Shorter

The Ditchley Lecture, as discussed in the previous post, has become something of an obsession as it likely determines my working future (and perhaps the future of Government policy, and hence the country).

The word "risk" is used nine times, but only once in the sense of something to be understood and avoided. And there it's financial risk which, we are told -- because of technology -- is now "more effectively hedged". (If you believe that...)

The word "uncertain" is not used at all.

And herein lies one fatal flaw, which I was grasping towards in my previous post. That the problems we face are problems of uncertainty and risk. A failure to properly understand financial risk caused the financial crisis. A failure to understand pandemic risk caused the current one -- if we had understood the risk we wouldn't have done stupid things. A failure to recognise that climate change is inherently uncertain -- and the uncertainty can lead to very bad, low probability outcomes -- and use a risk management framework to address it, will lead to consequences that far exceed covid-19.

(To be fair, there's a gesture towards this issue in "we need to understand that complex, adaptive systems demand respectful attention, not glib assertions of mastery" but that runs entirely contrary to the rest of the lecture, and the actions of the Government)

The second fatal flaw is that the speech is peppered with references to the public, citizens and society. Yet they are absolutely passive actors. Government will develop the solutions, the public will be lifted up by them. "To help the Forgotten Man" you do not, it seems, need to talk to the Forgotten Man. The Politburo decides what he wants and instructs the machine to give it to him.

It's a remarkably Stalinist approach, as has already been pointed out. There is nothing Conservative in this speech whatsoever.

We will move elements of the Party Apparatus to Teeside. We will purge the the Apparatus of Mensheviks -- the Party has already been purged of Gaukists, of course. But moving to Teeside is not moving closer to the public. The Party will decide what is good for you, and the Apparatus will deliver it.

You are no longer Forgotten. But no one is listening to you. You exist to justify our policies, and to vote for us. That is all.