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My life is passing quickly enough as it is, without you telling me that today 1s 22nd September.

RicardianLesley - Apologies, you're right. I have changed the date. And I didn't even stay late last night...
Ian

NEVER BREATHE A WORD ABOUT YOUR LOSS

If you still have Ray Ling for VT magic and railings all round London for his sport;
When news comes in - unbearable and tragic just let him loose without another thought.
And as he trains his lens through serried ironwork, the better to achieve that Newsnight aim,
You can ignore a cameraman's departure and treat all those impostors just the same.

DATA LOSS

PA Consulting. Scattering sensitive info to the winds in a slightly less than competent manner.

Way back in 1990 it was PR Consulting who played an important part (I am told) in the 'decentralising' of the Prison Service. A hatchet job. Whether they were aware of the part they were playing in the dismantling of the Civil Service or if they were only unwitting parasites I don't know. But I would like to know.

Oops. Typo there. It is of course PA Consulting not PR Consulting.

On data loss I think it was Sarah Theatherstone (?) who asked the Parliamentary question that revealed thousands of incidents in the last few years. Has she done any follow ups?

It seems to me that one of the major factors is outsourcing and contractors in a government department. Different cultures n'all.

The goose steppers will probably be downing their Senokot before posting.

Good luck to your staff in their next roles.

Best wishes to all school-leavers. Sure you'll have fun at Big School or in vocational training. Don't forget to write/post. love from Grumpy Jon.

Re #6. Wrong as usual, this time in your spelling of Teather. Unsurprisingly, you got 'Senokot' right, but then you only had to look at your packet for that.

Missing Data

This obsession with contracting everything out, from hospital cleaning to accompanying prisoners to court, right up to maintaining confidential data strikes me as very wrong. It is obviously done to save paying salaries to dedicated, trained in-house employees, but to put it delicately there may be another reason. Presumably contacts are given after tenders are put out. One hopes these contracts are administered openly and that procurement departments are run by honest officials not interested in making money on the side. I said I would put this as delicately as possible, but it appears that many of the work which is contracted out is faulty, and one cannot help wondering why contract were offered in the first place. Examples are too numerous to mention, but a few are the school SATS scandal, hospital cleaning companies, transport work not being done satisfactorily, etc. etc. Can this all be inefficiency? Can all the data, passport details etc lost be only from carelessness, or is there financial fiddling at work? All the material lost will bring in large profits if falling into the hands of enemy organisations. These scandals have become too many and gone on too long.
A real investigation, not the usual cover-up should be undertaken, if necessary by an international organisation free from the interference of British security, police and government.

Phoenixarisen #8

If I were to own a company which dealt with, say, secure carriage including the transport of data and I wanted to watch my profit margin increasing I might just use whatever influence I could to dismantle existing governmental in-house systems. Having done that I might pay a few peanuts and employ a few monkeys to keep my costs down. Then I could present a competitive tender to win the newly available contract. I would not care too much about the quality I was offering as long as I was making plenty of money out of it. It might be a fairly short term gain but then I could move on to something else. Prison management for instance.

I think an extra question you could ask would be, "Who gains?" Exactly whose pockets are bulging as a result of all this.

#9 NewFazer

I agree with your comments, and from the way in which you write, I have the feeling you wouldn't resort to those low tricks. If you did, you'd be a very rich person, maybe a millionaire, and wouldn't be exercising your intellect on this blog. I checked out some of your previous comments and you appear an honorable humanbeing.
Paying peanuts is the policy of the cleaning contractors, the real price however is paid by our loved ones dying from hospital infections.
The question to be asked "Who gains"? Well, we can start checking on who awarded the contracts, and that is why I believe we need outside investigators. The rot probably goes very, very deep.

WHO GAINS?

About the only investigator of Who Gains (#9) seems to be Private Eye. They constantly 'follow the money' but when you live in a swamp, the weightier the matter the faster it sinks, and swamps 'heal' without trace.

BORIS' DAMNING RHETORIC

British Olympics will triumph because of our NATURAL FLAIR he declared. Oh dear. I don't think Boris can have noticed the list of things that we developed flair for under Boadicea Thatcher, Conehead Major, Saviour Blair and Incapability Brown. Parading behind banners depicting cheap foreign labour, drink/gambling/vice, institutional debt, non-dom/fat-cat ethos and Prime-Ministerial nail biting, is not what the IOC deem appropriate to their blessed temple of excellence. Plan B Boris?

AND THERE'S MORE . . .

Britain will celebrate with David Beckham and the Shipping Forcast. Could we not threaten the world with A COMBINATION OF THE TWO and achieve global domination once more?

GOING BEYOND THE INFORMATION GIVEN

Barrie (#12) Back in 1957, one of the cabal of rebels whose tribe were soon to oust sound behavioural science from Harvard, published a paper , and ever since, we've had to live with spin. What all too few who have imbibed this cognitive 'science' (essentially propped up with Null Hypothesis statistical testing in my view) failed to grasp, is that if one describes a briefly presented red ace of spades and get a response that the viewer saw an ace of hearts, one doesn't so much have evidence that people 'construct' reality (go beyond the information given), as evidence that people often report what they're presented wrongly. Kahneman recently shared a Nobel Prize for his work (with Tversky) on heuristics and their biases, but there's another way of seeing that too. Flamboyant Boris seems to have been to been produced by the same production machine as Keith Floyd, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey and many others who have been led to believe that all one has to do is behave theatrically, i.e. hypomanically/eccentrically/histrionically and everyone will pay lots of attention (and money) thinking you're a star/leader ... when in fact......it's all ....

re: 8

Spot on Phoenix!

