Blithe Assurances

Posted by Verity on January 22, 2024 in Covid-19, Living today, News, Pandemic, Politics, Rants | 2 comments

‘Blithe assurances’ is the phrase journalist Nick Wallis used to describe the Post Office’s airy rebuttal of any charge of computer malfunction. What I have found most frustrating about the whole saga (alongside the delay in compensation, lying in high places, etc. etc.) is the complete reluctance/inability to engage with the detail, as evidenced by the fact that those laughably entitled ‘investigators’ or ‘auditors’ had absolutely no technical expertise. (To anyone still doubting the fallibility of software, here’s an easy proof to do at home. Open Word, type in an asterisk, followed by a space. You will probably find the asterisk has magically morphed into a bullet point. What you type is not what you get.)

Unfortunately this country seems to be run on blithe assurances. Indeed, it was his mastery of the Blithe Assurance that got Boris Johnson elected, and still maintains his popularity with some. Already there are mutterings from various quarters that Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are just not optimistic (a.k.a. blithe) enough.

The Government’s go-to Blithe Assurance in the face of any charge that they are failing to tackle this or that is a bland announcement of the millions of pounds they putting into this enterprise, with, if we’re lucky, a further statistic on how much of an increase it is on the previous year’s funding. Whether this amount is actually enough to address the problem seems to be completely beside the point, as does whether they have actually started to spend the money and taken any action (never mind any admission that they’ve had to pinch money from some other equally deserving budget to be able to make this announcement).

Up there in the chart of Blithe Assurance megahits is also the mantra ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’. Who is deciding what constitutes ‘wrong’ here? The Ten Commandments? A loophole in the law you could drive a bus through? Or perhaps the speaker’s own twisted code of ethics? The MPs gaming the expenses system, Prince Andrew, Michelle Mone – they’ve all trotted that one out. (And now Mr Mone and his missus are complaining that they’ve been hung out to dry!)

But beware: this Blithe Assurance works better for some people than others. Sadly, if you are a poverty-stricken parent caught nicking a tin of baby formula from a supermarket to feed your child, you may find that ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ will not get you very far, no matter the altitude of the moral high ground you are occupying.

The next Blithe Assurance is ‘We take X very seriously’. I’m sure most people are convinced of the empty blandness of this statement already, but the Covid Inquiry has confirmed, in the case of the pandemic at least, that it was not so much a question of not taking it seriously, but in fact finding it all rather a hoot.

The moral of this rant is, when next you are faced with a monolithic Blithe Assurance, start digging. There is bound to be a monstrous truth below the surface.