19 August 2008

Advice for Gordon 4

The next piece of advice for Gordon is to take advice. Sometimes a doctor is on his own. But if you can it is often a good idea to take advice. The advice Dr Grumble always gives to his house physician is to learn to use the telephone. No doctor knows everything: if things are beyond you a doctor should take advice. In medicine the most important thing to know is when you don't know. In politics it is the same. And if you are prime minister there is always somebody to ask. But you need to make sure you ask the right person. If you ask Richard Branson how to run the health service and you get the answer sell it to Virgin then please take that with a large shovelful of salt. He might be right. He might be wrong. He is not the right person to ask.

Make use of your civil servants, Gordon. Don't ignore them like your predecessor. They are there to help you. If they play Yes Minister with you they may actually be trying to protect you. Trust them Gordon. They want good government too. Just as healthcare workers want a good health service. We could do with more trust in the health service, Gordon. Remember - reflective practice.

2 comments:

David L. Cox said...

Sadly Dr. G. the civil servants tend to offer advice, but not be RESPONSIBLE for it! The case of ol' Ginger shines as an example. Perhaps had he gone then people might agree with you. Until he does, however Gordon and his ilk will be tarred with the same brush!

Clinging on to privilege while offering sycophantic and often really bad advice is what should be avoided.

If he could take advice, I'd suggest he use commonsense!

Dr Grumble said...

That's the topic of another piece of advice for Gordon - the politicisation of the civil service. Dr Grumble should have made it clear that he was referring to civil servants as they should be and not as they have become under Nu Labour.