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Tuesday, 3 December 2024

Too Many Sirs



Sir Chris Wormald confirmed as UK’s new top civil servant

Sir Chris Wormald has been appointed Cabinet Secretary, becoming the UK’s top civil servant and the Prime Minister’s most senior policy adviser.

The current permanent secretary of the Department for Health and Social Care succeeds Simon Case, who is stepping down at the end of the year on health grounds after four years in the role.



I've been wondering why I find the moniker "Sir Chris Wormald" vaguely unsatisfactory for a bod at the top of Tottering Castle (UK). Is there a touch of nominative determinism in the air? Something to do with Wormald and Civil Service worms?

Nope, I think it's the prospect of another "Sir" steering their Blob towards our disaster.

6 comments:

DiscoveredJoys said...

Various monarchs and governments have used 'signs' of various sorts to show that certain people are 'the right kind of people' for thousands of years.

So title, like 'Sir', are a sign of progress into an Inner Ring. C S Lewis thought that the idea of progress into Inner Rings was both seductive and a corruption https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/

A K Haart said...

DJ - thanks for the link, I've bookmarked it for later reading. Reminds me of the fashion for long, decorated fingernails among elites of ancient China. There always has to be something.

dearieme said...

Gongs: we should stop giving gongs to people for simply doing their jobs.

That way a gong could become an honour instead of an "honour".

A K Haart said...

dearieme - I agree, including celebrities and sports people who are merely good at what they do.

Tammly said...

Interestingly enough, Wormold was 'Our Man in Havana', a vacuum cleaner salesman who was charged with setting up a spy network for MI6 in Cuba. He did it by fakery so we all know what to expect now, don't we?

A K Haart said...

Tammly - oh dear, that's just what we need, another person at the top who makes things up.