Beware, Liberals: the deliverologist cometh

For me, the scariest signal yet sent by the Trudeau government was bringing English “deliverologist” Sir Michael Barber to their Alberta cabinet retreat, to tell them how they’re doing. They imported a British con man who was a perfect accessory during the Blair years, and — now that slippery Tony is gone, replaced by the rawer, more authentic Jeremy Corbyn — he moves on to the colonies. Barber has delivered his spiel in Australia, the Punjab and Maryland. Are we impressed to be in that company?

It’s an early warning sign that the Trudeau folk are starting to believe their own BS. I’m not particularly against BS, everyone in power deploys it; the danger point comes when you start gulping it yourself and not just spooning it out to others. That’s when the vultures start swanning around the retreats.

CBC’s Terry Milewski interviewed colleague Rosie Barton, who was on site, re: the scam. Rosie seemed dubious but said the Brit told his marks they were doing rawther well. Terry, sounding like a true rube, i.e., someone who has no idea that’s what he is — or a candidate for the pseuds corner feature in the British satirical paper Private Eye — said he counts on Rosie for hip terms like deliverology. It’s about as fresh as the 500 channel universe.

I happen to own a copy of Barber’s Deliverology 101, from 2011. I won’t say I read it, it’s not really meant for that, but I sort of flapped through it once. It’s loaded with charts, checklists, bullet points: nobody reads these things but they’re meant to make you feel like a practical, can-do type, not someone who wastes time on books — a profile rife in the upper regions of education administrators, who happen to be Barber’s natural habitat.

I’ve avoided defining deliverology because it doesn’t actually exist. It’s just mouthfuls of verbiage. Barber told Paul Wells of Maclean’s, at an earlier cabinet retreat, that he’d been recruited to “the prime minister’s delivery unit” in order to rescue Blair’s government.

“It’s not tremendously exciting, but it’s really important, getting the priorities, the definitions of success, the trajectories, the data” — I should’ve said gobfuls of verbiage. You could do a close analysis of his language to show how vacuousness is literarily constructed but it seems to hypnotize people like Wells, who views himself as deeply skeptical. If a Canadian talked in such vapours, Wells would shred him. What is it — the accent?

What Blair really delivered was a continuation of Thatcherism, in cheerier tones (which trickled down to our own “left,” in the person of Thomas Mulcair) and then, inevitably, the current Tory government there. Blairites like Barber simply climbed off the gravy train in the metropole and relocated to the hinterland.

He now shills for Pearson, the education publishing powerhouse and main profiteer from high-stakes standardized testing everywhere. John Oliver took Pearson apart on his show. The company is partly responsible for the stupid waste of time on testing in Ontario. Just this week, the U.S. reported math scores down and others flatlining, which is the universal pattern: a brief bump due to novelty, then level off or decline. But there are mountains of money to be made from providing the tests, study guides, teacher courses and markers, some right off Craigslist.

Barber’s other U.K. legacy was the creation of “academies” to replace the public system in the name of “school choice” and open the door to privatization and profits. This week as well, the Tories there said they’d be “watering down” the academies freight train since “ordinary schools” perform just as well.

True, Barber’s resourceful self-promotion doesn’t compare to his master, Blair, who’s gone on to rake it in everywhere (like his master, Bill Clinton). But what really bothers me is that some Liberals who schlep Barber to their events may also be looking forward to signing on at Pearson, or Mckinsey, where Barber worked previously, at the point, not necessarily far off, when they too leave public service and cash in. Bernie Sanders, where are you when we need you? Can you picture Bernie bringing in a toff with a shtick to mesmerize his cabinet with lectures on deliverology — a term drawn from the world of pizza?

It’s so Trumpish: you suss out what people want to hear and supply it. End of story. Ding dong. Oh, could someone get the door? It’s the deliver(olog)y man. Rick Salutin appears every Friday.