Cameron's real enemy will be the machine

Andrew W

Quite right. It was already obvious that the Civil Service needed root and branch reform if anything was ever going to be achieved when Tony Blair came into office. Tony Blair didn't recognise this. David Cameron needs to.

Danvers

Or you could look at it in the opposite way, which is that after a while, ministers "go native" lose the drive to get radical ideas through, and a period of opposition is needed to refresh them. Labour's failure to reform social security can be traced back to the sacking of Frank Field in 1998. That was down to Brown, not the "machine".

Simon

A fair point. I remember the same point being made about Labour's devolution plans before 97. Unfortunately, Whitehall obeyed. If its done in the fresh flush of victory it might be achieved. By the way, what's happening re Hain. If any of us in the private sector blundered like that we would be experiencing the social security system at fist hand by now!

CS

Blair didn't lose battles against the civil service machine. The civil service never opposes government in anything these days as it's senior grades are far more interested in climbing the greasy pole than in ensuring good government. This cliché about the wicked civil service being the obstacle to all reform is the lazy excuse of ranting hacks like Littlejohn and incompetent politicians who get into power and then meddle with the machinery of government to such an extent that nothing CAN get done properly. If you truly want reform, try coming up with some workable policies.

TGF UKIP

"Cameron had best be ready to win them" and the question of how best to be ready lies at the heart of a very crucial and fundamental debate. On one side lie the "incrementalists" supporting the view that pre-election it's most important "not to frighten the horses" and carry on behaving and sounding like SocDems. Then, "the incrementalists" argue, bit by bit with the election won the Tories can begin to be conservatives and steadily implement right of centre measures. That view is I believe simply self-delusion. If,and big if, the Tories do win it is likely to be by a fairly narrow margin and they will face not only the Guardianistas of the civil service, but a ferocious Labour Opposition, an overtly hostile national broacaster, a battery of manual and "professionals" unions and a phalanx of left wing, taxpayer funded, public service lobbying groups masquerading as "charities." On the other side from "the incrementalists" are what I would call "the mandators" who would argue that the only way that you can take on such entrenched opposition is to have a clear and unambiguous democratic mandate for such radical reform. In short if you Tories do really believe in right wing, conservative policies you've got to be prepared to argue for them openly in front of the electorate and win the indisputable right to implement them in office. The Left is too deeply entrenched in the UK's institutions for an incremental approach to stand a prayer. Hostile though the terrain might have been for the fomidable Mrs T but after this past decade of Labour politicization just think of how difficult it's going to be next time.

Verity

First things first. If Cameron wins, he should have the steely nerve (which I don't think he's got) to announce that the CS is to be reduced by one-third over a two-year period. (He should go on to do this.) Meanwhile, the threat will engender a new spirit of cooperation in Whitehall. I could be wrong.

CS

TGF UKIP makes a good point. We know why so many commentators on the right can't handle Cameron. It's because they see the Tory manifesto being overwhelmingly rejected in 1997, again in 2001 and again in 2005. And they think the electorate only rejected it because it wasn't extreme enough. They deduce that the electorate keep rejecting the Tories because they're just waiting until they get a Tory manifesto which hits the poor harder, hates the gays with more passion, wants to send more blacks home and wants to destroy more public services. Then they'll vote for it in their millions. The truth is that the large Tory majorities of the 80s were the result of incompetence among the opposition and the splitting of the anti-Tory vote. They weren't the result of the nation embracing Mrs T with open arms. Peter Hitchens, for example, is little more than a right wing mirror image of Tony Benn. He can't see that people vote against policies because they don't want them, not because those policies aren't extreme enough. Far too many right wing commentators would much prefer Cameron foaming at the mouth with extremist policies and nowhere in the polls. Because they're sufficiently insulated financially from the predations of government. So the likelihood of a Tory government ever being elected again is a dilettante interest to them rather than something that will practically affec their lives for the better. And by the way, since when did the views of Richard Littlejohn start being quoted in The Spectator? I thought it had more self-respect.

Fraser Nelson

CS, Littlejohn writes now and again for The Spectator and we're lucky to have him when he does. The Observer says he is a "distant, bastard cousin of Thomas Nash, Daniel Defoe and Alexander Pope... Like or loathe him, he’s the real, talented deal." For what it's worth, I consider him a simply brilliant journalist and if you don't read him then you're missing out a significant chunk of the British popular (as opposed to Westminster) opinion.

Trafalgar

If Cameron is annoying Littlejohn then he is surely on the correct path. I agree with Verity. The entire public sector should be reduced by a freeze on employment in much the same fashion as Sarkozy is doing in France(can't we have Sarko as our leader on a six-month loan?). Brown is correct to say he has increased employment in 10 years but as we all know this has been achieved through an increase in public sector workers (800k whose pensions are rock-solid unlike those in the private sector) and cheap immigrants.

john problem

Oh fiddle! It just isn't that serious. When one gets into power, one immediately commissions a review of everything that the media wish to talk about, puts one's feet up on the desk and gets out the governmental travel plans.

max Kaye

My attitude to the CS is similar to John Bolton's to the UN. If one third of the CS was to disappear tomorrow what difference would it make to anyone in productive employment? p
Probably zilch.

