Sue Gray to tell government watchdog when job talks with Labour began
Ex-senior civil servant Sue Gray will tell the government appointments watchdog when she first had talks about becoming Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff, following Tory anger over the proposed move, the BBC has been told.
Labour's Jonathan Ashworth told the BBC the job offer proved his party was serious about being in government.
But some Tories have argued the move undermines civil service impartiality.
This suggests there is probably not much civil service impartiality left to undermine. It is more myth than genuine ethos. Which we knew but it is useful to have it confirmed. Starmer appears to be comfortable with that, as was Blair.
It may be one reason why the Tories have moved so far from the old centre ground. They seem to have made a strategic political move, bringing them closer to a thoroughly managerialist civil service. There is no point trying to reform it. Reforms are opposed by leaks, obstruction and covert hostile briefings.
If you can't beat them...
4 comments:
There's reason to wonder if the MPs are becoming the Public Relations team serving the Civil Service.
In which case voting for a PR team seems like wasted effort.
DJ - maybe civil service PR is both the easy option and the only one where official backing offers a chance of appearing competent.
Both parties have adopted Bismarck's pragmatic conservatism: "Politics is the art of the possible". In a way, that's to be applauded, but the important issue here is who do they believe when they are told that things are impossible. Currently, they are being told that by the Civil Service and other "establishment" organisations.
At University in the '70s, I read a really interesting little book of essays called "Why is Britain Becoming Harder to Govern?". The fear then seemed to be that the ungovernability of Britain would lead to some sort of revolution or complete anarchic breakdown. (For left-wingers, of course, this was a hope rather than a fear). But now it doesn't seem to be going to work out that way. Government failures will not lead to the machinery of government being smashed; they will lead to that machinery getting ever heavier, more complicated, and sclerotic. The supertanker can no longer be turned.
Sam - government failures may also lead to the machinery of government having an even greater focus on controlling narratives to disguise the failures. We see it already with the pandemic, Net Zero, immigration and a lack of interest in doing something about the BBC.
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