As gardens go, it’s been described both as a hidden gem and ‘wouldn’t win any medals for garden design’.
An archetypal British back-garden… roses, shaded area, a large lawn and a raised vegetable bed.
British back garden? Maybe… but is it maintained by the Royal Parks.
Visitors have included Mr & Mrs Obma, the Clinton’s, the Brownies, BBC’s Gardener’s Question Time and provided the scenery for the pantomime of Domonic Cummings trying to explain testing his eyes in Durham.
The Rose Garden at the rear of 10-11 Downing Street.
It was the location for the set-piece Sunak interview on Sunday’s Kuenssberg show.
You might have missed it… in your own garden getting ready for a BBQ, or if you live someplace with a hosepipe ban, eking out the last few drops from the rain barrel.
You didn’t miss much.
It was the usual word-salad, pick-n-mix. You could have answered most of the questions yourself. We know them off by heart… and the obligatory repetition of Rishi’s Five Must-do’s. (He’s struggling)
Number 10 comm’s have only understood half the story about he value of repetition.
The first few repetitions are known as the ‘truth effect’… a positive relationship between repetition and credibility.
However, that can easily give way when repetition is taken too far… an indirect and negative effect. People see the messaging as ‘a persuasive attempt’… reducing trust.
In case someone from the No10 press office is reading this… here’s your homework.
Rishi was at pains to point out most of the stuff on his list, which we all want fixed, isn’t going to be an overnight job.
In the words of the song… ‘I didn’t promise you a rose garden’… if you are old enough to remember Lynn Anderson and too old to know about k.d.lnag!
The PM banged on about there being more nurses and doctors than anytime since Florence was a young girl. Carefully confusing ‘more’ with ‘enough’.
We’re in 20th place on the list of OECD nations, doctors per 1,000 inhabitants… twelfth for nurses.
This is all about the theory of misinformation.
It can lead to poor judgements and decision-making, it also exerts a lingering influence on people’s reasoning. Even after it has been corrected — that’s called the continued-influence effect.
‘We’ve got more nurses’ everything’s OK’… noooooo!
More important… there was a phrase that Rishi slipped in that I thought really clever. Casually used but I think deliberate. Listen out and you’ll hear it again and again.
It’s called subliminal priming, or seeding.
The PM told us;
‘…the NHS would be publishing its workforce plan… it’s their plan and we will fund it…’
‘It’s their plan…’ remember that phrase. It will become important and you’ll hear it again and again.
Note, it’s not HMG’s plan… it’s the NHS’ plan…
… the implication; the NHS went away for a wet towel on the head session, came up with a plan and Rishi is falling over himself to fund it.
In fact the Plan has been the subject of endless argy-bargy with the Treasury. Ducking and diving by the DH+ and hours of endless frustration driving the NHSE barmy.
Be clear… it’s the Treasury’s plan. HMG’s plan. Rishi’s plan. It’ll be only partly funded,
It’s important because there is the no little matter of NHS productivity.
More people, more money but nowhere near enough patients going through the system.
In a cuppa-builder’s report from the Institute for Government there are three issues that explain why;
• Hosptials are chronically under-staffed
• There’s been an underinvestment in capital… beds and diagnostics
• An exodus of senior staff, replaced by inexperienced recruits
There will be an election in, probably, less than 18 months. The NHS, centre stage… waiting, above all, will headline.
There’ll be nothing in the workforce plan that can change anything by polling-day.
Rishi has seeded the election landscape. NHS waits aren’t coming down? ‘Goodness knows why’, he’ll say, ‘we’ve funded the NHS’ own workforce plan’.
Tricky!
Our greatest landscape gardener, Capability Brown, advised; hide a garden path so that it is invisible, making the garden look bigger, rolling and uninterrupted.
Rishi might be an economist, but he’s also a bit of an agronomist.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