Jessica, Merseyside

Glad you have drawn attention to Littlejohn, I absolutley love his columns. He is one of the best and funniest writers around.

Purple Scorpion

Just put it in the manifesto, tell the CS they have no choice, and publicly task an ambitious junior minister to deliver it.

steve_roberts

Bair didn't lose the battle on welfare reform to civil service intransigence. He surrendered when he fired Frank Field for breaking Labour taboo.

Nicholas

CS's first post is spot-on (I speak from experience). The joke in the "Yes Minister" series was that Sir Humphrey's "Yes" always meant "No". Over the last 10 years, "Yes Minister" from the mouths of the conformists who reach the top means precisely that ("and by the way Minister have I abased myself enough for you"). There needs to be a new Nortcote-Trevelyan commission to cut the Civil Service back to necessary core functions (there are some). Much of its work today is useless (when not harmful), essentially a job creation programme. Littlejohn, on a good day and on the right subject, is worth reading.

J

I've been at the very heart of welfare reform over the last 5 years and can tell you that Littlejohn couldn't be more wrong. The civil service have moved heavan and earth (and worked as hard as anyone I know in the private sector doing trading or investment banking) to deliver new schemes in record time whilst the number of civil servants has been cut by a quarter. Exactly the same would happen for a Tory government. However I spent 10 minutes on Tuesday reading through the Tory "Green Paper" and there is basically nothing new in there - it is a restatement of current government policy. Private sector involvement check, new medical test check, payment by results check, withdrawal of benefits for non-partipation check. If you look at page 52 & 52 for the summary the only thing that is a real difference is that the Tories are proposing to fine disabled people on incapacity benefit or employment and support allowance in the future if they don't take up "reasonable" jobs - for some reason they didn't seem keen on publising that when they briefed on it. You'll find no complaints from the civil service about implimenting that (and anyhow 60% of the country is served by private providers from April anyhow). The other thing you might want to note is that the Tories also announced in their section on financing that they would increase the overall spend on welfare programmes by retaining the £1bn a year DWP DEL budget and then paying another £1bn or so to pay the private companies to deliver out of AME savings. The 2nd point was already announced by the Government back in January 2006 however they didn't commt to retaining the DWP DEL budget (in fact the DWP DEL budget is being cut by 21% in real terms over 3 years). So I'd be careful about reading the fine print! At the centre the civil service is working at full capacity to deliver huge programmes of welfare reform and overseeing the privatisation of huge swaths of the delivery arm - which is what people seem to be asking for!

Tiberius

"The Left is too deeply entrenched in the UK's institutions for an incremental approach to stand a prayer". In my opinion, TGF, it is because of the entrenched Leftism that you have to adopt an incremental approach. A revolutionary set of policies on welfare, education or health, no matter how much they are welcome or needed, will be met with greater resistance than a policy drive which enforces change using the "death by a thousand cuts" method. What may be at issue is whether a new government can ever maintain the momentum to keep brandishing the scalpel, but doubt over that should not be a reason to opt for a confrontational approach, which is far more likely to result in no change at all. What is so depressing is that no new Tory government, even one led, say by John Redwood or David Davis, is likely to be able to effect effective change in any one area of policy in one Parliament, so dug in are the beneficiaries of the New Labour Government.

Charlie T

"CS" postings prove yet again theres nothing so supercilious and moronic as the rantings of an extreme left wing windsock*.Particularly one who poses as a voice of moderation and decency. *Charles Kennedy`s description of Kinnock rather than the more common windbag sobriquet

CS

Whereas the postings of Charlie T (who seems to be some form of right wing Tony Benn - "they keep rejecting us because our policies aren't extreme enough") prove yet again that there's none so blind as will not see. Three General Election thrashings and people like Charlie T are still stumbling into the nation's furniture, hands firmly clasped over their eyes. Let me explain it slowly, Charlie T - the Conservative Party did not spring fully armed from Margaret Thatcher's head in 1979. There is a Conservative tradition which goes beyond the I'm Alright Jack attitudes of the tax slashers and minority bashers. If Cameron restricts his appeal to the willfully blind, we'll have many more years of Tory Opposition. What he appears to be trying to do (in the teeth of Charlie T's ilk) is to convince the electorate that a Tory manifesto can be a document addressing their needs rather than a masturbatory fantasy for right wing fetishists. And, Verity, the Civil Service is outrageously overmanned but the way to tackle that it is surely to decide what public services we want and tailor the size of the public payroll accordingly. That may lead to a staffing cut of 23% or 54%. But to pluck comfortably round figures such as "one third over two years" out of the air just apes the target politics of Gordon Brown. Let's forget creating a system which works, it's much easier to pick a headline-grabbing statistic and impose it on the public services willy nilly.

Robin Parr

Asking the civil service to actively engage in cutting red tape or unnecessary services is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. An old friend who was a government minister for 22 in 4 different ministries years told me that "He never once got the better of his civil sevants if they were firmly opposed to his ideas." And he was no flaming radical either. Few ministers are in the job long enough to wage the long term campaign they need to do if they are to stand any chance of beating the entrenched civil servant who does not want to see his empire reduced.

Caroline

J - an enlightening post - particularly the unadvertised intention to fine the disabled - thank you very much.