May's groupthink

I don’t think commentators have drawn the right inferences from the mess May made over social care policy.

The problem is not that she made a U-turn: if you’re heading in the wrong direction, a U-turn is a good idea. Instead, the episode reveals a fundamental failure in how May makes policy.

The Times reports that “few were asked in advance” about the dementia tax, and says the secrecy of May’s inner circle “has become notorious”. The FT reports a “senior Tory” as saying that the policy “wasn’t really run by anyone outside the inner circle.” And the Guardian says:

Conservative insiders under [Nick] Timothy and [Fiona] Hill talk of a disciplined atmosphere and often highly pressurised blame culture, where people from advisers to ministers fear receiving a dressing-down for stepping out of line or veering off script.

All this suggests to me three related errors. One is taking a decision in haste. Sam Blainey writes:

The social care proposals were, apparently, a last-minute addition placed there at the behest of Nick Timothy, the Prime Minister’s powerful joint chief of staff. But this means they will not have been stress tested to destruction. Consulting with your colleagues may be tiresome and dull, but an hour-long meeting to discuss some of the Tory plans would have allowed them to address and hammer out any problems.

Secondly, there is what the FT describes as a “disdain” for the advice of some “experts.” However, if you need a quick decision the natural thing to do is to adopt the proposal of someone who has gathered evidence and thought long and hard about the issue, as Andrew Dilnot has. Believing that one’s own snap judgment is better than his is an example of egregious over-confidence.

Thirdly, tight-knit groups lack the cognitive diversity to take good decisions; nobody in May’s inner-circle seems to have stood up to Timothy’s suggestion. As Iain Martin says, “Team May is way too narrow in its composition.” The FT quotes Lord Ricketts, former head of the Foreign Office:

Surely one of the lessons learned from this is that you can’t do this in tight secret groups without consultation and without talking to political colleagues.

In short, what we have is an example of groupthink. Irving Janis wrote:

The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of psychological pressures that arise when members work closely together, share the same values, and above all face a crisis situation in which everyone is subjected to stresses that generate a strong need for affiliation. In these circumstances, as conformity pressures begin to dominate, groupthink and the attendant deterioration of decision-making set in (Groupthink, p 12-13)

From this perspective, I find it hard to excuse May’s conduct. Politics is an activity is which some errors are inevitable: social affairs are complex processes which are often unmanageable and unpredictable; all large organizations such as government departments by their very nature contain some dysfunctionality; and there are what Harold Macmillan called “events, dear boy.” Faced with this, Prime Ministers should at least not add to these unavoidable errors by making avoidable ones. They should learn from history and from research into cognitive biases.

And this is what May hasn’t done: Janis wrote Groupthink way back in 1982. Anyone who aspires to be in a position to take decisions should know it. Yet May seems not to. She failed to avoid errors which were well-known to anybody who knew anything about the history and psychology of decision-making.

Mistakes I can forgive. Illiteracy and ignorance, however, are another matter.

You might think I’m making a partisan point here. I’m not so sure. May has done what Blair did when he went to war in Iraq: he too ignored well-known principles of good decision-making.

This alerts us to the possibility that our political system does not adequately weed out irrationalities. Last year, I wrote:

Chilcot…poses a systemic question: how can we ensure that political structures favour rational decision-making? This question will, of course, be ignored.

That looks like a rare correct prediction. And it’ll remain the case until the media and voters understand leadership better. “Strong” leadership isn’t about delivering diktats from on high. It’s about taking good decisions, which often requires openness, diversity and being awake to cognitive biases. It’s not clear that May can do this. And this is not entirely her personal fault.

Comments

[Carol]

Gosh, who would have thought that a proto-Trump "fever" in GB would have brought out a proto-Trump?

Vote in haste, repent at leisure

[Dipper]

May's way of working is coming under the spotlight and getting a thorough going over. Good. This is the political process doing its job. There is a strong chance that we get a conservative government with a better model of government than would have been the case had we not had this election and all that goes with it.

