Cameron and Apologies

I read in various newspapers that following then spat between Michael Gove and Theresa May over the Islamification of schools in Birmingham, Michael Gove was "ordered to apologise to the Prime Minister and to Charles Farr, a senior official at the Home Office".

I find this amazing. The fact that some unknown Civil Servant, believed to be the Cabinet Secretary, can order a cabinet member to make an apology is weird and to my mind throws considerable doubt on Cameron's abilities as a manager.

That aside,  how can you order somebody to apologise?
Surely a person who is ordered to say "Sorry" is unlikely to mean what they say and show genuine remorse for what they have done, and thus giving such an apology becomes a totally pointless activity. Indeed, a reluctant apology is more likely to make things worse, the one giving it resents having to do so and the one receiving it knows that it has no meaning.

But why didn't Cameron sort out the problem himself? When I was working, arguments between my staff were fortunately few and far between, but when they occurred, I had to sort them out and would have considered myself a failure if I'd had to call upon the Personnel (now HR) Department for assistance. It meant, of course, that I had to make a judgement of who was in the wrong, but that was all part of the job. Invariably I got the matter sorted out and things settled down. Certainly, I wouldn't have even thought of ordering either party to apologise, either to the other or to myself, that was left entirely up to them.

So why didn't Cameron do anything himself, after all he has far more power over members of the cabinet than I had over my staff. He could get rid of them next time the cabinet is shuffled whereas all I could do, in the limit, was to issue a formal warning or mark them down in their annual reports. To my mind this shows up Cameron more than Gove or May; a good manager should have realised that trouble was on the way and taken preventative action. Even then, when trouble occurred, why did Cameron off-load the problem to a Civil Servant? He's the boss, for goodness sake. Why not "I want you both in my office at 9 am in the morning without fail"? That's how things are done in the real world!

From my point of view, this whole affair shows how weak or lazy Cameron is. He is unwilling to face the realities of dealing with his cabinet appointees and delegates the matter to a Civil Servant. I remember reading Churchill's war memoirs and somewhere he wrote that on occasions he had "to knock heads together" when there was squabbling about priorities. I simply don't understand how someone can get to Cameron's position without the ability to manage staff - more to the point I wonder who would lead this country and inspire confidence if we had a real crisis.

Rotherham Council - Michael Gove Acts.

Yesterday it was reported that Rotherham Council (of recent Asian sexual abuse fame) had discovered that a couple who were foster parents were also members of UKIP, and as a result they had removed the three children currently being fostered by them on the basis that UKIP is a racist organisation. I suggested in my blog that there should be an immediate investigation by the Minister for Local Government.

This incident has caused widespread outrage from both Labour and Tory MPs as well as various fostering organisations. It has also gained UKIP some useful publicity at a time when polls suggest they have support running at 9-10%. The gist of the outrage is based on the fact that UKIP is now considered to be a "mainstream" political party and under no circumstances should membership of such a party debar a person from being a foster parent.

However, much to my surprise, Michael Gove, the Minister who heads the Government department responsible for children's services has leaped into action. Mr Gove, who is about the only Minister in the present government whom gives me any cause for hope, described Rotherham's decision as "indefensible".  He said "I will be investigating just how this decision came to be made and what steps we need to take to deal with this situation.".

This affair has somewhat embarrassed David Cameron who, in 2006,  described UKIP's members as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly", a statement from which Downing Street is rapidly trying to backtrack! There is a by-election there on Thursday to elect a replacement for the disgraced MP Denis MacShane, it will be interesting to see how this affects the Labour and UKIP votes.

I think this matter will be running for some time; the real losers will be the children who have been moved from a caring home because of prejudice by the council and its social workers.

Our Schools and Employment

We have a strange and illogical situation, as might be expected after a decade of Labour government and a politically correct curriculum in schools.
If we believe those (mainly lefties) in the management of Education, we must believe that our schools are setting higher standards than ever, with more and more children passing ever harder "A" levels.
On the other hand, we might prefer to believe others of the same political tendency who are bemoaning the fact that the government wants to cut down on the number of "skilled" immigrants being allowed into this country each year, as this will harm British business because of the lack of skilled workers in this country.
Seemingly they have all missed the point; If schools are as good as they insist, and have been for ten years or so, why don't we have these skills? Those in charge of education should, if they were doing their job properly, have been keeping in touch with business, finding out what skills will be needed over the next decade, and pushing education in that direction.

Michael Gove, the Education Minister, has been accused by his critics of "ignoring expert advice" in his White Paper, but those so-called experts are the very people who have got us into this mess, resulting in the country not having the necessary skills for the future. If I was in his position, I would be doing exactly the same, these "experts" have shown themselves to be incompetent and they should be told where to go, and exactly what to do when they got there!