The Ginger Mumbly

There's a very telling joke that the Greeks tell about themselves. A Greek man goes down to hell. In hell there are many pits of fiery brimstone in which souls are damned for all eternity. Each pit is guarded by a phalanx of daemons, except one which is unattended. The devil escorts the Greek man to this pit and is all ready to throw him in when the man asks, “Why is this pit left unattended when all the others are so heavily guarded?” “Oh that's easy” says the devil. “This is the Greek pit. It doesn't need guarding, if anybody looks like they're about to escape, the others will pull him back.” Bringing this back to our own shores this is what I call the “Dragons' den effect.” Maybe it's no coincidence that a Greek is one of the Dragons. 

What I wanted to write about was this hash tag on twitter – #blueskyhilton. This became a place to suggest “daft” ideas parodying David Cameron's “blue sky thinker” Steve Hilton. To me this is just another example of the “Dragon's Den” effect. I'm sure if you talk to the producers of Dragon's Den they'll say that they're in the business of celebrating and encouraging innovation. I rather suspect they're in the business of mocking and pillorying people for daring to have ideas, for daring to think, FOR DARING TO TRY TO CRAWL OUT OF THE PIT. 

When I was working for myself as a consultant I met a woman who's business was to support and advice designers. She claimed that she'd got a phone call from the people who make Dragon's den. Were they asking her to put them in touch with designers who had particularly innovative ideas? No. They were asking her if she knew any “really weird” looking people, or perhaps any people with “really dumb ideas,” that they could make fun of on the show. 

In one way #blueskyhilton is about having a go at David Cameron in anyway possible – and that's just the nature of politics. But I think there's also an element of the Dragons' Den effect. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if Cameron's existing ideas were any good. But what the #blueskyhilton brigade seem to be saying is that they'd actually rather have tired old cripple-kicking, the return of capital punishement and sending social mobility back to the 19th century than any attempt at new ideas and new thinking. 

If there's any chance at all that Steve Hilton can help this government come up with some better policies, I think he should keep at it, maybe one of them could lead us all out of this particular pit of damnation.