The bureaucracy runs things, at least everywhere I've seen.Rum wrote: ↑Sat Dec 22, 2018 9:48 amThe executive is too close to the administration in my view. Here in the UK, whatever the faults of our system the 'Civil Service' actually runs the country and they carry out whatever idiotic policy the current government want them to. They curb some of their excesses and encourage boldness in other areas. In my last job I had contact with some of those guys on the education side. They were pretty impressive on the whole.
I know there is some valid upset among us lawmakers, that their job (making law) has been dodged, and they instead leave the actual lawmaking to bureaucrats of various agencies, who are not elected.
Here in Canada, it's like a running joke. Government employees don't do 'work', they instead foist it off on consultants. Those consultants then do the actions, and if those actions get someone in trouble, it is easy to fire the consultant instead of pinning the responsibility to the government employee.
I know one lady in town who rose high enough to get fired. Get fired she did (from an HR blunder) but now works as a consultant to government (in the same field) and runs a 'Non Government Organization' using those same contacts.
It reminds me of hearing that old quote about Germany during the 30's and 40's...Hitler could NOT have taken over the country, had the clerks and bookkeepers refused him. I can't remember where I heard it, but the bureaucracy always rules.
I don't even understand what it means. It sounds like a hissy fit...the government shuts down every weekday evening, and every long weekend. What is it that they are missing out on? I mean, aside from pay for low-level workers...?
In the USA a new administration brings with it, what seems to me to be a whole bunch of new heads of the big state departments. Besides anything else it seems very inefficient if they have to get to grips with the nuts and bolts of it all every four years. The thought of a Prime Minister here 'shutting down' government in a temper tantrum is totally off the wall. I'm sure - I know - it would not be possible.