I don’t know much about money laundering. It’s not my thing (despite what the bank seems to think if you ever need to change a signatory or use cash!). However, my limited understanding is that if you take the dirty money (from crime) and you process it enough times, through companies and individuals it can’t be traced back to you.
UK Governments over the last few years have taken this principle and applied it to responsibility.
I first noticed this (belatedly) after Grenfell. Central Government had laundered the issue of cladding out to the local authority, who in turn passed it on to the local housing association, who passed it on to the contractor, who passed it on the architect who had never done this kind of work before. This person is a private company at best, to whom we have no recourse of accountability. All we have is retrospective legal action. Meanwhile the national government looks like it’s clean.
Responsibility laundering is a bit like buying a yellow car. Once it’s in your consciousness you see it everywhere. You see it in hiving off probation to private companies. Set them targets, if they fail you fire them and start again. Not our fault guv. It has been happening in health. It happens in education. The government becomes smaller and has less responsibility. The problems become bigger but are rarely held to public account and parliamentary scrutiny until you get to the point where people start dying.
Enter the Covid-19 pandemic.
Small, irresponsible government was not ready for this pandemic. Again and again it has reverted to it’s usual modus operandi. Business is best so we bring in a business to do it. Also, conveniently, business is not publicly accountable. Government gives the money but doesn’t have to be held to account for the work quality or working standards of the company (or quite often the subcontractor of the company that won the contract).
It is now the model which brings us ‘stay alert’ and, as of today, the furlough scheme. By asking us to stay alert the emphasis of responsibility moves to the individual. By shifting emphasis on going to work- it transfers responsibility to employers. If the R then goes up; when more people die, it’s not government- its someone else. The extension of the furlough scheme, whilst welcome, also has this built in. The economy will have to change radically in the next few years- but by having, and then reducing a furlough scheme- when a business goes under- it won’t be the government’s fault. One can further argue that the entire furloughing enterprise was to mitigate huge job losses which become the Government’s problem (until such time as G4S or Serco or someone else ‘wins’ the contract to get 7 million people employed.)
I don’t think this is OK. Governments hold responsibility, because it has been given to them by the electorate. People vote for a government because they expect them to lead. This government has been given the sacred trust of the people. They were voted for on the basis of delivering something difficult. As soon as something truly difficult arose they have tried to launder it away and make it everyone else’s problem.
I don’t know how we fix this. If it’s anything like any personal growth and transformation then I guess it starts with awareness. We need to spot and see the laundry. When we become aware, then we can start to change the way we are governed. My hope is that we will reach the point of no return and that consensus builds for renewed way of doing society. To deliver it will take generous and expansive government, willing to be held to account and to hold an uncomfortable stance of responsibility through more difficult transition and change. I’m not sure this government has it in them.
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