The Harvard Business Review rarely lets me down but today they strayed into the business of “stating  the bloody obvious”:

http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/dailystat.php?date=051010

I mean what next: Joseph Ratzinger outed as a Catholic and a bear found “taking a break” in the woods? I hope they got reduced rates from McKinsey on this one!!

Employee engagement in change programs has long been known to be a critical success factor in any effort at organisational change so no idea why this was worthy of “Daily Stat” release today or any other day.

I’ll forgive them this time…but something inside me died a little…

Someone actually asked me for an opinion the other day. Its been a while since I actually had to think so it took me a little by surprise but nonetheless it was flattering.

What did I make of David Cameron’s rather unexpected and I have to say, slightly uncharacteristic, attack on Gordon Brown the man/politician than Gordon Brown the leader of the Labour Party, calling him a “secretive, power-hoarding, controlling” character.
I think it simply meant two things.

First, the ideological dividing lines in this election are so fine to be almost entirely non-existent. When some of the bigger bones of contention include how many years we should take to cut the national deficit (and even then itsa debate separated by 2 years!) and the recognition of marriage within the tax system, we can say for certain that there’s been a whole lot of political cross dressing going on down in Whitehall and some-one’s going to get injured in the trample for centre ground.

Twenty years on from “there is no such thing as Society”, the party of Margaret Thatcher are positioning themselves as the party of social inclusion, ready to pull out the band aids and mend our ‘Broken Britain’ while Red Gordon skirts around the edges of financial reform, hankering still, one suspects, for the maintenance of a loosely regulated free market economy (and not just in the City) but across Government service provision. Stange times indeed.

In short, if Labour lose this election it won’t be on the basis of policy or ideology, it will be because voters will simply have grown tired of the personalities implementing these policies. Same game, new faces. Anyone watching Nick Robinson on his recent travelling ballot box series will recognise what I mean….not once have I heard anyone identify an issue of policy which distinguishes Conservative from Labour. But I do hear a lot of…well, “Labour have had their chance, it’s time for a change”. (As an aside – worryingly for Labour that’s a harder tide to turn than one based on a consiered and informed policy debate ironically).

I don’t think this homogenisation of politics is necessarily a bad thing however. The fate of an entire nation or nations(s) and their people shouldn’t be a hostage to a political system of two extremes for the sake of maintaining tradition.  A considered, centralist approach to our problems is a good thing – whether that be in hues of Red or Blue. But it is making for a dull pre-election campaign and so Cameron went personal. He said very little really, but it spoke volumes for our politics today.

Secondly, it told me that in the week he launched such a personal attack on Gordon Brown he probably needed to more be careful about interfering in local Conservative Party business to re-establish the CCHQ status quo i.e. this week’s rather shabby Conservative Party Westminster North candidate row where “DC” intervened quite clearly to ensure that his favored candidate Joanne Cash got what she felt she needed to run (at some cost to others long standing in the party BC (if you’ll indulge me) it is alleged) as the Party’s elected candidate for that seat. 

For if he wants to stand in front of some very bored (and I have to say – incongruously petitioned it seemed) students railing against Gordon Brown’s dark and stifling instinct for control, secrecy and omnipotence and have us believe that his leadership style – allegedly democratic, open, devolved – will in fact be that and as such, represent one of the few distinctions between his party and that of Her Majesty’s Government he will have to do better, for it smacked just a little too much of those characteristics he had just finished railing against – “secretive, power-hoarding, controlling”. Careful David, that was naughty naughty naughty.

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It’s all an overreation, an anti John Terry conspiracy you see – driven by our quaint ‘anglo-saxon’ media apparatus apparently.

The man is beyond cringe-worthy. He’s just offensive and not fit for high office.

How can the man who is supposed to represent the world’s favorite sport get it so badly wrong so often? I don’t care what he personally gets up to and nor do I claim to be any sort of saint but in his role as head of Soccer’s World Governing body how can he suggest that sleeping with your close friend and team-mates ex-wife (mother to their child) while married yourself, then pay for her to abort your love child (all allegedly of course) before (allegedly) paying her not to sell her story to be a cause for applause anywhere at any time?

Leaving aside that the whole thing is a moral cesspit in any walk of life, at a time when soccer is pushing it’s Respect and Fair Play campaigns here in the UK surely the irony of the lack of respect, loyalty, team-ethic and fair play cannot be lost on him.

