Recently I’ve been in the midst of a due diligence exercise that will, hopefully, lead to an important seed investment in a project. This process is something I’ve had involvement with numerous times before but the amount of detail that has gone into this particular exercise and the sheer picayune nature of the questions has been exhausting. At the beginning of this past week I thought we had just about gotten there but I was bushwhacked on Wednesday by a black swan question about the form of the investment. I thought we’d explained this thoroughly and identified the risks but clearly not as well as we might have – to be fair, the investment form is different than any other the investor has ever looked at. So, I spent several days scrambling around to get third party opinions that would help me calm this one down. At times I’ve honestly felt enough deal fatigue that I suspected we might never close this one; that makes for a generally bad week. Indeed, the week was bad enough that last night the team got together at about 5 PM and we all drank a glass of wine. The therapy worked and I’m much more tranquil today; we may never get that investment but I’m pretty satisfied we gave it the college try.
Reflecting on my week and comparing it with the last few for Gordon Brown – admittedly the scale may be wrong – helps to restore the yin-yang balance in my universal view. Gordon did indeed have a good run when he first got into office as Prime Minister. The honeymoon lasted the full 100 days and he had some very nicely manageable crises that boasted his public profile and the ratings. He went into the party conference on a high and gave a good workmanlike speech to wind it all up.
What I didn’t realise, very few of us has, is that Gordon is apparently a complete pragmatist: he’s in the game for the game, to become Prime Minister and stay Prime Minister. I think he’s in it for the rush of power, not for any higher purpose. His politics is the politics of expediency and contingency.
New Labour appears to be some sort of unwritten compromise with the establishment – a body I cannot actually define – whereby they become co-conspirators with the Tories in keeping the establishment in a manner that has nothing to do with the way that the vast majority live – including most of the middle and even a substantial portion of the upper middle class. You see, in this country you are paid a salary that is generally amongst the highest in the world but live a life-style that is amongst the least comfortable of the industrialised countries, you drive a car that costs as much or more than cars anywhere else, you fill it with fuel that is 50% more expensive in most EU countries, you eat at restaurants that are mediocre but more expensive, buy groceries that cost more, wear medium quality clothing that costs more, live in a smaller house that costs a lot more, ride a train that costs twice as much and goes half as fast (and is generally dirty to boot), pay huge fees to go to a mediocre ‘private’ school because the government schools are so shockingly bad, and pay expensive private health insurance so that if you do go to hospital, you have a better chance of leaving hospital on your feet (or in wa wheel chair) than in a bag because to go to the NHS is to expose yourself to one of the most miserably managed enterprises that has ever been created.
But, as is always the case, I digress but, frankly, I don’t care. I’m now onto the NHS and will get back to Brown in a moment – and if he’s the man in charge, he’s got to accept responsibility for the miserable state of the NHS. The NHS is killing people because they can’t get their staff to either wash their hands or clean the floors and toilets. This is not difficult to resolve. You simply pass the order and enforce it. Yesterday I heard an interview with some politician – I think it’s Alan Johnson (who’s got some role as Secretary or Health or something) – and he said that they had a new goal of reducing C. Dificile cases by 30% by 2010.
Why is this? Why can’t the goal be to reduce C. Dificile by 100% in 30 days? You have to clean the rooms, wash out the toilets and make sure that everyone frequently washes their hands with soap and water, certainly every time before and after they touch patients. What is so difficult about this? Why can’t this be done tomorrow? Why can’t they just send someone down to the shops to buy soap if they can’t find any in the supply closet? This makes no damn sense!
We lived in Spain for several years and my wife had to have surgery twice. Once she was operated on at a private hospital and the second time at a major teaching institution, a public hospital. Both times we were fine. The notion that the hospital wouldn’t be clear never entered our minds – it didn’t need to because there was a culture of cleanliness. What is going on over hear in dirty old Britain?
Someone I talked to yesterday remarked about how dangerous it was that nurses and other hospital personnel in this country go to work in uniform, riding on filthy underground trains or dirty buses in the same clothes that they are going to wear as they move around the wards. The two way opportunity here to carry a germ into or out of the hospital is truly fraught, isn’t it? Again, though, a pretty easy thing to straighten out – you come to work in street clothes and change into uniform at the hospital. This is pretty much how it’s done in the rest of the world – seems sometimes like half of the action in the series ‘Scrubs’ takes place in the locker room.
No locker room in the local NHS? No problem, use a room, even two rooms, for a while until a locker room gets fitted out. Don’t let the absence of a formal locker room prevent an action that would help to preserve lives.
The situation is so scandalous and the risk so dire that it baffles me completely why the public are not demanding the heads of those who are responsible for this unbelievable lack of compassion and who have not demonstrated even the elementary management skills to force everyone – visitors, nurses, cleaners, consultants, administration – who has anything to do with the hospitals to wash their damn hands! DO IT NOW!
So, Brown has a lot to answer for. Blair too, for that matter but I’m more forgiving of Tony because at least he had some principles and some objectives apart from wanting to be Prime Minister. In contrast to Brown, Tony did occasionally stand up for what he believed. He may have been wrong about going into Iraq but he was resolute in his conviction and he stuck to his guns. Brown is such a waffler that he looks Belgian.
I’m genuinely sick of politics. And, in my own country, we are looking at one of the most outstanding collections of the tired, the cynical, the ignorant and the appalling inept in my experience.