By contrast Corbyn's Labour Party shows no sign of having any ability to learn anything. They have constructed a world in which all their prejudices are confirmed all the time. Contra-evidence or criticism is simply a sign of the stupidity or malicious intent of their critics. The manifesto is simply one long wish list of everything that is wrong without any sign of prioritisation, and paying for it will be done through Jeremy's magic taxes which take money from some vast store without any consequences or reduction in ability to keep on taking it, or failing that there are Jeremy's magic economic beans that mean you can just print money and give it to people without any consequences.

So, in summary, we have one flawed party that can be made to work, and one flawed party that can never be made to work. Not a hard choice.

[aragon]

It's not group think I.M.H.O
Theresa May suffers from degree of narcissistic personality disorder. She has to be in control as she is riven by doubt in her own ability (with good reason).

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/definition/CON-20025568

"At the same time, you have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make yourself appear superior. Or you may feel depressed and moody because you fall short of perfection."

@Dipper.

Prioritisation - That's a new one.
Concurrent implementation - how's that?

Taxes:
Income Tax (Top 5% of population)
Corporation Tax (Reverse some Tory cuts)
Tobin Tax (Finance)

Others (Reserved - Off the top of my head)
Inheritance Tax
Capital Gains Tax
Patent Box.

No MMT here...(yet)...

Modest re-nationalisation of natural monopolies.

I have already posted an article about Thomas Pickerty, to provide an economic justification.

Milliband - Skimmed Milk
Corbyn - Semi-skimmed Milk (with added Water)

So in summary:
Business as usual, or make a start on reversing the damage caused by Thatcherism.

No contest...

[Dipper]

@ Aragon

Tobin Tax. Seriously this is just nuts. At best this just gets passed on to the customer. At worst it removes liquidity from the market and moves jobs to places that have no such tax. It is not taking a tax from something, it is taxing a process. We might as well have email tax, or a phone tax every time you make a call.

Corbyn is a fraud. He just says words that some people like him saying. He has no idea what they mean, or how anything works. He knows it too, which is why he has just sabotaged his own candidacy by launching into foreign policy.

what is MMT? I keep seeing it but don't know what it means.

[Dipper]

And as for May's personality, everyone has a personality. Good leaders have people around them who understand them and can guide them when needed. With luck, this experience will have demonstrated to May that she needs to make some changes.

Here's an example of what is available http://www.catalyst.co.uk/what-we-do/leadership-and-change-excellence/collaborative-leadership/.

May is recoverable. Corbyn isn't.

[efcdons]

@dipper

Why do you have to give a faux-objective gloss to your political and philosophical preferences? You can just say you have certain views on the nature of property and the state without pretending you are objectively analyzing the various policy proposals and have found, after careful consideration, to have found it wanting.

[Dipper]

@efcdons

I don't understand your objection. I don't necessarily disagree with what Labour are trying to do, I just think Corbyn is a fraud, useless. It is cargo cult socialism. Nationalisation blah blah poverty blah blah discrimination blah blah as if saying it constitutes a plan.

Don't look at what he says, look at what he does. Junior positions in the Corbyn organisation are handed out to friends kids (including his own). Mates are recruited to fill positions. If he really believed what he says he would build an organisation that developed talent, that built skills, but he doesn't. It's a bunch of mates playing games.

Are you happy with what these muppets are doing with your views and your beliefs?

[aragon]

MMT - Modern Monetary Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

MMT are Dippers magic beans...

When the process is Finance or Rent Seeking (e.g. High Frequency Trading) taxation is desirable.

Move elsewhere; is Finance's goto threat...

[gastro george]

Is it wrong to take a certain pleasure in watching Dipper, like May's campaign, suffer meltdown? The shrill level seems to be rising.

She will probably still win, but her reputation suffers by the day. And she still expects a successful Brexit negotiation ...

[Dipper]

why am I suffering meltdown?

Process. Institutions. These are the things that deliver results. May will probably still win, but she needs to get a grip of her office if she is to make progress. Cabinet ministers will not have enjoyed being sent out to defend a policy they had no say in making and probably didn't support only to find that the line had already changed. You only suffer that kind of nonsense quietly once.

Success is fine, but as individuals we only learn through adversity. Politicians in general and May in particular need this kind of experience to develop the necessary skills. So its a good thing that the campaign is turning into a tough one.