15 power_to_the_ppl

Good to see you on this blog!
I'm seriously concerned, and despite fears that this anxiety can be translated as paranoia I honestly cannot believe that even GB's regime can be as stupid as this. More and more I see a conspiracy whereby security data, personal details and other sensitive material conveniently is "lost".
#11 Barriesingleton raises a pertinent question, Who gains? It doesn't bear thinking who could be gaining financially and far worse, those to whom the data could be passed on for military and intelligence purposes.
Jacqui Smith should resign immediately.

JJ #14

Last paragraph regarding flamboyance masquerading as worth, chimes with Gibbon (or so I have read). I like the examples of others in the group!
Can I make a sincere plea for dumb-down JJ?
The rest of your post is peppered with terms I could look up and thereby gain better grasp but I am idle and easily dispirited (same at school) so idiot-speak please. You remember Ray's words to Venkman in 'Ghostbusters' - 'You never studied'. Please treat this impostor just the same.

ANTI-'SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY'

Phoenixarisen (#8) "This obsession with contracting everything out, from hospital cleaning to accompanying prisoners to court, right up to maintaining confidential data strikes me as very wrong."

Yet, but it has been encouraged by successive governments since Thatchers anarchistic revolution. She weakened the power of the state (Civil Service 'Stalinists') by contracting out their work under the pretext that this would 'improve efficiency', whilst in reality, she was selling off the state and undermining civil servants' job security thereby reducing their loyalty/integrity. Who gained? Well, it was those who got slices of UK Plc. ? Was it the Soviet people?

The former USSR had good reason to treat 'entrepreneurs' as parasitic criminals, but then, Thatcher and Regan said it was an 'evil empire', which made de-regulation domestically that much easier. Recently, ('nazi') anti-usury fundamental Islamism has been vilified as 'terrorists' out to undermine liberal-democracy in much the same way, but if one adds up all those terrorist events (lamentable though any loss of life is), in the context of disasters, they didn't really amount to much did they? Then it all stopped....a bit like a PR campaign really. But we now have lots of new legislation just in case people get a bit uppity.

But we do live in a liberal-democracy, and the polls show that we want governments to de-regulate, to govern less and to keep us all 'free', so it doesn't surprise me at all that data keeps going missing or that we have kids stabbing each other, or that we have dysgenic fertility etc etc. What does surprise me is that anyone's at all surprised as this is what people want as I see it, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just an evil (sheep-worrying) national socialist... aren't they?

DID HE REALLY SAY THAT?

Broadcasting House (Radio 4) reports Seb Coe as saying: "Excellence can be bought but at a price."

If that isn't a mantra for 'The End of Days' British-style, I don't now what is.
Awake! Rowan Williams, your time is nigh! Are there any 'ears left to hear'?

Yet another case of crass foolisness, even wickedness allowed in the name of democracy! Can this government never do anything right? After great achievements by British athletes, one is left feeling quite sick at the news that the child murderer Myra Hindley was placed on a video created by that monster Marcus Harvey. This was displayed by Visit London, a promotional company. Surely democracy gone completely bokers, mad in fact. Being in China is a delicate situation and the greatest sensitivity should have been shown. The Foreign Office should have vetted what materials were to be used and displayed as they would be representing Britain. This is reminiscent of the contracting out of services to private companies and then disowning all responsibility when data, etc. got lost.
What an image of contemporary Britain Myra Hindley shows, almost an invitation for paedophiles and murderers to visit. One dreads to think if that creature Gary Glitter will now appear on a video advertising Britain!

20 I cannot see why my post has been referred to the moderators. I have stated nothing that is untrue, libellous or obscene. Please reconsider what I believe is a justified opinion to which I gave measured thought.

But another case of crass foolisness. Can this government never do anything right? After great achievements by British sportspeople, one is left feeling quite sick at the news that the child murderer Myra Hindley was placed on a video created by Marcus Harvey. This was displayed by Visit London, a promotional company. Surely democracy gone completely bonkers, mad in fact. Being in China is a delicate situation and the greatest sensitivity should have been shown. The Foreign Office should have vetted what materials were to be used and displayed as they would be representing Britain. What an image of contemporary Britain Myra Hindley shows, almost an invitation for criminals. A really bad mistake.

NUB (#22)

Of course any 'airing' of Hindley is a heartless act, desperately unkind to those caught up in her terrible activities.

However, she is an extreme marker for the tens of thousands of disturbed individuals currently being confirmed in their social incompetence by an out-of-sight-out-of-mind period in prison.

As a rider, it is also characteristic of London, that another bunch of the disturbed can be found at Westminster, applying their incompetence to government. Judging by their joint character, it is no wonder stupidity and unpleasantness typify British culture today. Harvey should have shown some footage of Prime Minister Questions.

JADED JEAN - REF THURSDAY THREAD

For the avoidance of doubt: I lied. But it was a slip. I have SIX O-levels. Five stuck in my mind because that was my primary tally.
I re-sat English Grammar. But I am most proud of my Woodwork pass. Six hours of examination in all (as against 1.5 for academic subjects).

Anyway - thanks for doubting and well done for being right!