Boo Gay'n

Isn't your first point an oxymoron? In the last 20 years - which reflects my age - I can't think of a minister who had the intellect or commitment to the job to be 'right' for it. Maybe some of the chief executives have been up to the challenge, but they get tripped up constantly by the politicians IMO. They aren't really chief executives, because everything significant has to be run past the politicians first. In DESC it may be that there was/is antagonism between civil servants and head teachers and their unions, but there is probably aggro between civil servants and politicians too - recipe for dysfunction. As for Manx public sector unions, they have been used to getting their own way for years - so we have high salaries, all sorts of weird and restrictive practices and an automatic view that if they rattle the sabre they will win.

To give some minor credit to IOMG, they have published this report into the rot in education. Here is an extract from the exec summary. "In short, there has been, and continues to be, a long-standing battle of wills particularly between the department and secondary school teachers as to ‘who’s in charge’. For too long the mindset of senior departmental staff and secondary school headteachers has been focused on levels of autonomy and control when both parties should have been working together to agree how their respective roles should complement and support one another, and not how one party should exercise control over the other. In our view, this issue is the root cause of the cracked relationship between the department and schools which we believe is fractured and must be repaired." Not sure that the proposed solution - an education board - will repair the fracture. Will Ronald Barr walk?

This thread has drifted a little off topic, but in an interesting way. Senior government bods usually leave having signed a gagging order of some kind IMO, so we can never know the real ins and outs of what happened. Over the years, anyone I have talked to who is remotely close to Charters says that he was sacked for being disruptive and very aggressive with colleagues. He got a job in St Helena I think but lasted a few weeks. He is now a home care 'consultant' in North Carolina of all places (and with it being the US a consultant could be a home help). His online resume fails to mention his time on the Island, but his main career is there. Corlett left as the TT fiasco was becoming public, and now sells photocopiers at Manx Business Solutions. The DHSC pair of Couch and Morris both went on to probably better things after leaving. Morris in the management team of the Nightingale Hospital set up in the Excel Centre in London (saw that on Twitter), and Couch's LinkedIn profile says that he is running something in Africa. Their departure certainly seems to be linked in some way to the Jonny Michael work, and the steady addition of Michael's cronies since then hints at people walking who didn't buy in to the starry eyed credulity of the Boy Vampire and Mr Toad when being told what to do by a knight of the realm.

Another of Jonny Michael's pals I hear. That guy is directing so much, I wonder what the Boy Vampire actually does!

SoS meant not having insurance I think. Road Traffic Act 1985 Schedule 5, Part 1 para 1 "Subject to the provisions of this Schedule, it shall not be lawful for a person to use, or to cause or permit any other person to use, a motor vehicle on a road or other public place unless there is in force in relation to the use of the vehicle by that person or that other person, as the case may be, such a policy of insurance or such a security in respect of third-party risks as complies with the requirements of this Schedule; and if a person acts in contravention of this paragraph he shall be guilty of an offence."

This is actually a really big gap in Manx law, and we are way behind most other countries in the developed world. In essence, a Mental Capacity Act sets out rules to help determine if someone is 'of sound mind', to use that lovely old phrase. In other words, do they have the mental capacity to take decisions about their own health, finances etc. etc.? At the moment, we muddle along.

"even MLCs" - are they a strange, separate population who get things really slowly? OK, come to think of it...

Ask Donald...

In shock news today, a man complains that it rains in the Isle of Man - link. Elsewhere, researchers discover that bears defecate in the woods, and our religious correspondent establishes that the pope is a catholic...

Braddan Commissioners only seem competent because of the business rates flowing into their coffers from the industrial/retail estates on their patch. More money than they know what to do with. I agree with Teapot, Jessop is an out and out nutter.

Not sure if you were referring to Karran, Redmayne or Josem - I wouldn't touch anyone associated with LV with the proverbial barge pole in any case!

As with many parts of our public sector, education could do with a thorough review and restructuring. It's not as though it is any good at present in any case. As an example, someone told me that we employ far more teaching assistants (presumably because our 'poor' teachers are so exhausted dealing with such enormously large classes of terribly unruly kids) than across - at high cost. Research shows that teaching assistants don't improve educational outcomes. Go figure.

It is a scary phrase, attributed to mess room banter in the air force to describe the implications of losing a dogfight. I always suspect, however, that the comms bods writing every word that our great leaders speak should actually type 'slash and burn' which is a better analogy in the context what is being talked about.

I just listened to the Manx radio Interview - link - its starts at just after 41 minutes to see if there was anything new. There wasn't.

It is interesting how quickly this thread veered off onto the future of the constituency and its MHKs. Saint Kate is a non-entity who has achieved nothing other than alienating almost everyone that she has ever met. There was a certain pantomime fun associated with her Tynwald appearances (similar to Peter Karran, who he?) but, to quote the bard, it was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. She claims successes, but her memory doesn't seem to serve her well. 24 Hour stroke thrombolysis came in during the Boy Vampire's time. Diabetic retinopathy is a condition, so I hope that she didn't introduce it - but the consultation asking if we should have screening for it here didn't even start until just before the bunch of flowers. As for consolidating endoscopy services - don't forget the scandal on her watch that it was wrapped in - the 'forgetting' of hundreds of patients who weren't followed up. As for the items of serious patient safety, she doesn't say what they were - so who knows? A bitter, twisted person having a last squeak before complete obscurity. BTW - the mere fact of being ill doesn't stop a bad person being bad.