Part of the fiasco this week of the data loss of …let’s spell it out… twenty five million records… is know doubt because of ‘transformation’ and ‘change’ and ‘cultural change’. Amazing what we do and don’t learn.

I’ve been reading ‘What Dare I think’ by Julian Huxley, first published in 1931. He makes the argument that there’s a difference between *change* and *progress*.

I recently had the misfortune to spend an hour on a London bus. Once upon a time, a trip on  number 38 routemaster from Clapton to Shaftesbury Avenue was almost as much fun as a night out itself in the west end.

Now? When the bus doors open a loud beeping noise blasts everyone; when it moves off another amplified noise wakes everyone up. When the indicator is used another noise.  OK, this was a number 55 bus. Maybe the new 38 bendy bus is better. I doubt it becaues the latest nonsense is that there is an endless commentary as to where the bus is; ‘Linwood Road’ ‘Mare Street’ ‘Hackney Road’. Except it doesn’t even stick to the roads you recognise. I lived in Clapton on and off for nearly a dozen years and I would have sworn the bus was in the Lower Clapton Rd, not Linwood Road.

And just to really make sure you don’t doze off all this is now interspaced with various shouting messages; don’t smoke, don’t cough, don’t forget your bag of shopping from the Clapton Superstore.

Change? Yes. Progress - well that’s very debatable. And one of the biggest changes has been that buses used to have conductors as well as drivers that helped people on and off, and turned a blind eye if you were really hard up and needed to go somewhere, and made everyone feel safer, and they got to know people which helped create a bit more of a community and gave people *human* contact.

And why was that? Because at one time the London bus workers were well organised and had a good strong militant union. And once that was broken the conditions of the bus workers got worse - and so to of the passengers.

Change and progress. Yes, definitely two different things and they don’t happen in a vacuum. And I can’t help wondering if 25 million records would have gone missing if there were stronger unions and the voices of people who do the work were listened to and heard.