If you support Labour then you must want the charlatan Corbyn and his cronies to fail. He is taking Labour up an obvious dead end. If he has a good showing in the election then the Labour nightmare will be prolonged. Remember, the last thing Corbyn wants is to be responsible for anything, so no matter how open the goal he will always contrive to hoof the ball over the bar.

[gastro george]

Because your level of invective against Corbyn is becoming ridiculous, especially when compared against the soft line you're taking with May.

There's nothing today, for example, that Corbyn has said that hasn't been said by the security services, or even Boris. Yet apparently, according to Central Office, he is "siding with our enemies". To be fair 60% of the population agree with Jez.

May certainly needs to get a grip, having lost 15+ points of her lead in a couple of weeks. Nothing to do with her, of course.

[Dipper]

my level of invective against Corbyn is not ridiculous. It is quite appropriate.

Corbyn links foreign policy with terrorism and 60% of the population agree with Jez as do various other politicians and ex intelligence people. However, he has repeated this in the context of the Manchester bombing. The Manchester bomber was from Libya. His family fled Gaddafi, and we gave them shelter, housing, education. Libya experienced turmoil due to the Arab Spring, and we intervened to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. The bomber's family were then able to return home. He came back to blow up a concert of girls and young women going to see a young woman artist in what ISIS called a "shameless" concert. To then make the connection between terrorism and foreign policy is a disgrace. A left-wing statesman at this time should be arguing for the rights of women in a free society and clearly condemning Islamists for their views on women. But not Jez. For him there is only ever one enemy.

Seriously, he is dreadful. Dangerously so.

[Dipper]

... and not to go on about this, but Corbyn made this statement in the context of campaigning to be our next Prime Minister. Is his primary foreign policy objective avoiding acts of terrorism on UK soil? Do you think that announcing your policy will be influenced by bombing makes bombings more or less likely? Is he going to start curtailing women's freedoms to avoid upsetting ISIL?

[gastro george]

You do realise that MI5 have their sticky fingers all over Manchester? It looks like the Libyan refugees there are "our" Islamists: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sorted-mi5-how-uk-government-sent-british-libyans-fight-gaddafi-1219906488

[gastro george]

Should say "some Libyan refugees".

[gastro george]

More in the FT here: https://www.ft.com/content/42cabb04-4203-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2

So you're arguing about the context of Corbyn's speech, this is the context he is talking about.

[Keith Cross]

Dipper who ever they are is a tory hack. Remember to discount anything he says. His problem with the labour party is that it is not the tory party.

May is an unpleasant far right wacko. Her dementia tax represents not an error but who the Tory party of today really are. Vile reactionaries driven by a desire to make profits for the few by impoverishing the many. Any one who votes for them gas blood on their hands.

Corbyn on the other hand is an honest socialist who has devoted his life to social justice, peace and ant racism. So Vote Labour. He also has shown the ability to compromise with his party critics, and unlike may is far more likely to run a consensual cabinet which would be less likely to suffer group think. So vote Labour.

[Dipper]

Corbyn is an honest socialist my arse. He just promises free stuff to people and says he's either going to take it off other people or print it. He isn't changing any power relationships. He has no discipline, just makes stuff up on the hoof, speaks in platitudes, cannot answer a specific question. He is a fraud.

The costs of providing social care for the ageing population is a real problem. The situation is only going to get worse. Labour have nothing but Jeremy's magic beans. Literally no idea, just some slogans and a belief in magic.

[gastro george]

"He ... just makes stuff up on the hoof, speaks in platitudes ..."

Reminds me of somebody.

[Dipper]

somebody is not standing for prime minister.

[gastro george]

I could, of course, have been referring to May ...

[aragon]

End-to-End Encryption.
Theresa May says: we are laughing at her - What else do you do with clowns?

Encryption is binary, you have end-to-end and encryption society will not accept the Government as a man in the middle.

The agreements you already have are meaningless, as end-to-end encryption is not controlled by BT etc.

Mass surveillance.
They won't engage in Mass surveillance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Tereasa 'Cnut' May will lose this war.

