Whitehall farce

field

Is anyone surprised any longer by this sort of thing?

Lee Jakeman

Without trying to sound like a Marxist, it's very much a "class" thing. The ruling class is incurably corrupt. This just convinces me that a grass-roots, nationalist revolution in England is brewing.

Tiberius

Having withstood the best efforts of Fifth Columnists, Brownshirts, and the Comintern, it really is something that Britain has fallen to such depths as a result of the lazy thinking and self-loathing of its own brand of Leftist politics.

Arthur W.

Melanie, you state that there are various interlocked reasons for this etc., and we all agree. But what is behind those reasons? Why are they doing it to us. Is it the same as they're doing to Israel? Why do they hate us so?

Hawkeye

50 is incompetent, 10,000 looks like deliberate policy - Gramsci marches on.

EyeSee

Your last paragraph Melanie is 100% spot on. It is the major theme that needs to be analysed and reviewed. We need to look at everything from the corruption of the education system in the 60's to the deletion of personal morality championed by Blair.

James Whittall

I believe it is deliberate, no matter what they say this government will continue to dilute the British way of life by fair means or foul.

Allan Sharp

Control of our borders wasn't lost: it was deliberately ended and it is policy to keep it that way. What we see now is not 'incompetence' in the domain of policy: getting caught out was the incompetent part.

Hereford

I'm not too sure about Melanie's comments on politicisation. I think the Civil Service is happy to obfuscate and cloud issues equally happily for whatever government happens to be in power at the time. The reason for this is that, as Melanie quite rightly says, the Civil Service is intrinsically incompetent. Supporting Government Ministers in obfuscation is a convenient vehicle through which to cover this incompetence. And let's face it, who takes the can every time? Yes the Minister. So the Senior Civil Service has power, but no accountability. Not only that but it is inherently resistant to making changes which will improve its competence. However, this is not surprising, bearing in mind that the poacher is continually being asked to play gamekeeper. An example is the Professional Skills in Government initiative. This was created through a conversation between, i think, John Birt and Tony Blair, whereby Mr Birt revealed to Mr Blair, that most of the Civil Service were not qualified in the roles they were undertaking i.e. Finance Directors with no financial qualifications whatsoever, but they had good Oxbridge degrees and were good eggs. Bit like Gus himself probably. Blair turns to Gus O'Donnell and says Gus, most of your senior bods aren't competent, sort it. Gus reaslises that if he really sorts this, half his senior mates will be out of a job in short time, so the whole issue is fudged. The Civil Service finds a way to comply with instructions without actually achieving the stated aim. The result is a set of competencies which Senior Civil Servants are "expected to develop towards", rather than a requirement for them to be professionally qualified. So, it's not surprising really that, when you look at the post war history of the definition and implementation of Government policy, it is littered with failure and disaster.

Alcuin

On the button, once again. Should the Tories win the next election, Cameron will have his work cut out to sort out the general malaise that has followed the Sofa style government introduced by Blair, and lulled us all into just accepting this outrageous stuff, as there is nothing we can do about it. The first thing he must do it to rebalance the triad on which our constitution stands (Commons, Lords, Monarch) which, already grossly skewed in favour of the Commons, has been further hijacked by the Executive in a typical display of Socialist caucus leverage. We would also like Elizabeth Filkin back, with the full power and remit that she had when she was appointed.

George Steiner

I am of course just a simple observer of the British scene. But do the Brits themselves have abything to do with this. You know, the police are incompetent but British. The educational system, teachers and all, incompetent but British. The civil service incompetent, but British. The government,incompetent but British. This place must be a dictatorship and a clever one at that.

DaSarge

I have watched this minister on TV at Question Time. She is shallow, vapid, and unserious. Why she has been given responsibility for anything more than her checkbook is beyond comprehension.

steve

As a former whitehall minion of very humble status, I have come to the conclusion that the Civil Service is basically an expensive way of doing useless things, badly. It has not been radically overhauled since the Northcote/Trevelyan report back in 1854. Back in those days of course the home office (for instance) had a maybe 2 or 3 dozen employees, and the command, control and accountability procedures adequate then, don't work for the massed legions the civil service has become. In my view the civil servoce is now so vast and unweildy that it may well be irreformable and the best option may well be almost full abolition And replace with what? I hear you cry. Well I concede that ministers/parliament etc need a core of support staff, and that there are some items (largely around "Law & War") that I would be deeply uncomfortable with being out of government control. But as for the rest of it either a) contract it out, or b)just don't do it. To take a couple of examples. a) do we really need to employ thousands of people on permanent contracts to bang in numbers from tax returns all day? b) do we really need any gov strategy for sport? As far as I can see gov intervention equals hopeless waste, incompetence and squander, in this particular area. Consider the tale of two stadiums - Wembley is rebuilt at a cost of £750m and Twickenham is rebuilt at a cost of approx £200m, I leave it to you, to guess which had the benefit of civil service input. Apologies if this got a bit long winded