Work – Page 2 – John Vincent

UK’s Digital Dependency

Under the title of “Culture” The Guardian newspaper offered an article that caught my eye this weekend. The author, Tim Wu was offering a point of view about the economic landscape that we inhabit in Britain. The theme was the drift that has taken place whereby we find that a huge dependency has grown-up over the last couple of decades. That is the unassailable dominance of a small number of US companies throughout the whole of our country.

What am I using to write this remark? It’s a computer program called “Word” sold to me by a multinational company called “Microsoft.” What’s strange is that this way of expressing my relationship with Microsoft isn’t commonplace. There’s a tendance to treat software, like Word as if it has always been with us and always will be. Like the public roads I drive my car on. Completely taken for granted. That is until a problem arises.

This Saturday article wasn’t about computer software per-se. Although the world of computing is riddled with intellectual property rights there remains a kind of openness to new ways of doing business. Digital ones and noughts are like the text on this page. They can be rearranged in all manner of diverse ways. The combinations and permutations are almost infinite.

Tim Wu argues that we should look to the way transport systems developed as an analogy to the electronic communications infrastructure we use.

Roads developed in the era of the horse. More than 200-years ago, before the time of the railroad. In fact, they go back a lot longer than a few hundred years ago. The Romans were particularly good road builders. However, that was a state enterprise aimed at getting armies around a sprawling empire.

The condition of roads in Britain took a leap forward when commercial enterprise found a way of getting an income from the primary land transport system of the day. Road tolls were a way of building and maintaining a network of highways. This network was physical. Fixed in place.

Digital infrastructure is more than cables, wireless systems, and databanks. Without the human interface all that extensive structure is unusable. That’s were a small number of US companies dominate the marketplace. This complete extra territorial dominance is, like my comment about Word above, taken for granted.

Tim Wu’s analogy doesn’t cut the mustard. It does illuminate an inconvenient truth. The reason the big US companies are driving the future of communication and technology is because they have captured a massive global income stream. However, much of that position depends on the laws that prevail in each nation. That prevail at a time when globalisation was seen as almost unquestionable. Now, the question arises has national sovereignty been sacrificed on the alter of progress? If so, what next?

There’s often been a hard kick-back against anticompetitive behaviour. Monopolies are not considered the best way to serve the public interest. Nevertheless, throughout history they have been pivotal in our story. Like it or not, that’s how the elegant country houses and castles of Britain were paid for and furnished. The same experience can be witnessed at the Newport Mansions[1] in the US.

How do we democratise rapidly advancing technology? There’s a mighty big question.

[1] https://www.newportmansions.org/

Why Embrace False Utopias?

Why do clever people often become dayglo prats? Not stupid by any means. More foolish and not embarrassed by their recklessness. It’s one thing to be incompetent or ineffectual but that’s not what I’m getting at here. It’s smart people who get carried away with delusional dreams.

How many vocal futurologists have said – “work is dead”? That one day we will be living in an age of leisure and ease because sophisticated machines will have taken all the drudgery out of existence. Intelligent machines doing all the things we once considered to be work.

In essence it’s a utopian vision that stands-up to be knocked down. In fact, the subject matter has been chewed over in science fiction ever since science has played a big part in our lives. Such popular fiction takes us from a dream world to a hideous dystopia that the original dreamers hadn’t envisioned.

The year is 2274. Almost 250-years ahead of where we are. Humanity is living in a bubble. That bit doesn’t change. Most people are unaware of how their society functions. Again, that bit doesn’t change. Rituals and customs dictate the path individuals take in life. Like today.

Strangely, even in the year 1775[1] those three aspects of life were evident. Maybe they are perpetual. However, there’s an exceptional point to make. That’s our rebellious nature.

The year is 2274. The movie is Logan’s Run[2], made at a time when society had ripple of anxiety about the so called “silicon revolution.[3]” That’s 1976. Before the elevated level of interconnection and communication that the INTERNET has afforded us.

It’s a sobering science fiction movie with a somewhat optimistic ending. Looking dated. I can get past the images and props that epitomised the seventies vibe. That’s become vintage.

To me, aspects of the theme of the story come from H. G. Wells. Nothing wrong with taking great ideas and reshaping them for the time. In the end the flawed utopia is defeated by our rebellious nature. Or at least of some people. The seeking of truth, at all costs, and to look behind the mask that everyday life paints.

