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From the examples highlighted, it might be more aptly titled, 'Nu Brittan'. As for 'nincompoopery', that can be a spin off from 'the long march through the institutions', especially since educational standards and achievements have been largely debased since the malovolent Blair spouted 'education (x3)'.

This 'gossamer elite' have no aspiration for 'standards', whether for education or civil conduct. Furthermore, they do not want the 'little people' to even be aware of the importance of 'standards'.....'the anything goes ' mantra as long as 'you aren't hurting anyone else'. Except people are being hurt and censored as they point out the fallacies contained therein.

'Bread and circuses'...keep the masses neutered in aspiration, make 'standards' irrelevant, else the 'gossamer elite's' own poor standards will be shown up as grubby and venal.

However, if the 'gossamer elite' have spun a web all for themselves, it certainly isn't unbreakable, as this Article concludes. The 'covid' era/ 'climate crisis' era has exposed its corruption, and disregard for standards in political operation and discourse.Hope springs eternal!

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🤦🏼‍♀️ We are at the top of the rollercoaster, inching towards the drop that we know is coming. Problem is, the rollercoaster is rickety and the maintenance staff work from home.

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There was a piece by Niall Ferguson in The Free Press yesterday in which he lists reasons why the forthcoming US presidential election is such an embarrassing mess. His reason No 1 is that serious people are no longer interested in 'going into politics' as a life choice.

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The problem is one of expectations. Much of the sweaty fervour of the academic left wing has tumbled into non-academic life without much resistance. In an effort to fight discrimination and overcome systemic racism (which may or may not exist) it has become taboo to expect excellence. If there is 'some identified group' of people who may not have had the intellectual training or background to produce excellent work then 'clearly' (sarcasm) excellent work is discriminatory.

The consequence is that even people outside 'some identified group' seize upon this justification for producing their own work that is less than excellent. You can put less effort into your work *and* get the warm glow of Social Justice at the same time. Any criticism of poor work is easy to dismiss as being the result of one of the *-isms and needs no further defence. The multiplication of poor work is perhaps another instance of Luxury Beliefs.

Mediocrity Rules, KO?

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I come across the EDI explanation quite a bit but I am a bit dubious for reasons that probably need an entire post - I think the issue is more to do with technology and its effect on reflective practice.

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I think you are right in that the whole DEI/EDI/IED farrago mitigates against excellence from the start. You may end up unable to hire the competent person you want if they aren't from an 'under-represented' group of some sort. Add to that the vast expansion of higher education, combined with grade inflation, and you have a much larger pool of supposedly qualified but less competent people chasing the desirable jobs. The net result is an steady decline in standards, and an increase in costs as the army of less than useful staff acts as a drag on the productivity of the few truly competent people with the stamina to stay on in the organisation.

It was exactly this scenario that finally convinced me to retire. At a meeting to discuss a major IT systems problem that I been asked to investigate, there were only two technical people, myself and one other chap, and no fewer than five 'service delivery managers', each of whom was responsible for a different line of reporting to our customer and our senior management.

I realised then that I needed to get out and preserve my sanity rather than worry about the loss of salary.

You can look at this sort of problem on a number of axes:

position vs. competence

process vs. outcome

narrative (sales pitch) vs. truth

Any leaning towards the first term in any of those pairings will result in a decline in an organisation's performance over time.

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The "weaponisation" of excellence is ablist. How dare you!

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I resonate with the following observation: "But might it simply be the case that the people who are notionally in charge do not have the capacity to effectively govern? Might it just be that they do not know what they are doing - an ideology of plain nincompoopery rather than a ‘long march through the institutions’?"

As I keep saying, It's Claudine Gay all the way down.

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Just had to pop in and give you bonus points for referencing compsognathus in this piece. Love it! (Travelling, so not about as much as usual - enjoy the silence, as they say! 😂).

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Just had to pop in and give you bonus points for referencing compsognathus in this piece. Love it! (Travelling, so not about as much as usual - enjoy the silence, as they say! 😂).

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Thanks Chris!

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No need to worry. Once this illiterate and incoherent garbage has been turned into a statute, the Supreme Court can work out what it really (ie what they want it to) means. It’ll keep them amused for decades.

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