Government And Straight Lines

 

Joined Up Government

I have had a number of conversation with Friend Steve on this subject. Althiugh we have differing political views we both agree that joined up government would be a good thing and that ach to problems holistic approach to problems would help.

In the UK ministerial accountability hinders this. If ministers are to be accountable for the actions of their ministries they need autonomy. Which means that a ministry can take an action to resolve one of its problems that puts another ministry in the proverbial. In theory this conflict gets resolved in Cabinet; but that is just theory.

If a holistic approach seems to be lacking in the UK it appears totally absent in France. I first encountered this when I came to the Sorbonne as a student. In England I had a student card that defined me as a student and therefore entitled me to any advantages available to a student. Access to university classes? Evidently. Discounts on entry to museums, art galleries or theatres? Obviously. Concessions on banking or other financial matters? Included also. I was, after all, a student studying at an officially recognised educational body.

Not so in France. I needed a card for access to classes at the Sorbonne but that was all that it entitled me too. Student restaurants? I needed another card. Discounts at theatres? Sorry, I needed another card. Travel? Yet another card. And so on…….I ended up with a pocket full of cards for different activitites all of which had one thing in common: the fact that I was a student. Could that commonality be used to reduce the administrative load? Of course it could. Was it? Dream on.

What astounds me today is that this practice continues, nearly 70 years later. The most forms anyone who is not already a French citizen will need are those to claim citizenship. Then, if you mislay your health card, what do you need? Many of the same forms. If you want to apply for a driver’s licence what do you need? Many of the same forms. If you want to hire a lawyer what do you need? Many of the same forms. And so it goes on……..A French official once told a Friend of mine that if the government diesn’t have a file on you you don’t exist. But I do; could I be an alien form of life or am I just an illusion?

I’m reminded of one of my favourite films, Orfeu Negro, when Orpheus searches in the underworld for Eurydice. The underworld is a building for bureaucrats and Orpheus searches through rooms full of nothing but filing cabinets. 

Joined up government? Repetitive is nearer the ark and it's the number of duplicates demanded by the French administration that is filling up all those filing cabinets in Hades.

Straight Lines

The word among gardeners on the allotment is that I have a strange way of gardening but that I get results. What is so strnge? The absence of straight lines. My defence is that in gardening we are dealing with nature; we all agree on that. So find me a straight line that isn’t man-made in a wood, in a meadow or on a roadside.

My friend Sylvie, who is helping me on the allotment this year, wanted to knowwhere I was putting the flower corner when I mentioned that I wanted to growsome sunflowers Thre is no flower corner, I said, I plant them among the vegetables. Blank incomprehension. Worse still, there is a lilac tree beside my front door through which a honeysuckle and a clematis are grwing. And the lilac tree isn’t pruned but left to find its own shape. Quelle horeur! But everyone loves the floral display. Strange but it gets results.