You may ask – what the hell am I getting at? It’s a reaction to the recent headline[4]:

Musk says that in 20 years, work will be optional, and money will be irrelevant thanks to AI.

I like growing vegetables. Gardening is a superb way of doing something practical, staying grounded and in touch with nature. It’s good for one’s mental health too. However, the notion that work will be optional is far-fetched. The idea that money will disappear in a couple of decades is nuts. That’s not going to happen.

I know that the motivation to say such things maybe merely to provoke. That has its function. Nothing like stimulating a debate about the future. Surely, we are in for some dramatic changes in my later years on the planet. Surely, we need to equip the next generation to deal with these changes. Surely, we need to protect the public interest in turbulent times.

“Prat” is an often-applied British term. There are a lot worse terms than that one.

[1] https://www.clarkstown.gov/weekly-column/the-revolutionary-year-of-1775/

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/

[3] Intel’s 4004, released in 1971, packed the core of a central processing unit (CPU) onto a single chip for the first time.

[4] https://fortune.com/2025/11/20/elon-musk-tesla-ai-work-optional-money-irrelevant/

Navigating Aviation

Each profession has a way of speaking. This is not usual. Just try reading a long-winded contact on any subject. There are lots of references to a “third party” and more than one. Copious uses of the word “herein”. A good sprinkling of “hereby” and “foregoing”.

I don’t speak those words. If I used them in everyday conversation, I’d get locked-up. Nevertheless, these English words are universally applied to common legal documentation. The hundreds of End User License Agreement (EULA) that we all sign up to, whether we know it or not, apply legalese language liberally [love the alliteration].

Aeronautical people are no different. I could have said aviation people or professional flying people. There’s the rub. Even to say the same thing, there are a myriad ways of saying it.

One major problem that we all encounter, now and then, is having to work with a community that uses language in a different way from ourselves. I’m not talking about language as per dictionary definitions of words and standard English grammar. For good or ill, English opens the door to a numerous of ways of saying basically the same thing.

Professional English users, as I have alluded to above, choose their own pathway through the possibilities. English is not alone in facilitating this variability of expression.

I once worked in Bristol. A Filton. A large aircraft factory with an immense heritage. That included the Concorde project. Here both British and French engineers had to work closely together on a huge joint venture. It succeeded. Supersonic flight was commercialised.

One of the delightful little books I picked up from that time was a handy English/French dictionary of aeronautical terms. Those in common usage at an aircraft factory of the 1970s. To communicate effectively it was recognised that technical words needed to be explained.

What I’m noting now is this reality hasn’t gone away. For all the imaginative language Apps that might grace my mobile phone, there’s still a need to explain. This gets even more important when it’s a specific aviation community that is being discussed.

How do people from other communities get what regulatory people are saying when it’s perfectly obvious to them what they are saying? Take a banker or financier that wants to invest in electric aviation because they believe the future points that way. They come across bundles of jargon and precise terms that are not found in everyday conversations. Not to say that the world of money doesn’t have its own langauage.

In aviation there’s not only particular words with detailed meanings but a raft of acronyms. Combinations of words that are easily expressed as a package of letters. Then the short, sweet acronym surpasses the original text.

SMS, POA, DOA, ODA, OEM, TSO, TC, ICA, CofA, SUP, FDM, FAR, CS, NPRM, NPA, AC, AMJ, ACJ, GM and I can go on and on.

Maybe we need a Sub Part – better understanding.

Exploring Airworthiness Knowledge

How many good books are there on aircraft airworthiness? I don’t suppose a lot of people are going to ask that question. General introductions to airworthiness are not necessarily bedtime reading. This thought came to my mind, this week, because I had some time to kill in a library. A particularly technical library in London[1]. It’s at the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).

Sited in a grand building on the banks of the River Thames. Savoy Place, as the name suggests, is next door to the famous hotel of the same name. What marks it out is a large statue, not of some long-forgotten stage actor or army general, but that of Michael Faraday[2]. His contribution to the modern world is enduring and undeniable.

I’ve been a member of this august engineering institute since my student days in the early 1980s. Then it was known as the IEE. One “E” being for Electrical. Our lectures encouraged us students to join and once done so they have us for life. Members worldwide have access to their books, databases and standards.

