“What’s going on here is the construction of a very interesting emotional accountability sink which might be nicknamed “Tell Me More About This Not Our Fault Theory, I Find It Strangely Compelling”. If you create an image of the planning system as so ridiculous that it’s literally impossible to build anything, then nobody can criticise you for failing to build the specific thing that was your job. If you proliferate anecdotes about underwater fish discos and words with no vowels in them hahaha, then you avoid awkward questions about what actually went wrong. In general, the aim is to encourage a complete resignation that the whole planning system is broken, so as to avoid consideration of what specific things are actually broken”
https://backofmind.substack.com/p/the-only-growth-industry-is-excuses