U turns are good for you!

 For many years it has always seemd odd that people are praised for being single-minded and not being willing to admit to being wromg! Did Maggie Thatcher start this trend with her saying "This lady is not for turning". If she actually said that, I must admit that I have not checked. An interesting example was the recent statement by Paul Johnson, just retiring as head of the thinktank Institute for Fiscal Studies, who praised George Osborne for being single minded. I see no credit in being single-minded when the person is wrong. That is incerdibly dangerouswhen the individual has power. The opposite can also be dangerous as in Donald J Trump who has no mindedness at all.

As a mathematician being single minded can be helpful if the thing you are single minded about is true and you succeed. I have written two papers which showed that something that seemed clear was false. And once it is false it is false. Whilst some have become famous for their devotion to  one problem, famously Fermat's Last Theorem, Andrew Wiles, many have spent a lot of time and failed and probably and they have been forgotten.

What I fail to understand is that is seen as wrong to change or adapt a policy when it is not working. The implication that every policy will work out exactly as has been predicted is living in an unrealistic world. There is need to make plans and to base those plans are what one haopes is both a realistic analysis of the situation and a model of how things will turn out. Both of these are like;y to be wrong, hopefully only in minor ways, but the need to be flexible is essential. Why is this to be seen as failure rather than trying to get things right. 

Take a recent change of policy by the governement concerning grooming gangs. It would appear that the recent report, commisioned by the Labour government brought up issues that neirher Casey nor Starmer were fully aware of. Sensibly Starmer and the government have accepted and are going to implement the proposals made by the report they have commissioned. This might not have been needed if the recommendations previous reports had been acted on.

The only people who never makes mistakes are those who never do anything. This leads to the daft situation when those who do nothing and therefore make no mistakes are rewarded rather than rewrding those who get things right but make some mistakes. I was thinking about this when I was head of a mathematics and we were condifering who to make offers to. Departments were judged by how many students failed. Rationally one way to reduce failures is to only admit those who one thinks are 100% likely to pass. This has the disadvatage of meaning a significant group of students who would do welkl gat rejected. Another solution is to make the exams so easy that every student passes. I assume that the thinking behind the judgement is that deciding who will do well is reliable, anyone who believes such judgemnts is sadly mistaken.

Let us be proud of politiciams who have the ability to recgnise when things need to be changed and have the courage to make the changes.