we revisit and draw some of the connections from series one - governance, systems thinking - and explore how, through this medium of a constitution, or "preflight checklist," as we frame it, we can alleviate some of of the pressures we face, and enhance the joys of the apparently unique paradise we find ourselves living on.

Listeners have expressed how much they enjoyed series 1, but still were not clear about what we mean when we talk about systems thinking - so we also try to frame this complex but powerful subject in simple terms.

Any questions or comments? Please email us at [email protected]

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