No.166 - 'Shambles', 'Farce, 'Fiasco'? The Best Word is 'Tragedy'!
Dear James,
How long can this go on? Shock after shock, disaster after disaster, your government crashes on through the undergrowth like a herd of bull elephants intent on the destruction of themselves and any others in their vicinity. The latest rogue elephant in the herd, Mr Gavin Williamson, Education Secretary, suffers from a deficiency of ability, a surplus of self-belief and the protection of Boris’s 80 seat majority in a pacified parliament. But his impact on the people he is supposed to represent is disastrous. And this time his victims are thousands of A level students who have seen their efforts brought asunder by that prime tool of the current government, an algorithm!
Just take one example. The young woman who wanted to get into vet school had teacher predicted grades of three As. The algorithm, not knowing her from Adam (or Eve), reduced those grades to C, B, B. in order to ‘prevent grade inflation across the land’. She was, of course, distraught. The hopes and aspirations of a hard working and intelligent 17 year old had been torpedoed by a clumsy set of mathematical constructs that was uninterested in the complexities of individuals but simply in the needs of the person for whom it had been designed. Almost 40% of A-level grades awarded on Thursday in England were lower than teachers' predictions. It sums up this government. It is a government that believes that it can run a country from on high by a few individuals who can replace individual accountability through the centralization of power and the power of data and its associated algorithms. For these people the local individual does not exist except as a set of data points. The girl above was just a number or a single set of 5000 'behavioural indicators' that companies such as Facebook have on each off its ‘customers’. It was by using such constructs that Vote Leave managed to fix the 2016 referendum and Dominic Cummings raised himself from being a backroom ‘nerd’ into a ‘political genius’. Unfortunately, the numerical skills required of political campaigns do not translate well into the skills needed in government and this latest scandal proves it. People are not numbers. People have feelings, emotions and need to feel respected. Dominic Cummings does not ‘do people’. His world is peopled by digits. In fact he prides himself on a singular vision which ignores criticism in the interests of his monomanic visions. People, and even Ministers and Prime Ministers, are merely the poor bloody infantry of his campaigns. They are dispensable, collateral damage to his vision of a greater good. And Cummings was elected by no one.
The latest fall guy in the Cummings/Boris gallery of jesters, is poor Gavin Williamson. He is a bright faced, cheery young chap who seems too young for such responsibilities. He is Boris’s Senior Prefect put in charge of the nation’s education on the basis of a self-belief which seems to be the only pre-qualification for any ministerial job since Boris took over a year ago. He has had five months to prepare for the inevitable challenges due to covid-19 upon the thousands of sixth formers and GSCE students who were prevented from taking exams due to the pandemic. He is supported by Nick Gibb, Minister of State for School Standards who until yesterday was saying that ‘The system is robust’ and any ‘mistakes’ will be dealt with. That was the line that held until yesterday’s afternoon’s dramatic U-Turn of a government for whom ‘U-Turn’ has become its defining motto. Mr Williamson is seeking the usual scapegoats in this car crash, blaming Ofqual. But the real culprit is hiding in plain sight.
Boris Johnson is, once again, missing in action. Where is he? Where has he been? The answer is just a deadly silence. At times like this, the country needs real leadership but all we have got is this straw man who has the profile of an elephant but the heart of a mouse. He hides behind his lacklustre Ministers, he hides from scrutiny and is only happy when parliament is in recess. Boris is running scared. Nobody is ever sacked, nobody ever apologizes, nobody accepts responsibility. His team, of which you are a part, is a band of nonentities masquerading as a government. So call it what you will, James - a farce, a fiasco, a shambles - for those students with so many aspirations for their futures, only one word wlll suffice. It is tragedy. Shame on you all!
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent