Across Whitehall, you can hear the bleating of Blairites, defeated by the system

Just after the 2001 election, the triumphant Tony Blair had a plan: he would split the Home Office in two. The PM had been appalled by its performance in New Labour’s first term and had already decided to move Jack Straw to the Foreign Office. But the problem, he feared, could only be solved by creating two new departments. Peter Mandelson urged him to proceed — yet, in the event, both were talked out of it by the Civil Service. I am told that Mr Blair has regretted this ever since.

He will now have his revenge from beyond the political grave. John Reid’s new blueprint to create two distinct departments — Justice and Security — is unlikely to be enacted until Mr Blair has left No. 10. But they represent an important political message which is being put, with varying degrees of clamour, by almost every Blairite surviving in Cabinet. It’s not just the Home Office which is unfit for purpose, in their view. It is most of the Civil Service. The machine simply does not work.

Horror stories are easily found in Whitehall — and are not just told by politicians. David Nicholson was not long into his job as National Health Service chief executive when he had to deal with the furore over mixed-sex wards. How many hospitals were affected? He wanted an answer on his desk in two days. Nothing happened. A journalist obtained this information a few days later by means of a simple ring-round. Yet the head of the NHS, commanding an army of some 1.3 million people, was unable to achieve the same result.

In education, Lord Adonis — whom I interview on page 18 — describes education reform as a constant, 16-hour-day battle against the system. He has literally been taken to court by groups trying to oppose City Academies, an updated version of the old grant-maintained schools.