The "revolving door" spoken of here isn't quite as simple as it looks. Granted there are problems at "senior government level" but that is rare.
I worked for UK government for a few years. Then I went to the private sector. This happens a lot. Most of people who do, me included, it's because the public sector is so deep in incompetence and stupid politics that it is soul-crushing. Also to get anywhere you tend to have to take placement roles andmove around a lot and resort to a lot of arse licking and back-stabbing. Having a family or any stability is really difficult.
So you leave. And then they attempt to get you back with "enhanced pay" over your initial mediocre salary because there is suddenly a skills vacuum and everything is falling apart. They know who to reach out to because they want people who can slide back in and clean up the mess. All with redundancy again waved around constantly due to government reshuffles.
The boring reality is that you can bribe a civil servant with £5k in the UK. They are remarkably cheap.
Whether the civil service is a shit place to work or not (it is), there should be a recognition of the fact that the government still controls a large budget. Whilst MPs are scrutinised quite heavily, that same scrutiny is generally not extended to civil servants (because they make the rules). The number of senior civil servants who have been bent beyond belief is long (Heywood, Sedwill is still being put forward jobs even though he has been selling access to the government...it is incredible).
Lol, this is SOP for the British state. There has been a revolving door between the civil service and the private sector for decades. You cannot conceive of how many billions have been wasted on "consultancy" contracts with the big four, IT projects that lasted for years and delivered nothing, etc.
It is far bigger than this. I would look more closely into who is behind the article and who has been quoted for comment here/why. And you think it is just some expensive IT projects...UK media has been bought and sold, just not by who you think.
I really do love the American "but the veterans!" script, despite only them being a minority of the people involved:
> Of [the 32], 14 no longer work for, or with, us, some of whom stopped as long as five years ago. Six are ex-armed forces veterans whose public sector experience involved serving and protecting their country.
> Not only do we entirely reject claims of an alleged ‘revolving door’ strategy, but we also believe it is inappropriate to include veterans in a report alleging such a strategy. Aside from the immense value of their experience, there is rightly an undertaking by government and society to ensure they are afforded the opportunity to build a career outside the armed forces when the time is right for them.
Hi Iraq war veteran and former 17 year US civil servant here…
No.
Being a veteran at this point shouldn’t shield you from criticism from being part of the MIC/Revolving door
The owners are doing their absolute best to make military members become hardcore MIC capitalists to give companies trying to get into defense, credibility like a token.
The whole thing is fucking gross and there’s a whole miltary to corporate leadership pipeline.
A friend of mine recently got headhunted by a "defense" company called, and I won't even post the link, it's a website which sounds a bit like Van Helsing with some AI thrown in as a twist. He got an offer of 50k EUR more than his current already ridiculous salary.
I had to say that it's up to you, but don't expect me to still be your friend and still talk to you if you go for that.
Yes I would and without question. If by "do" you mean remove myself from the absolute evil that these establishments are, and shame them for it then yes.
I can approve of just about any job unless it's about murdering people because some politician(s) want it.
Obviously, it's one thing to be a commander ordering an attack, vs a soldier firing the weapon, vs starting the company to make the weapon, vs being a supplier to the weapons company, vs being an employee at the manufacturer, etc.
What about working for a president who is going to inevitably order hundreds if not thousands murdered? Or voting for said president?
What about paying taxes, knowing those tax dollars will go to missiles and guns used to murder?
(This isn't a criticism of your worldview, by the way. I'm just genuinely curious about how others draw these lines.)
I'm not GP but I could've written a similar comment. Personally I don't draw the line based on "proximity to war", but on the choices being made. I think poorly of someone who freely chooses "job directly contributing to war" over "job mostly unrelated to war".
What interesting discussion could the answer to this question yield? People who view abortion as “killy” will possibly take GPs stance toward their family and peers. People who don’t won’t.
And anyways, nobody _likes_ abortion, even if they are committed to it being a woman’s right
This is insane and irrelevant. A whole other discussion which does not belong in the the same light as, let's call it "coding and engineering practices designed to kill people" under the guise of "defending democracies" as if there are any such democracies currently under threat.
The line is simple, do you have the choice (personally or influentially) to avoid that? If yes, you draw the line. Can you avoid paying taxes? No, can you influence not to be used as you mentioned? You try. Can you avoid a job that obviously will use your expertise in questionable ways? Yes. The right and wrong is clear, people who try to muddy it they just seek justification.
I personally turned down multiple offers/work when it comes to drones for example, I designed stuff back in 2020 that some companies now just knew about it and its potentials, but when you meet with them and discuss what they are trying to build, you know that whatever they are after can be used in bad faith if the company decided to do so, do you sell your soul for the cash or do you prefer to sleep well at night?
The only exception is whatever you built has no direct or obvious bad faith, you build a library, a gstreamer addon, etc., that can get a pass.
I wonder what opinions and values you hold which someone could make a convincing argument for cutting you off about. Or who would find your job offensive.
My job doesn't involve murdering people. It does not contribute to the death of people nor animals. It is somewhat insignificant.
My job does pay my bills and put food on the table but is certainly less glamorous than something which changes the lives of millions of people (though in some way it might). It is definitively inoffensive.
Adding a line of code to a killing machine. That is something else my friend.
Worrying about what other people think is the biggest waste of energy. I'm glad a lot of people wouldn't be friends with me because of some of my ideals. I don't want to be liked by everyone. Why would you?
> I don't want to be liked by everyone. Why would you?
Eh, this is a bit of a straw man, no? It's one thing to be liked by everyone. It's another for a (presumably) long time, close friend to say they can no longer respect you due to your decisions.