I could draw a thread between Faraday’s work and 21^st century aviation. It’s a mighty wide thread and one that’s growing all the time. There are so many aspects of electromagnetism embedded in aviation. For example, without electric motors and servos, we’d still be controlling aircraft with strings and wires. Fine, hydraulics play their part too.

Technology has moved on. It continues to move. Electrification is displacing hydromechanical systems. The age of electric propulsion is getting closer as developers experiment with a myriad of different configurations of motors for different new aircraft types. More and more electrical power is needed to make modern aircraft tick.

In the IET’s library there are a few books with the word “airworthiness” on the cover. It’s a distinct niche. More often technical references contain huge amounts of material that concern or impact airworthiness, but the word itself is reserved for the more discerning.

One I picked off the shelf was “Airworthiness: An Introduction to Aircraft Certification and Operations” by Filippo De Florio[3]”. For me it’s full of familiar material. I was surprised at the level of detail and range of coverage. In its latest version, it’s reasonably up-to-date too.

One book that was not on the IET’s shelf is “Initial Airworthiness: Determining the Acceptability of New Airborne Systems” by Professor Guy Gratton. I believe he’s updating this book now.

There was a copy of “Aircraft System Safety: Assessments for Initial Airworthiness Certification” by Duane Kritzinger. Again, for me it’s full of familiar material.

Another book that was not on the IET’s shelf is “Aircraft Continuing Airworthiness Management: A Practical Guide for Continuing Airworthiness Engineers” by Daniel Olufisan.

What I’m wondering now is how many other contemporary books are there on this subject. That is up-to-date references. Yes, I know I could do a quick search to turn up an easy answer but that tells me nothing of the quality of the publications. All four above are worth a read.

Help me out with some suggestions – please.

[1] https://www.theiet.org/membership/library-and-archives

[2] https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/about/michael-faraday/

[3] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airworthiness-Introduction-Aircraft-Certification-Operations/dp/0081008880

Embracing Uncertainty

Imagine siting under a great wide spreading old oak tree. Acorns falling all around. The ground littered with whole ones, crashed ones and half eaten ones. It’s more the half-eaten hazelnuts that the squirrels leave behind that I’m thinking of. On one of those cool days, like this morning, when the rain has abated and the sun beams are streaming across the glistening fields. It was lower than 2 degrees, early this morning, so a heavy drew rests on the grass and leaves.

Think of title for a book or film that sums up the state of current affairs. I’m tempted to say “All the President’s Men” but that’s been well done in the 1970s. Not only that but the word “scandal” may have lost its meaning. Political fiction and reality are melding into one. Anyway, I don’t want to follow the crowd and obsess about America.

Was there ever an age when prosperity seemed assured and the population was happy. When men and women of honourable intentions and wisdom, judicially ruled the land? Maybe not. Or when it happened, to some limited extent it didn’t last beyond a generation.

Any title for a book or film would have to encompass the persistence of change. Nothing upon nothing ever stands still. In fact, that’s one of the few things I can write that is an absolute. A real natural absolute phenomenon. Everything we know of moves relative to something else and movements mean change. We never breath the same air.

In a storage box of my books there’s a title: “Thriving on chaos[1]“. That’s more to do with an attitude to change. It doesn’t sum up the moment although it does imply that chaos is normal. I’m not going there fully since not all change is chaotic. Life is punctuated with regularity. It’s the traditional saying about death and taxes. Those two are regular occurrences.

A financial crisis or stock market crash or bursting bubble seem to hit us as an unexpected instant of violent change. Unexpected that is until hindsight kicks in and we all wish we’d listed to siren voices. Analysis streams from the outcome of a crisis[2].

A title for a book or film would need to include the recurrent nature of both good and bad consequences. It would need to emphasis our inability to accurately predict what’s going to happen next. That is even if one or two of us may get it right.

All this leads me down the road of a manner of thinking that’s all too common to me. That’s the world of probabilities. Addressing that slippery ell called uncertainty. So, what could be better as a title than: “The Age of Uncertainty.” Oh look, that’s been taken back in the 1970s. What could be better than the title chosen by John Kenneth Galbraith[3]?

He looked at the chaotic but repetitious nature of our common history. Going way back. Unsurprisingly a little cynical and monosyllabic at times. I’ve been rewatching his BBC television series. It’s impressive.

Acorns are falling all around. An unusually large number, this year. Next year – who knows? If I could find some reliable data, I could do some probability calculations based on past seasons. But with certainty, I can say that we are in an age of uncertainty. Acorns will fall. How many – well that’s the question isn’t it.

