let’s just act with a bit of [a] sense of humility

This is kind of via Jay Springett, but the Times article he linked isn’t resolving for me, presumably because of a paywall… so I searched up a bit of commentary that contains the crucial quote from Peter Kyle, the new British technology minister:

“I’m very acutely aware that I can’t sit here in my office in Whitehall and instruct that world to do what I want it to do as secretaries of state have been able to do in the past,” he said in The Times. “I’m probably the first secretary of state that is dealing with companies which are outspending our entire British state when it comes to investment in innovation. So, let’s just act with a bit of sense of humility. We are having to apply a sense of statecraft to working with companies that we’ve in the past reserved for dealing with other states.”

That’s a minister from a Labour government, right there, just flat-out capitulating to multinational corporations who have had a disproportionate influence on everything, not least the conduct of what passes for politics, for something more than a decade.

It always amazed me in the Noughties that people would praise KSR’s Mars trilogy, but then caveat by saying they couldn’t see a plausible route to the dysfunction of Earth politics as portrayed in those books. Well, there’s your route: PPE suits, dizzied by the very prospect of their first spin on the revolving-door carousel of careerism, just shrugging and saying “well, what could I even do about it?”

Credit where it’s due—I guess they at least know which side their bread is buttered on.


Perhaps you think I’m parsing this uncharitably? The site I’ve ganked the quote from is the blog of a consultancy that does a lot of PR work for big firms; the blog’s title is “Hearts & Minds”. And the post in question finishes thusly:

… whereas previously laws were readily threatened and applied, now, said Kyle, they will be “reflexive, responsive and agile” designed to give the innovation an easier landing, while regulation is adapted over time.

It means listening politely, perhaps not firing off an instant quote and waiting for behind-the-scenes and in-the-margin discussions. That increased gliding and gladhanding will have other repercussions. CEOs and their teams should brace themselves. Ferrero Rocher towers await.

That choice of final image tells you everything about the age-bracket and aspirations of the former journalist whose “analysis” this passes for, even as it’s a perfect figure for the the fawning cowardice of contemporary politics and the coat-tail hitch-hiking of the people who enable and encourage it.

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