Power Should Never Be Anonymous
Our ignorance is their strength
What do these two stories have in common?
“Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales has been hit with a trigger warning by a leading university over “expressions of Christian faith”, it has emerged.
The University of Nottingham put the warning on the medieval collection of 24 tales which tell the story of pilgrims going to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.”
And . . .
“An NHS hospital has urged staff not to describe babies as being “born male or female”.
Guidance developed by the James Paget University Hospitals Trust in Great Yarmouth said its staff should use the phrase “assigned female/male at birth” instead.”
The worst thing about these stories - and so many like them - is not that they attempt to inflict tendentious attitudes upon the public, but that the attempts are made anonymously.
The ‘University of Nottingham’ didn’t impose the trigger warning on Chaucer. The ‘James Paget University Hospitals Trust’ didn’t discourage staff from acknowledging basic biology. No, these decisions were made by people within those organizations, who are doing their fell work under cover of darkness - anonymously.
Two things are wrong here. First, that the attempt to exercise power and authority over people should be made anonymously. Second, that the journalists who wrote these stories allow them to get away with it. Look, it’s only human nature to want to exercise power anonymously, but one of the cardinal justifications for journalism is precisely that it fights valiantly against that instinct. So when journalists are prepared to ascribe these actions to ‘The University of Nottingham’ and ‘James Paget University Hospitals Trust’ they are not merely not doing their duty, they are actively complicit in the abuse of power they purport to be condemning.
Journalists! Do your damned job!
‘The Blob’ is not the blob - it has agents and supporters who are identifiable and who ought to be identified. Power is exercised not by amorphous and unknowable agencies and institutions, it is exercised by the people leading and staffing those agencies and institutions.
Early in the life of The Long March, in ‘Crimes of Indifference’ I raged about water regulator Ofwat - a rage which is now echoed everywhere. But I was at least prepared to name names:
“Ofwat is funded by, surprise surprise, the water companies it regulates. Since 2012, and until the end of this week [June 2022], its chairman is Jonson Cox, CBE. Mr Cox has, of course, a lot of relevant experience: he was MD of Yorkshire Water 1996-2000, and then during 2004-2010 he was CEO of Anglian Water. A poacher turned gamekeeper? If so, we only know that under his protection, the poachers made off with substantially all the game. This is him:”
Somehow, Jonson Cox CBE is not the household name he deserves to be.
So let’s have a look and name some names. In the case of ‘Nottingham University’ it’s not too hard to identify who has responsibility for the Chaucer decision. Ultimately, it rests with the Vice Chancellor and President of the university: Professor Shearer West. Here she is, hard at work earning her £323,400 pa, with the university kicking in a further 21.1% for her pension. It’s not surprising she looks happy.
But we should assume that the Chaucer trigger warning was also approved by the head of the School of English, who is Máire Ní Fhlathúin (that’s not a joke - well, not mine, anyway). Anyway, here she is:
So now you know who actually is, in this case ‘the University of Nottingham’ which brought you trigger warnings on Chaucer.
What about the ‘James Paget University Hospitals Trust’: who runs that? Well, that information is actually rather hard to find. In fact, the James Paget seems to be an information black hole: its website doesn’t work, and when you look you do manage a workaround, you’ll find that there’s ‘no information available’ for the neo-natal care, maternity services, or for obs & gynae.
But independently, the Care Quality Commission says the James Paget ‘requires improvement’, specifically on ‘safety’ and ‘leadership’, and specifically it identifies it’s maternity performance as ‘inadequate.’ Perhaps we begin to understand why the leadership is shy.
Still, it is from that report that I finally discover that the chief executive of this seemingly rather duff hospital is (at least was in May 2023) Miss Joanne Segasby, who looks happy, as she may well be, pulling down around £295,000 pa for her efforts.
As for whether that’s our money well spent, I recommend reading the CQC’s report, which you can find here, and which I think it is fair to say is ‘damning’. No fewer that 24 pages are dedicated to explaining how and why its maternity services are ‘inadequate’.
And it has plenty to say about the management: ‘Leaders did not always operate effective governance processes, throughout the service and with partner organisations. Staff at all levels were not always clear about their roles and accountabilities and did not always have regular opportunities to meet, discuss and learn from the performance of the service.’
I’m not sure I’m open to advice from Miss Joanne Segasby on whether your boy is a boy, or your girl a girl.
A final thought. Am I right to be picking on these people? Yes, I absolutely am, and journalists everywhere should be encouraged to do the same! These are people being paid handsomely for taking responsibility for actions and attitudes of the organizations and institutions they lead. So hand them that responsibility!