[1] https://tompeters.com/thriving-on-chaos/

[2] “The Storm” by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat politician, looking at the 2008 global economic crisis.

[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002l6sc/the-age-of-uncertainty

The Future of Our Shared Values

That’s done. Reflecting on the last nine years. Time to look to the future. There’s no shortage of articles about the past and the present. Huge numbers of column inches crunch every detail of the current twists and turns of public life. Social media vibrates with repeated daily stories.

I watch a rebroadcast of HIGNFY[1] to quickly get the message that a headline is no basis for figuring out where we are going. Moments pass. Yes, there are reoccurring themes. What’s fascinating is that prominent personalities have their moments in the sun, and that they last a fraction of a second (metaphorically). The world moves on.

Yesterday’s scribblings concerned a degree of nostalgia. If only we could go back to some mythical age where current affairs seemed to make sense. Where people cooperated towards a common good. Where conflict was the exception not the rule.

Don’t look back. Don’t look back, too much. It’s a habit of the British to romanticise the past. Having such a colourful past to draw upon there’s always a story to tell. This inclination is at the root of our difficulties. It would be better to set a shared history as a foundation stone rather than always trying to build the same house.

Here in 2025, the world is being reshaped. There’s only so much that can be extrapolated from experience. Like a tsunami there’re changes happening that are unlike anything that has gone before. Early predictions of the benefits of digital technology imagined a borderless world. Information and learning spreading freely to enlighten and educate. So much for that.

It becomes clear that there are steps needed to protect and preserve our values. Enduring values underpinning our culture. They are not immutable. Forces acting at a global scale can, and do, shape how we think about our nation and what binds us together.

Whether we like it or not, many of the forces that shaped the colours on the world map are being played out in the digital sphere. Boundaries, barriers, conflicts, possessions, passions and powerplay are all there. Maybe they are not so visible to the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus, but they are there in abundance. As if we needed any indication, the experience of Jaguar Land Rover[2] and the cyber-attack they are dealing with, is there as a siren light.

I my mind these are not forces to confront in isolation. They do not respect lines on a map. Back to where I started. It’s by working with others, on an international level, that the harmful elements can be addressed.

The European Union (EU) envisions a Digital Single Market. That’s a project to be on-board. It’s essential to have standards that safeguard privacy and data security. Government Ministers who promote a hands-free laissez-faire approach are naive in the extreme. This is a practical field where Britian urgently needs to rebuild relations with its neighbours.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mkw3

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/6f2923b3-2a4b-4c9b-9cde-eb5f0d5b9ce3

Rebuilding Relations

Here I’ve posted a thousand posts. So, it might be a good time to reflect. It was back in April 2016 that this blog started. The provocation being the then pending UK referendum vote. What was to become Brexit and a long litany of mistakes and missteps.

I’d not long returned to the UK from my time in Germany. I had a what I thought was a reasonable sense of the UK political landscape, only to find I was wrong. Here’s what I wrote:

“It’s the biggest event since the Berlin Wall fell. Yes, not to mince my words the UK referendum on EU membership could change the political landscape for a generation or more. It could be a terrible gamble that erects dark walls all over Europe or it could start a new period of enlightenment within the European project.”

I wasn’t far wrong with that statement. The landscape suffered a landslide. Even though the results of the votes were practically even- evens, for reasons that now seem bizarre the electorate swung in favour of leaving the European Union (EU). If the polls are to be believed, then the overwhelming majority now regret that choice[1].

“I’m firmly convinced that our place is in Europe. We are strong enough, we are clever enough and we are determined enough to make that project work. What a bonus that would be: Expanding a market that covers half a billion people on our doorstep. Guaranteeing that the world sits-up and listens to Europe. Unlocking a diverse creative powerhouse where the UK would thrive.”

My then time arguments were coherent, logical and straightforward. I didn’t know we were entering a phase when such attributes were to decline in importance. Should I have been wiser? With hindsight it’s easy to say that the campaign to remain in the EU was appallingly poor. Even if, at the time, I did wonder if the pomposity of the then UK Prime Minister would play a negative part in the outcome.

“The frightening alternative is to gamble with millions of jobs and invite a plunge into recension. If this happens it’s the younger generation who will pay the price. We should not condemn them to isolation and struggle for reasons of narrow nationalism.”

