Build a new one..

Revelations by the erstwhile CIA agent Edward Snowden that the US government has been seemingly spying on just about everybody should come as no surprise to anyone. The power shift on the world stage over the past twenty years has been relentless with the Chinese in the ascendency while poor old Uncle Sam mopes in the economic doldrums. Spying is normally justified as being a strategic ploy to better understand the nature of threats to national security. The real reason is rather less subtle. Spying is invariably born of insecurity. Foreign invasion is another manifestation of insecurity. On this basis, it would be a tough job to cite a more insecure country than the US.

In itself, such insecurity is not unique and neither is the patent lack of accountability to everyone else for your actions. Accountability. As each week brings a fresh wave of revelations from various quarters of our national life, the theme of accountability gathers momentum apace. Just a fortnight ago, Sir David Nicholson decided he would take retirement next year. Retirement not resignation. There was a time in British public life when overseeing the biggest scandal in healthcare provision we have ever known would have been swiftly followed by the head of that organisation falling honourably on to his sword. It has been clear for about twenty years that such actions are a thing of the past. The approach of today is to cling on to your position for all you're worth just in case a more newsworthy story comes along and people begin to forget about your shortcomings. There are those who espouse the theory that those who get things wrong in the first place should be charged with then putting them right. Such arguments are flimsy mainly because it defies logic to stick with incompetence in order to return to competence. Sir David will reach ripe old age of 57 when he starts the process of drawing on his vast pension next year. Assuming average male life expectancy, he can reasonably expect to draw on that fund for about the next thirty years or so.

He joined the NHS as a graduate trainee in 1978 at the age of 21. He remained a member of the British Communist Party until the age of 26 in 1983. His first role was in the Mental Health sector in Yorkshire where he played a significant role in implementing the closure of the Asylums and the advent of care in the community. As a graduate of the old Bristol Polytechnic, he has done very well for himself. His second wife is twenty years his junior and was also an NHS graduate trainee. By coincidence, she is now the Chief Executive of the Birmingham Children's Hospital. On a salary of £155,000 per annum, she is also doing rather well.

In North Wales, the Chief Executive and Chairman of the local health board both resigned their posts last week. Aside from their mutual loathing which meant that they could scarcely abide to occupy the same room, they have overseen a culture in which cases of C. difficile have been under reported, operations have been postponed in order to avoid overspending and they have shown no clear plan to show how they propose to which services might be cut or reorganised. With a budget of just £1.2 billion per annum, they also introduced a recruitment policy whereby advertised jobs could only be filled by internal employees. Unsurprisingly, one in three advertised NHS jobs in North Wales remains unfilled. This carries several clear implications. Who is doing the work of the unfilled positions? Why did this policy remain unchallenged by the Welsh Assembly Government? Are their too many chiefs or is this merely the rhetoric of the right wing press? Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems extraordinary that £1.2 billion is insufficient to provide adequate healthcare for the 675,000 people to whom it is theoretically accountable.

On the latter point, the recent closure of the community hospital in Llangollen has now been followed by some rather surprising news. This hospital which served the local community so well for a shade over 137 years begins its slow descent in to dereliction. Should the unthinkable be considered and the key used to open the front door, they would find it as they left it - fit for purpose and dependable. Instead, the local council in their infinite wisdom have recently announced plans to, wait for it, build a new one. Quelle surprise! This has become the mantra of our times. If it's not broken, smash it up and build a new one because this will create jobs and be more aesthetically more pleasing to the eye. Well, the proposed new hospital will be cited about an eighth of a mile down the road with about the same number of jobs as the old one had. Arguably, the car park of the new building might just edge it but this comes under the chocolate tea pot arguments since most people in the town walk there anyway!

Our local council in Denbighshire also seems anxious to merge the two faith schools of St. Brigids in Denbigh and Blessed Edward Jones in Rhyl. I bet you can't guess what this cunning plan entails. Correct - vacate the two existing schools and, all together now, BUILD A NEW ONE. Despite these plans causing major inconvenience to parents and children alike, they will doubtless go ahead in due course for the simple reason of accountability. All the council has to do is put an idea out to consultation and just go ahead anyway. Heads they win, tails they win.

There is little doubt that the incumbent Coalition has done a great deal to cut borrowing during the last three years but their real challenge is still ahead of them. Cutting the amount of waste and inefficiency within our public spending will be the real test of their achievements. Assuming the existence of a moral compass, the culprits of such waste and mismanagement would be honest to themselves and go. Such assumptions though are frankly archaic in the modern world. If the man won't jump, the alternative is to give him a friendly shove in the right direction. It seems though that there is a collective reticence to apply the first shove.

As an aside to this argument, is it a coincidence that accountability has receded as voter turnouts have diminished in national and local elections. Just a thought. Maybe we can do something about all this after all?

I end this post by postulating that the land of the free might not seem a reality to Edward Snowden at present. It is now clear that the US government is far closer to Communism than any of us ever thought. As George Orwell observed in Animal Farm, "All men are equal except some men are more equal than others". If Ecuador do go to offer Snowden the asylum he deserves, they will truly become the darling of the international community. Perhaps, Sir David Nicholson would fit in well across the pond with his former communist sympathies. Like our US cousins, he seems answerable to nobody. How Solzhenitsyn would smile if he could see it all now. Communism and Capitalism? You pay your money and you take your choice!