End-to-end encryption is an essential part of the internet infrastructure.

The Banks for example will not accept compromised encryption.

The encryption cat is out of the bag...

[gastro george]

It's going to be tragic because it's pretty obvious that almost no politician or journalist, nor the general public, have the faintest idea about encryption.

[Dipper]

@ gastro george

think you are being unfair their gg. Jeremy has this covered.

http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/digital_democracy_manifesto

he's pretty clear about where he sits on the state versus individual rights debate.

" This constitutional settlement will reaffirm the continued importance of long-held and hard-won individual and collective freedoms within the new in- formation society. The human right of personal privacy should give legal protection for British citizens from not only unwarranted snooping on their on-line activities by the security services, ..."

[D]

@dipper

1. The labour manifesto does have an over all plan. Spend and invest to create growth when interest rates are at the zero lower bound.

2. Just because jihadi terrorists are against the west regardless of foreign policy, that doesn't mean foreign policy hasn't helped jihadis recruit and gain sympathy.

3. You might argue that's not the case. It's a perfectly reasonable view though. And if you think it's true then saying it in a general election is what you should do. There's no disgrace in that at all.

[aragon]

Another example of Theresa May's strength:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4549262/British-Airways-faces-record-150m-compensation-payout.html

"British Airways boss Alex Cruz has been blamed for causing the computer meltdown that saw thousands of passengers stranded on Saturday after outsourcing hundreds of IT job to India."

Story references The Register article:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/24/ba_job_offshoring_gmb_union_hand_delivered_letters/

"The Home Office has stonewalled the GMB trade union’s attempts to raise the plight of British Airways IT staff whose jobs are being sent to an Indian outsourcer – and the potential security implications involved.

The GMB has written four letters to the Department’s Secretary Theresa May – seen by us – after BA hired Tata Consultancy Services to run systems, putting hundreds of UK jobs at risk of redundancy.

Mick Rix, national officer at GMB, first raised the point in January that outsourcing systems, some of which “are crucial to national security”, was of concern for the country’s future safety."

"The union rep also claimed BA had abused a loophole in the Tier 2 visa system that allowed the airline to use Intra Company Transfers to import TCS’s workers to Britain at the cost of the local workforce.

"In this instance, not only are the jobs not advertised in the UK as a requirement for most Tier 2 visas, the Tier 2 visa will be used by the outsourced company to directly replace a job currently occupied by a UK worker who will have been made redundant.""

That's stable for you...
No concern for British employees.

[Dipper]

@D.

1. It spends in enormous amount. I might be prepared to support it if Jeremy had just once said"we can't address that in the first parliament" or "that will have to wait for the economic plans to deliver growth" but he never does. He just splashes the cash as if there is no limit, as if you can just keep on taxing without consequence. If they had a clear plan to improve skills, improve productivity, or even what sort of plan they have for Brexit they might have a serious position, but Jeremy doesn't do numbers, and arguments about the EU aren't really his thing.

2. This was Jeremy's first utterance following the bombing, and he laid the blame at the door of successive UK governments despite the fact there is no evidence in this particular case that Foreign policy had the slightest impact on it. He said the responsibility lay with the people who committed the bombing. Quite. End. But no he just has to go back to his favourite subject.

Jeremy is a man of peace who believes in talking. What kind of talks is he planning with ISIS? How have we offended you? What can we do to make you feel less angry towards us? We all know where that is going.

[gastro george]

"he laid the blame at the door of successive UK governments despite the fact there is no evidence in this particular case that Foreign policy had the slightest impact on it"

Did you not read my links on MI5 involvement with Libyan Islamists, among whom was the bomber's father?

[Dipper]

yes I did read it.

Gadaffi was a direct threat to the UK through funding the IRA to wage a war on the UK. One which Jeremy supported.

[gastro george]

So obviously MI5 supporting Libyan Islamists <> foreign policy, in your eyes.

"One which Jeremy supported."

Now you're just trolling. Which we should have all gathered by now.

[d]

@dipper

You might think the economic plan is wrong and you think corbyn's analysis of the impact of foreign policy is wrong. Fine, these are thing that reasonable people can disagree.