In this case, it's someone who is already making a lot of money, who could make even more by working for a company that builds AI killing machines. Telling that person they are making a serious mistake is doing them a favor. Wouldn't you want your friends to do the same for you?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. "Liking" or blindly accepting everyone regardless of what believe or do just because you have known them for some period of time is silly.
Why do people in this thread detest that a pacifist with conviction exists? I’m not like them, and nobody is telling you to be like them. But having people like that in a population is important lest we become drunk on our ability to destroy our enemies.
Because weapons will be used and you will have no control over how.
And it being a European company doesn’t mean this weapon won’t be sold to Israel eg
Given the current state of things I would say that it's really easy to pivot to "let's sell weapons to whoever wants them". Still presenting a product as a way to defend democracies is comical. At the end of the day, people with money will buy these things and it doesn't matter who because oversight is scarce.
Sure, but what _is_ the practical solution to the invasion of a foreign military power on your home soil then? Do you think these systems should only be developed by the government? And if so, do you then apply the same logic to anyone working in the government?
Friends who give ultimatums like this are usually toxic and worth ditching. Your friend would be better off cutting you off now, regardless of what they decide about the job, than continuing to associate with someone who'd emotionally manipulate them over a career choice. Healthy relationships simply don't look like this, and dressing it up as principle doesn't change what it actually is.
The fact that this feels like a normal thing to say to a friend tells on you a bit. Get out more, spend time with people who don't already share your priors, and the certainty starts to sand down on its own. Threatening your friendships over someone else's career is not the moral high ground, it's just an ugly way to treat people. Humility is understanding you can be wrong about things even when you're certain you're correct.
“Not only do we entirely reject claims of an alleged ‘revolving door’ strategy, but we also believe it is inappropriate to include veterans in a report alleging such a strategy. Aside from the immense value of their experience, there is rightly an undertaking by government and society to ensure they are afforded the opportunity to build a career outside the armed forces when the time is right for them. Characterising this as part of a ‘revolving door strategy’ does them, and all veterans, a disservice.”
Why should people who been in the army be exempt when talking about a company in defence ?
The problem with the article cited as the source is that it's unclear as to how many are former public servants or serving ones. Of course, Peers hold their seat in the Lords by virtue of appointment and title, and unless they quit, the implication is that at least some of these are basically side gigs and hence, not a revolving door (that would be how regulatory capture happens in the US and the mere fact that one can straight up a member of the Upper House, however broadly powerless it nowadays, is frankly, asking for the appearance of impropriety). Also 18 people still work there and the PR firm might have screwed up by making a statement that needlessly bring up the question of whether those who no longer work for companies and the veterans mentioned overlap in part or whole. The list of names don't add up to to 30, but 26.
But it'd be really helpful if this obvious moral hazard is explicitly enumerated in the law somehow. Look, the Commons runs the country, and the PM can't violate the constitution (not that there is one and I don't think it's a coincidence that countries have tended to write theirs down, apologies of Bagehot). Why does the Lords still exist when they are basically a rump branch anyway? If the lower house can simply legislate every aspect of it, it's a liability and not that great of a look from afar, whether some sort of influence peddling actually occurred or not. In the US the standard is appearance of impropriety in addition to actual bias and conflict of interest (as in, more than appearance) because this kind of relationship erodes public trust. At some point, it can't be worth the potential PR problem to keep around a rump branch of the government. There's almost 1000 years worth of sunk cost so gotta know when to let go. Are the OBEs and CBEs and all that honours list stuff not good enough? I'm with David Bowie on this one.
They also hired the eldest grandson of the most famous British fascist (Oswald Mosley) to be head of the UK division.
No idea what the grandsons politics are like, and the guy has to work somewhere. But, you get the feeling mentioning his famous grandfather in the interview was ticking a lot of boxes for this gig.
And people still voting ReformUK while seeing what's happening across the pond with equally idiotic people who are in charge for last ~18 months + 4 years in their first term. Looks like they need to learn on their own skin
We need to hold the line — nobody who has held a job with the UK Government ever deserves to be employed by the private sector. Once you're in the government, you've made your choice, you live or die in the public sector. No more begging the private sector for mercy later.
Well in Canada it’s the opposite, people work in gov to build connections, then they go and start a business, use these connections to get contracts, all while hiring people that these connections know/relate to, to secure such contracts.
Bear in mind, there is far far worse corruption in Scotland (hub and spoke contracting for one, this system has private sector contractors advising the Scottish government on whether to accept their own bids). There is a reason why this specific paper is reporting on this specific corruption in the UK government (and never reports about corruption in Scotland).
It is everywhere, it is endemic, and part of the game is people who are involved briefing the media against other people who are involved in corruption. Almost all the people involved with this campaign that I could find are people on the UK's left-wing grift circuit (in short, you setup an "independent" company/think tank claiming that you are the only source free of big tech...and you are funded by an array of quasi-state bodies and coincidentally end up pumping out continuous pro-regime, anti-change agitprop...it is just layers and layers of corruption).
I guess like Americans, Britons also have forgotten all of those who paid by their blood to keep destroy these sort of people. Just like Americans, a large number of people know this is a crazy deal, but not enough to do something about it.
I worked for UK government for a few years. Then I went to the private sector. This happens a lot. Most of people who do, me included, it's because the public sector is so deep in incompetence and stupid politics that it is soul-crushing. Also to get anywhere you tend to have to take placement roles andmove around a lot and resort to a lot of arse licking and back-stabbing. Having a family or any stability is really difficult.
So you leave. And then they attempt to get you back with "enhanced pay" over your initial mediocre salary because there is suddenly a skills vacuum and everything is falling apart. They know who to reach out to because they want people who can slide back in and clean up the mess. All with redundancy again waved around constantly due to government reshuffles.
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