Submissive Blonde Can't Stop Cummings...
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Submissive Blonde Can't Stop Cummings...
So what pearls of wisdom will the myopic moron bring to military intelligence? Other than trying to look good cosying up to the blokes who do all the hard work?
Last edited by T28B; 9th Jul 2020 at 00:13. Reason: toxic link
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Maybe someone should check Cummings eyesight first... He may be turning a blind eye to our nations Defence Requirements! . 
There is always the chance that he could pleasantly surprise most. In which case, if I find myself among the most, I'll write out what I've typed elsewhere about Cummings then eat the paper.
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Just briefly reading the link posted by Chugalug 2, I had no idea this was the biggest Defence review since the end of the Cold War? And it reports, initially, in the Autumn?!
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That said, I remain deeply uncomfortable about the power he wields (and potentially mis-uses) as an unelected shoe-in at the top table.
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An absolutely fascinating film dissecting the Vietnam war, decisions and assumptions made.
I suspect 'Classic Dom' does not have a bone of humility in his body to have such reflections.
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That said, I remain deeply uncomfortable about the power he wields (and potentially mis-uses) as an unelected shoe-in at the top table.
I think it’s worth reflecting on how most of the decisions in Whitehall get taken. Ministers don’t usually get every possible combination of choices; having set the general direction of travel, they are later presented with recommendations with just enough wiggle room to allow them to apply their imprimatur. It’s typically unelected officials who prepare those recommendations, with inputs from think tanks, academia and professions (teachers, lawyers, military etc). When a minister has ideas that run against conventional Whitehall and professional thinking (Gove, Williamson, Patel spring to mind as obvious examples) it tends to upsets the smooth running of the machine, causing everyone to get very upset about it and criticise the (elected) ministers for upsetting the applecart. So is democratic input to the system welcomed or not? To my mind it is a bit rich to criticise Cummings on the basis that he is ‘unelected’ when his principal interest seems to be getting other ‘unelected’ folk to develop policies and offer choices that better reflect the democratically-elected ministers’ priorities. And since he is a personal appointment of the PM, I would hazard a guess that he is rather better attuned to those priorities than unelected people such as Mark Sedwill and before him Jeremy Heywood, who exercised a very great influence indeed over proceedings during their respective tenures.
Too much democratic input can be a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. I was amused by a Defence Select Committee last year where good old Mark “ne-Francois pas” spent the best part of 10 minutes lambasting the MOD for the lateness and failings of the A400M, brandishing anonymous emails of complaint about it he’d received from service personnel and warning that the Department needed to learn its lesson, only to pivot without a flicker of ironic self-awareness to lambasting the MOD for having selected the E-7 Wedgetail without a formal competition against a ‘only exists on paper’ European AEW offering
. A politically-appointed adviser offers a middle ground between the unelected bureaucrat and the grandstanding politician: potentially a good thing.
In that context I am very interested to see how Cummings’s views on procurement can be squared against the political pressure which will inevitably be applied to support UK industry. For if the political direction is to pump money into the bottomless pit of BAES et al in the name of economic stimulus, DE&S will have little choice but to act as a complicit middle man and the services will find it harder to buy off-the-shelf, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen to break the MOD’s ‘gold plating’ habit. It might be that Cummings has as much work to do on ministers, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury as he does on the MOD and service chiefs. If he can expose some of the vested interests and slay a few sacred cows, I for one will be cheering him on.
Too much democratic input can be a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. I was amused by a Defence Select Committee last year where good old Mark “ne-Francois pas” spent the best part of 10 minutes lambasting the MOD for the lateness and failings of the A400M, brandishing anonymous emails of complaint about it he’d received from service personnel and warning that the Department needed to learn its lesson, only to pivot without a flicker of ironic self-awareness to lambasting the MOD for having selected the E-7 Wedgetail without a formal competition against a ‘only exists on paper’ European AEW offering
. A politically-appointed adviser offers a middle ground between the unelected bureaucrat and the grandstanding politician: potentially a good thing.In that context I am very interested to see how Cummings’s views on procurement can be squared against the political pressure which will inevitably be applied to support UK industry. For if the political direction is to pump money into the bottomless pit of BAES et al in the name of economic stimulus, DE&S will have little choice but to act as a complicit middle man and the services will find it harder to buy off-the-shelf, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen to break the MOD’s ‘gold plating’ habit. It might be that Cummings has as much work to do on ministers, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury as he does on the MOD and service chiefs. If he can expose some of the vested interests and slay a few sacred cows, I for one will be cheering him on.
Last edited by Easy Street; 9th Jul 2020 at 21:37.
Paxing All Over The World
In commerce, companies hire a 'consultant' to do the dirty work for which they do not have the stomach and wish to skip the blame. Politicians do the same. In short - it's what humans do.
Sometimes, a person who has been in an organisation/company/political party for many years can see what needs to be done and has enough knowledge of the organisation to do it. However, for the most part, organisations tend to land up supporting themselves. Some charities, after 50+ years find that keeping the charity in place becomes more important than the people it was formed to help. Humans are not very good at change - the Pandemic is a superb example of how difficult it is for people to change their behaviour.
This does not mean I am a fan of Cummings for he has proven himself to be a liar and that is not good. Particularly when his boss is a serial liar too.
Sometimes, a person who has been in an organisation/company/political party for many years can see what needs to be done and has enough knowledge of the organisation to do it. However, for the most part, organisations tend to land up supporting themselves. Some charities, after 50+ years find that keeping the charity in place becomes more important than the people it was formed to help. Humans are not very good at change - the Pandemic is a superb example of how difficult it is for people to change their behaviour.
This does not mean I am a fan of Cummings for he has proven himself to be a liar and that is not good. Particularly when his boss is a serial liar too.
Easy Street
Excellent post. The only thing I'd say is that one must differentiate between Commercial and Military Off the Shelf. I still twitch at being asked why I didn't go COTS on a Missile Approach Warner. But at least I could invite the beancounter to find one himself on the High Street. Unlike a certain helicopter IPT, who rejected 3rd Line demands for a MRH bolt, telling the production controller to shoot off down to Halfords, as they sold one the same length for push bikes. Try mentioning Hydrogen embrittlement and Vacuum Cadmium plating (not gold plating, but the workshop could do both themselves) to Halfords.
I'm sure a procurement expert like Cummings will understand all that, and that the Requirement Scrutiny regulations require the Customer (i.e. the Service, not the procurer) to answer 35 basic questions before the requirement even gets to DE&S. For example:
1g. Are there any alternatives and, if so, would they be any cheaper?
1f. Has the requirement been overstated (possibly so as to fix on a particular solution)? If so, is there any acceptable change...?
Excellent post. The only thing I'd say is that one must differentiate between Commercial and Military Off the Shelf. I still twitch at being asked why I didn't go COTS on a Missile Approach Warner. But at least I could invite the beancounter to find one himself on the High Street. Unlike a certain helicopter IPT, who rejected 3rd Line demands for a MRH bolt, telling the production controller to shoot off down to Halfords, as they sold one the same length for push bikes. Try mentioning Hydrogen embrittlement and Vacuum Cadmium plating (not gold plating, but the workshop could do both themselves) to Halfords.
I'm sure a procurement expert like Cummings will understand all that, and that the Requirement Scrutiny regulations require the Customer (i.e. the Service, not the procurer) to answer 35 basic questions before the requirement even gets to DE&S. For example:
1g. Are there any alternatives and, if so, would they be any cheaper?
1f. Has the requirement been overstated (possibly so as to fix on a particular solution)? If so, is there any acceptable change...?