THE DANGER WITH TRANSPARENCY

We’ve just entered what I call the “nudist phase” of our lives when current political thinking is that we should show it all. And I’m not sure it’s too practical or what people really want. A little bit of mystery is usually more interesting and may allow greater happiness.

Would people on a flight really like the pilot to be more transparent?

“This is your pilot. We are flying at 30, 0000 feet and my co-pilot has just passed out and we’re running low on fuel. We have a 50:50 chance of landing OK at Heathrow. Thank you for flying Consul Airlines.”

Knowing more when you can do nothing about it may actually work against the desired result (and in this case provoking a hysterical riot).

Quite often sorting out a cock-up and getting everything back to normal in private may be a far better option than confessing to it before you’ve had the chance to fix it calmly.  Yet from NHS to education we have acquired a perverse need to show everything that’s going on behind the scenes which, whether in a play or in any business I’ve ever been in, is not always a good idea or an inspiring spectacle.

Now I was intrigued to see that Doctors will be forced to be transparent and disclose their salaries to patients. I’m not sure why? You go to see a doctor to be told what to do to feel better.

There was a joke about medical transparency.

A doctor goes to see a patient in a hospital bed. As the curtains are closed he says:
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
The patient says “Better give me the bad news doctor”
“I’m sorry you are going to die and there’s nothing we can do”
“Oh God…but what’s the good news doctor?”
“You know that blonde nurse? Well I’m giving her one”

And we don’t want to know that. It’s irrelevant to our condition and needs as would be a doctor saying:
“Sit down. Well I thought you’d like to know that I trousered £150,000 last year. Now what can I do for you?”

But there’s something else. I have a grave suspicion of anyone who says “to be perfectly honest” as it implies this is an unusual condition for them. Equally when journalists, politicians or doctors claim to be totally transparent I know there’s a fair chance they are concealing something really important from me.
It’s like this trend to glass fronted kitchens. I don’t want to see the cooks; I want to eat the food. And why is there a belief that a less than wonderful meal that you saw being prepared is somehow going to be improved by your watching?

Don’t confuse honesty with transparency and don’t be deluded into believing transparency is a substitute for quality of delivery.

As Dr Johnson might have said but didn’t - transparency is the last refuge of the mediocre.

DEJA VU

Am I the only person over 25 viewing these riots in a slightly different way? To sound in control ministers are talking like Harold MacMillan in tones of horror and vote-for-me outrage.

I’m not saying the looting, violence and riots are to be treated lightly.  But nor can they be just brushed under that “criminality” carpet.

The Arab Spring must  have felt like this from the other side and Dave Cameron is probably feeling like Al-Gadaffi … outraged, confused, cheated (in Dave’s case of his Tuscan holiday) and very cross.

There are a few things to note.

This turned from a local protest to a series of “flash-mobs” to a wave of orchestrated gang and passer-by looting to chaos. Shopping-with-violence someone called it.

And it was a mix of very young, middle aged, of black and white but few Asians – except as vigilante protectors of property. It became infectious because the big broken society was ready for such a social explosion.

The real issue is not the criminality but the disadvantaged young whom we don’t understand. Judges (on their own planet) seemed appalled that parents weren’t accompanying their 14 year olds to court. But nearly half those over 14 are no longer under parental control. Parents-in-charge are a thing of the past; gangs as group to belong to aren’t. But the middle class doesn’t get this. I expected to hear a judge ask “were these young people on properly signed exeats?”

So we’ll send them to prison to join the other 11,000 young prisoners. We’ve had a 66% increase of young prisoners in the past 5 years. Nowhere else in the world can boast a prisoner growth of youth as high as that.
And we’ll slag off the police as soft and although they were slow and are out of touch with change, the way the senior politicians treated them was  a disgrace. Good to see a fight back from Deputy Commissioner Orde.

We’ll demand social networking is curtailed (how?)

And we’ll lament the passing of happier times.

But the opportunities this shock has created are exciting. We have a chance to sort out security; a chance to recognise parental and school authority breakdown – and do something about it; a chance to begin to dismantle those gangs; a chance to upgrade police intelligence; a chance to educate our Prime Minister and peers and a chance to invest in the future (education) as opposed to the past (the NHS).

It could be worse.  And taking those chances since the zeitgeist feels just right are worth more than an AAA rating and a focus on money. It sometimes takes a storm to blow away apathy and ignorance.