Decision-making has taken far too long
ONE of the most dangerous fallacies going the rounds in unionist politics is that, when it comes to making political decisions, getting it right is more important than doing it quickly.
That sort of thinking has been the mantra to some politicians, but sometimes how you do something can be more important than precisely what you do.
We can't always tell how our decisions will play out. Events have a way of taking over. Who could have foretold the Iris Robinson scandal or the blizzard of allegations of child sex abuse cover ups in Sinn Fein? Like the recession, both of them broke on us out of a clear blue sky.
No precise decision could have fireproofed politicians against their effects, but general behaviour could have ameliorated their effects.
Iris Robinson got less sympathy than she deserved, and was unable to weather the storm without resigning, partly because she had been so harsh in her judgements of others. If she hadn't preached so much about the need for teenage celibacy, if she had not been so insistently judgmental about homosexuals and if she had not been so tough in her attacks on political rivals like Michael McGimpsey there may well have been more understanding for her when her own mistakes were exposed.
She would have still had serious questions to answer but there would most likely have been more public sympathy if she had shown more understanding to others in her public comments.
Or we can take the case of Gerry Adams. He has a reputation for unreliability on issues ranging from his membership of the IRA to what songs he sang in prison and even when he was in prison. His flexible attitude to the truth meant that he was not automatically believed when he insisted that he did not know that his brother Liam, an alleged child abuser, was working in youth clubs and a member of Sinn Fein. Adams word counted for very little and, when it was challenged, many people were more prepared to believe the worst.
How you behave in politics, your general style and approach, plays a large part in determining how you well you can deal with unforeseen difficulties.
In the case of the devolution of justice powers, we can't safeguard against every eventuality, however long we agonise and consult. Some of the details of the deal, for instance, the budget and the choice of minister, are crucial in themselves but on many others the most important thing is that politicians establish a business-like working relationship. They don't have to love each other, but they do need to be able to make decisions without getting bogged down in too many "what ifs".
It is not as if delay was cost free. The only excuse for spending the sort of money we do on Stormont is that it will deliver the goods quickly and efficiently.
Voters don't need to hear politicians constantly bellyaching about their difficulties and how important their decisions are. They are elected and paid to do a job. If they find that job too difficult then there is an obvious conclusion to be drawn. In government, people need to take decisions daily and it can be less damaging to make the occasional mistake than to string every difficult issue out for weeks, months or even years. If you have a positive approach you can often recover from mistakes, even learn from them, but wasted time is gone forever.
Listening to some politicians talk as if they have all the time in the world and deadlines were an insult to their manhood leaves the impression that they take a certain pleasure out of the power to delay things at the taxpayers’ expense.
JDR Tata, the great Indian industrialist, identified something similar as a major bar to progress in his own country. “There is such a thing as the psychology of power which motivates people ... power to delay an application, power to hold up a file, power to keep people waiting in an ante-room, all of which are consciously or subconsciously treated as symbols of prestige and hallmarks of importance,” he wrote in 1969.
Keeping prime ministers waiting for days and fielding phone calls from Hillary Clinton in recent negotiations smacks of attention seeking. It leaves the impression that this is how some politicians get their kicks.
It can’t go on forever. The decision making process over devolution of policing and justice, like the decision making process over decommissioning, has taken far too long. There isn’t a straight choice between getting things quick and getting things right; in politics being wrong and being slow are often the same thing.
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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