He’s an insult to those so badly hurt by this tawdry affair, the game itself, his profession and not least to the Latin American people.

Forget the wet fish I asked for in my last Sepp Batter inspired entry. Just bring me a blunt instument and let the real applause rain down.

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http://www.youtube.com/wiprogram#p/u/0/ijwZeAFY0ds

Still, a proud moment and I feel very privileged to have been asked to represent so many fine – and more worthy – fellow Alumni at our 15th Anniversary at Dublin Castle in October 2009.

But I do wish I was taller and had prepared more. However at least now I realise when Mr Ryan entered stage left…you can tell I sensed something had changed vis a vis the seating during my speech by my confusion when I turned to sit back down. Almost ended up straddling his good self, Frank Kennedy and President MacAleese….now that would have been a way to close!

The last few weeks have left me still puzzled by both the leader of the Government and the leader of the opposition.

Yesterday I watched a large portion of the Prime Minister’s latest meeting with the Parliamentary liaison Committee. It was fascinating not just in the range of subject matters but also because it demonstrated the undeniable grasp Gordon Brown has on all aspects of Government. His performance was assured, informed and in parts both deferential and humorous.  He seemed more at ease then I’ve seen him for some time. It was a reassuring performance.  I wonder does he sense the tide turning with latest polls suggesting a rather meagre 7% gap between the parties?

He seems, if anything, to hve been emboldened by the abortive, potentially divisive and certainly irresponsible (speaking as a Labour voter) ‘leadership challenge’ of Hoon and Hewitt.

And yet still, so often, in Public he fails to project the same reassuring persona/political force as he did in front of fellow parliamentarians yesterday. And the Clare Short testimony has raised more questions about who Gordon Brown really is – the sulking, whispering, marginalised coffee drinker or a conscientious war objector whose Political loyalties took precedence over his personal instincts? The general sense coming out of the Chicott enquiry will be tat he left the Dept Defense vulnerable as a result of major cost cuttin in the months aftr the Iraq war. But is should be made clear that all those testifying – including John Reid – agreed that the actual needs of war in Iraq were met, the overall impact on the Armed Services was significant.  This is a subtle but to his opponents unimportant difference and at today’s PMQ David Cameron was back on top as he dished out a good od fashioned battering of the PM on this basis.

Meanwhile across the house, apart from todays PMQs,  it has not been a great few weeks for Mr Cameron or the Conservatives. Flip flopping first on recognising/rewarding marriage within the tax system (something I vehemently disagree with on a number of grounds – not just scientifically) and then on the extent of cuts in the first year of any Conservative Parliament…”not swingeing”?! And yest the Shadow Chancellor continues to sound slightly more bullish on the extent of savings that must be made immediately. I wonder how they felt in Davos when almost every other country in attendance was in the Brown/Darling camp of “its too early to stop spending and risk falling back into recession”.  Of course – the rest of the world – including the US could be wrong and Cameron and Osborne could be right…. I wonder.  The pressure continues to come for his party to reveal more specific details of their economic plan and the word “inconsistency” seems to be appearing more and more in headlines associated with the Conservatives. If the Labour Party is smart there is ground to be made up with that line if it is played well.

And then, with my Northern Irish hat on, his Political naivity in the role he played in the infamous “Hatfield House” Unionist Unity talks. Did he take a moment to think how these might appear to the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland? How on earth can he expect to play the role of independent peacekeeper and arbiter for NI politics in the ext Parliament is he was now to be elected?

The embarassment of the Lord Stern announcement and subsequent retraction might seem like small beans but it was embarassing and is just another suggestion of the naivity of a party who want the General Public to elect them to manage one of the most challenging periods of social and economic upheaval many of us have known.

Some of his sheen and confidence has clearly been knocked. The Prime Minister has been in the main resurgent at recent PMQs (today excepted) and it feels like, if not seismic, there has been a slight shift in the fortunes of these two leaders.

As Sir Alex Ferguson likes to say, this is now the business end of the football and Political seasons, what he likes to call “squeaky bum” time.  An interesting battle of style, personality and political nous is playing out between these two men who would be king.  I wonder who’s bum is squeaking most right now?

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