Fred Thompson is so tired that it’s a wonder he makes it from one appearance to another – perhaps he has a Winnebago fitted out with a big, comfortable bed so he can curl up for 40 between appearances that, from what I can tell, are completely without spark? He’s married to a young, vibrant, intelligent woman. Why doesn’t she run? Fred can stay home and watch the kids.
Mit Romney – trying hard to be sincere and maybe he is. I think it’s interesting that he’s a Mormon, the Republican Governor of Massachusetts and so darn good-looking. Something has got to be wrong with this picture – other than the Mormons don’t necessarily preach values that are shared by everyone else and certainly their history is drenched in blood (theirs and others – I’m not pointing a finger at anything here except the capacity of religion to avoid appealing to our minds and go directly to our passions).
Rudy Giuliani – smarmy and with a personal life that must have the Democrats salivating. He didn’t bottle it on 9/11 but, on the other hand, who had a chance to bottle it – this was not Iraq, you had no choice but to live through it or, if you were unfortunate enough to be right in the gunsights of those monsters, to die. Giuliani did help hold things together during that horrible period and I give him that but I’m not sure that’s enough to qualify him to be President.
John McCain – appears to have all the right qualities. He’s compassionate, he’s very honest, he’s intelligent, he has enormous character and great courage and he’s got a perspective on life that is unique. John McCain is a true American hero and a man who dedicated his life to real service for his country. Even worse, his policies appear to be balanced and rational. There must be something wrong but it doesn’t matter – he doesn’t stand a chance.
There are a couple of other Republicans but they haven’t even registered on my political richter scale.
Meantime, the country is led by a man who is so out of touch and so arrogant (thank you for confirming that in your recent autobiography, Vicente Fox, former President of Mexico) that we are in danger of blowing every iota of good will that anyone in the world has for us (including our last and best hope for allies in Europe, the Brits), letting the man-made contribution to global warming push us right over the tipping point and, in a related matter, continue to regard oil as more important than the lives of our Marines and Soldiers (not to mention the civilian men, women and children who are ‘collateral’ damage) and thereby make two additional big mistakes: inhibit the research and the innovation that will give us energy sources that will fuel a carbon neutral economy and support a medieval and corrupt theocracy in Saudi Arabia and a bunch of self-serving petty crooks in Iraq.
Is this a cock up or what?
Now, for the Democrats.
Hillary doesn’t stand a chance of being President. The American people are not going to elect her. She’s so blatantly hypocritical and so graspingly desperate for the power that she will say anything, sacrifice anyone and compromise every value to get there. She is the perfect soul-mate for Gordon Brown. I’m not even sure I understand why Bill hangs around. If we make the awful mistake of electing her, we aren’t going to have Bill as President, it’s Hillary everyone! Make sure you realise this!
Barak Obama: this isn’t going anywhere. This guy is so liberal and panders so much that his spine consists of the same stuff that my mother used to hold together the marshmallows and canned fruit in her famous fruit salad. Let me see, what was that called? Yes, I’ve got it, jello!
Bill Richardson: Well, this might have had some legs but I understand that Bill has a bit of a reputation. He’s got a wandering eye and the arrogance to assume he’s physically attractive to women. This sense of male entitlement is stupid. It’s not even sexy. Where’s the fun of the mutual tease, the frisson of getting to know someone, really know them, to fall in love and to grow together? If you’ve got a hankering to chase women and you want to be in politics, learn to please yourself! The two, politics and womanizing, do not match. Hell, they don’t match in the real world. If you are to be whole, you need to strive for integrity in your relationships with everyone, including spouses, partners and so on.
And, here I digress further but, again, I don’t give a damn, this leads me to those supposedly sophisticated French, Spanish, Portuguese (add anyone else here who is so immature that they think it’s okay that someone is an idiot and dis-respects women) who just look the other way at behaviour that is just wrong. This is not difficult people: it is wrong to go around cheating. This includes cheating banks, your neighbours, cheating in business or cheating on your partner. If you aren’t getting along and you need to do something else, leave your partner as honourably as you can so that you can pursue your other interests. Do not compromise her/him and your own integrity by cheating. It is simple. If you do not ultimately want to leave them, work it out. This is how you do it – you just get in there and you stick with it. This is how people with integrity behave. Society generally has this one completely wrong and most psychologists have a lot to answer for by authorising immature and selfish behaviour – you aren’t number 1 and you’d better realise it! If you’ve contracted to be in a relationship, commit to it or leave but do so as honourably as you can – you don’t cheat on a business contract and you don’t cheat in life! There is no middle ground here, it’s completely black and white and if you are looking for some sort of maudlin, soft-hearted permission to make yourself feel temporarily good, you aint gonna get it from me. If you did the crime – you do the time – feel bad and suffer! Learn that it’s a lot easier to sleep well if you do the right thing!
By the way, the moral rant above doesn’t mean that I haven’t had to feel bad and suffer. I have. It took me a lot of years to grow up. I’m not sure I’m completely there now; it’s a struggle but I recognise that this is what being an adult and a complete human being entails. It’s what I want to be. I’m not going to throw rocks at you but I’m certainly not going to feel bad for you or to be understanding – if you are in that type of mess, you are a damn fool!
You know, Eric Clapton is a hell of a person. I think he is what I’m talking about; he’s been on the other side but I think he’s come through. He’s got no excuses; he faces to up to what he was and what he did but he’s come out the other side. What he wrote about the death of his son, ‘would you know my name?’, is one of the most haunting, memorable songs I know. He falls in amongst the crowd for whom I’d consider voting because he’s honest and straight.
Gordon Brown is no Eric Clapton.
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