What I find difficult to understand is why you say they don't have a plan and why you think it unreasonable for Corbyn to raise foreign policy if he believes what he does about it.

If foreign policy has had the affect Corbyn thinks it has, now is absolutely the time to discuss it - there's an eclection on and the debate is front and centre.

To not mention it, if it's right (and he clearly believes it is), would be a disservice to the families of the victims.

So sure, say he's wrong on this if that's what you think, but don't say it's morally wrong of him to say what he believes.

Also, I think it's pretty clear foreign policy has had a big impact on the rise of jihadi terrorism. YOu don't need a direct link between this foriegn policy decison and that attack for there to be a causal link - just saying

[Guano]

I think that there's something else going on here: a failure to take Jeremy Corbyn seriously. That applies to Theresa May but also in this comments' thread.

I think that May thought that she was a long way ahead in the opinion polls, that this wouldn't change and so an election would be an opportunity to slip through something like the Demetia Tax which is unpleasant but is (in her view) a necessary measure to tackle a tricky problem.

Unfortunately for her:-

1 Jeremy Corbyn has a lot of experience in campaigning, which involves making 15-minute speeches to impromptu crowds or talking to people in the street, and he comes over quite well in these contexts

2 If you pay attention, what he says is not unreasonable (and trying to rubbish it or distort it has backfired on other politicians and pundits)

3 Some of what he says talks to concerns that significant numbers of people have and which they feel have not been addressed (and, again, trying to rubbish it or distort has backfired on other politicians and pundits)

See, for example, this commentary on how many politicians and pundits have got something very wrong about the context.

https://jonworth.eu/david-cameron-on-corbyn-and-how-this-sort-of-critique-may-now-backfire/

There is a lot of truth in the observation that May has fallen into the group-think trap. But even if she had tested her ideas with a large group of politicians and pundits, I don't she would have realised that she ought to have taken Jeremy Corbyn seriously as an opponent.

[efcdons]

"He just promises free stuff to people and says he's either going to take it off other people or print it. He isn't changing any power relationships."

That doesn't even make sense. Taking away stuff "owned" by the powerful obviously changes power relationships. Those in power derive their power from ownership of capital and their ability to redirect that capital to assert their power (e.g. "If Jezza is PM they are all going to take their money and run to some undisclosed low tax but high service state!" or "printing money (which makes the money owned by people who already have a lot it of worth less) is going to make the UK wish it was only as bad as Zimbabwe!").

So if Corbyn increases taxes and makes sure to crack down on the ability to avoid taxation (which has been a pretty consistent message), "prints money" (or borrows using the UK's available ultra low rates), and/or nationalizes the capital goods owned by the wealthy then he is obviously going to change power relationships.

You just seem to think it isn't moral (maybe you have some sort of "just deserts" type of philosophical attachment to the status quo) for Corbyn do to what he is proposing but since that argument isn't a convincing one on a left of centre blog you have to act like there are consequentialist objections which don't have any connection to your political beliefs.

[Dipper]

@ efcdons. He is not changing the relationship between the worker and the results of their labour other than more of that money now goes to the government to allocate as they see fit. And I'm well aware that printing money makes the actual money earned by workers worth less.

Neither of these steps give workers more power. Certainly the printing of money gives them less power. It takes away their ability to be independent and make their own decisions and choices.

As someone who went to a comprehensive and then worked in the city I am well aware of what Labour have in store for me. There is no shortage of privately educated well connected Labour people ready to slap me down, punish me for getting too big for my working class boots, telling me how some other person deserves just as much, if not more, than I. That as a working person I and my children should be content with an average education and getting my allowance from the state. Meanwhile their children and their friends children have the red carpet rolled out for them to continue the hereditary business of putting workers down. Just look at Corbyn's office and Momentum - as clear an example of nepotism and privilege as you could wish to see.

[Dipper]

@ aragon.

No evidence the BA outage had anything to do with off-shoring.

And whilst there is much to be discussed about off-shoring, the notion that the government should arbitrarily intervene in individual companies business decisions to prevent them moving work around is a bizarre one.