Enough said: George Wilkinson's blog
"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and then again I just sits"
Poor old Jacqui Smith. I am not sure which is worse: that she claimed for the TV package, her denial that she hadn’t watched the films in question (“livid and shocked” ~ sounds as if she actually had seen them), or that her husband resorted to adult films while she was dossing down in her sister’s back bedroom.
Mind you, if I was married to Jacqui Smith I would probably have resorted to adult films long before now.
You can always rely on a Bishop to say something stupid: it must be part of the training. So yesterday evening, up pops Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, on the Six O’Clock News, to comment on Evan Harris’ Private Members Bill to amend the Act of Settlement. And in case you missed it, listen on BBC iPlayer: it’s roughly 14 minutes into the News.
Described in the introduction as a “senior Anglican leader”, my lord bishop launched straight into it,
It’s wretched to say so today, but Roman Catholics were regarded [in the Eighteenth Century] as like Al Qaeda or the Taleban are today.
There you have it: an obligatory hand-wringing preface, a reference to the bogey men of the Modern Age to point up how frightfully misguided our forefathers must have been, and wrong history. And all for a sound bite.
Instead the Act was another demonstration of Parliamentary power.
. . . a further Provision to be made for the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line for the Happiness of the Nation and the Security of our Religion. And it being absolutely necessary for the Safety Peace and Quiet of this Realm to obviate all Doubts and Contentions in the same by reason of any pretended Titles to the Crown and to maintain a Certainty in the Succession thereof to which your Subjects may safely have recourse for their Protection
The need was for certainty in the succession: Queen Anne’s only surviving child, the Duke of Gloucester had died in 1700 and Parliament, dominated by the Tory/Country Party interest, went for the Protestant Hanoverian line, and excluded the 57 or so Roman Catholic heirs.
I have never much enjoyed internal meetings, whether management, business development, risk management, department, start the week, or whatever. When I was more closely involved in the day-to-day management of my practice they were the bane of my life. It was very refreshing reading Luke Johnson’s take on them in his FT column yesterday,
I am constantly astonished by managers in large organisations who obsessively attend internal meetings. Often these grey affairs have a dozen or more participants, each feeling they must make a contribution to justify their existence. It is my idea of corporate hell. It astonishes me to meet middle-ranking figures who have such bookings stretching not just for months ahead, but perhaps even into next year. What is it that goes on in all these crucial gatherings?
Committees almost by definition are a black hole into which time is sucked. Usually, they are planned months in advance, looming on the horizon on a Monday morning, primed to bore you to death. They are dominated by minutes, agendas, protocol and other matters of ultimate tedium. I rather admire those outfits that hold sessions where everyone has to stand up. It gives the event a real sense of urgency, I suspect. In these straitened times, such a stripped-down attitude feels rather appropriate – along with a genuinely flexible attitude to how you spend your day.
A very good public lecture at the University of Exeter yesterday evening on Building the Energy Future, given by James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK.
Very upbeat (“we need to hold on to our optimism, but realise that optimism alone is not enough”) and honest. And this morning Stefan Stern in the FT on why Managing the mood is crucial,
Leaders have to be resilient. At the moment the bad news is coming not single spies, but in battalions. Tough trading conditions like these test character as much as business acumen. Your physical and emotional response to these challenges is just as important as the decisions you actually take.
If James Smith’s performance last night is typical of the man (and I am sure it is) then Shell UK must be a great place to work.
P.S. Note to Steve Smith (University of Exeter VC) ~ these lectures are too good to miss: there should be a podcast.
Following on from earlier, an excellent post by Oliver Kamm this morning, Galloway’s Heroes.
There’s a tendency among commentators to assume that Galloway, for all his bombast and rhetorical excess, is a colourful character who adds to the quality of public life. The truth is much darker.
And so say all of us.
Enough said: George Wilkinson's blog 