Oh brother. With something like 4% knocked off the country’s prosperity and a government struggling to finance public services, sadly I was spot on the money.

“I’m not saying the EU is perfect. In fact, I wouldn’t say Westminster or my local council are perfect – far from it. But the EU is a work-in-progress and not a finished project. It’s better for British pragmatism. It’s a two-way street as free movement brings people to these shores who then go home with a positive view of what we have to offer. In the next generation that means more trade and better international relations.”

Having seen at first hand the workings of both the British civil service and the European Commission, British parliamentarians and European ones, I could see a common thread. The foolish notion that escaping into glorious isolation would produce prosperity was nuts.

Here we are in 2025. It would be nice to say that – I wouldn’t start from here – but that’s useless. The thing to do is to reconcile, reaffirm and rebuild relations with Europe.

[1] https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-after-the-eu-referendum-where-does-public-opinion-stand-on-brexit

Trust in Voluntary Reporting

Hard data is immensely useful. Now there’s a surprise. That’s facts and figures. That’s accurate descriptions of occurrences. That’s measurements and readings of important factors. From this kind of data, a picture can be painted of events good and bad. However, this picture is not complete. It’s certainly not complete for any system that involves the interactions of humans and machines.

What’s often less visible is the need for what I might call – soft data. As such it’s not “soft”. I’m just using that loose term to distinguish it. Fine, you could say that social media is littered with the stuff. Vast qualities of instant judgements and colourful opinions. An array of off-the-shelf solutions to life’s ills. That’s all well and good for entertainment. It’s not so useful as a means of getting to the truth.

In civil aviation voluntary reporting systems have been around for several decades. They are not always successful, mainly because there’s a fair amount of trust required to use them when something major happens. When volunteering information there needs to be a level of assurance that the information will not be misused.

The human inclination to seek to blame is intrinsic. We wake-up in the morning, look out the window, and if it’s rainy and windy then someone is to blame. Probably a weather reporter for not warning us of a coming storm. Blame is a way of making sense of negative events without having to do lot of tedious investigation and analysis.

Don’t get me wrong. Accountability is vital. If someone does something unspeakably bad, they must be held accountable. That is a form of blame. Tracing the bad event back to the root cause. If that cause is found to be negligence or malicious intent, then blame can be assigned.

Where a good safety culture exists, as it often the case in civil aviation, then it is wrong to assume that undesirable outcomes can always be linked to a bad actor of some kind.

Human error is forever with us. Even with the absolute best of intent no one is immune from this pervasive creature. It can be illusive. There are environments where owning up to making mistakes is fine. Sadly, I’m sure it’s not uncommon to have worked in environments where such openness is punished. The difference between a good culture and a bad one.

One of my past jobs involved negotiation with a contactor. Every change that we made to a complex contact had a cost attracted to it. So, there was an understandable sensitivity to making changes. At the same time our customer for the product kept asking for changes. There’s nothing worse than being in a tense meeting with a contactor and having my boss pull the rug from under my feet. Seeking to blame a change on my error rather than a customer request. Introducing a voluntary reporting system in such an environment is pointless.

My message here is clear. Voluntary reporting in aviation is a powerful tool. Reports submitted by employees can offer insights that are not available by just looking at hard data. These reporting systems maybe required by regulation or company policy. However, without a good sound safety culture they can be all but useless. A safety culture that is defended and supported by employees and the senior management of an organisation.

Shifting Perspectives

Daily writing prompt

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

View all responses

If you write the perfect rule, you will get the desired outcome. Authoring a specification that is robust and watertight will assure success. Having the best possible plan will deliver the best possible results. All sounds reasonable – doesn’t it? It’s not surprising that someone like me, having been schooled in project management, and working in engineering, would have a rational and systematic approach to problem solving. A proven highly successful way of implementing complex technical projects and delivering successful outcomes.

As an analogy I’ll start with mathematics. Nature is a curious beast. What we lean about complex systems is that what happens is highly dependent upon a start point. The initial conditions. Graduate level mathematics about control systems with feedback show that their behaviour changes a lot with a change of initial conditions. So, it’s reasonable to extend that to a systematic approach to just about anything. It’s often true.

Fail to plan – plan to fail. That idiom is a simple few words to sum up this cause and effect. Used by famous names and often quoted. Management training books are littered with this notion.

20-years ago, my team introduced the first European Aviation Safety Plan[1]. This initiative was built around the idea that to achieve a common objective a plan is the best and quickest way to get there. A roadmap, a pathway, a strategy, call it what you will.

Start by identifying problems and then propose a fix for each one. Not all problems but the ones that fit that awkward Americanism – the low hanging fruit. Namely, the biggest problems (fruit) that can be solved with the least effort (easily picked).

Here’s where I’ve changed your mind. Maybe not changed in a dramatic sense but shifted perspective. It’s essential to have a plan, even if it’s just in my head, but it can be overstated as the most important part of a process of change.

The Plan, Do, Check, and Act (PDCA) cycle, starts with a plan. It must start that way. However, each of the four steps is equally important. Seems obvious to say. Even so, it’s often the case that a press release, or alike, will state – we have a plan, roadmap, pathway, strategy, as if that’s the job done.

Management teams will smile with a sense of achievement and show off their plans. A decade down the line that celebration might seem less momentous as the “do” part of the process turns out to be harder than anticipated.

This basic model for systematic change is a good one. Where I’ve changed my emphasis is in the distribution of effort. Don’t put all available energies into constructing the perfect plan. Yes, the initial conditions are important but they are not everything. The key part of the process is the cycle. Going around it with regularity is a way of delivering continuous improvement. Afterall, when it comes to a subject like aviation safety, that’s what’s needed.

[1] 2005 – DECISION OF THE MANAGEMENT BOARD ADOPTING THE 2006 WORK PROGRAMME OF THE EUROPEAN AVIATION SAFETY AGENCY

Sweet Truth

If I could guarantee one thing it would be that there would be a bag of sugar in the kitchen cupboard of my childhood home. The kitchen was the hub of the house. It was a square room with a solid square table right in the middle. Wheelback chairs permanently pushed in to make room to move round. There was one outside wall with a steel framed window that looked out on the farmyard. Looking due west. The evening sun would stream in to light up the side wall where the kitchen sink sat. With the thick walls of the farmhouse the window ledge was a place to sit. There was a full view of the farm gate so no one coming or going would ever be missed.

One wall had the remains of an ancient bread oven and a large alcove. In that alcove was a chucky great Aga. Custard coloured this massive cast iron cooker was the beating heart of the room. Before this cooker was converted to oil it was powered by anthracite. That involved a ritual of stoking and clearing out the ash every day.

The kitchen was the warmest room in the house. It’s where everyone congregated at mealtimes. Farming’s daily rhythm was managed from that room. Cups of tea flowed like a river as a bubbling kettle always seemed to be ready. Now, when I think about the amount of cane sugar that got piled into every cup of tea, I’m surprise that I have any teeth left at all. In fact, more than 50-year on, my last visit to the dentist for a check-up went well. Somehow my teeth have survived this onslaught.

Large bags of cash and carry bought sugar were a staple on the shelves of the larder. Rated today, my family’s rate of sugar consumption would be considered shocking. Not only that but the delight of toast made on the Aga top and then spread thickly with Golden Syrup[1] was normal winter comfort. Breakfast cereals were never eaten without tablespoons of sugar.

Time has passed and we have weaned ourselves off much of this overconsumption of highly refined sugar. There’s still a lot in our regular foods. Now, we have much more awareness of the problems that high sugar use can bring. That doesn’t stop us liking it.

Today, in politics, just it was in the 1960 and 70s, the metaphorical sugar of the day is the saying that there are easy solutions to complicated worries. There’s an appetite for a spoon full of sugar sprinkled on every latter-day problem. I don’t doubt that a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down[2]. Again metaphorically. However, Mary Poppins wasn’t saying that all you need is a spoon full of sugar. Far from it.

As the populist bandwagon continues to roll in most western countries, I think we need to remind ourselves of the enlightenment gained over the years. There are a lot of chores that must be done. Roads don’t get repaired by themselves. Hospitals don’t get built in a day. Schools and colleges need well motivated teachers to well motivate the next generation. Necessities like, tax and spend are a tedious inconvenience.

It’s so much easier to sprinkle a little verbal sugar and blame everyone else. Spouting simple solutions to ride the sugar rush. Covering dishonesties with a nice shiny coating. What we know from experience is that any lustre fades fast and decay sets in. The people who call themselves “Reform” are nothing more than peddlers of sugar-coated boloney. Reflect and beware.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_syrup

[2] https://youtu.be/SVDgTbGZEw4