The Spectators Notes

Fox-hunting, as Lord Burns famously put it, ‘seriously compromises the welfare of the fox’. Everyone agrees that the welfare of Dr Fox, the Defence Secretary, has been seriously compromised, so I suppose everyone is right. But amid all the aerating about standards in public life and ministerial codes, no one seems to worry who now exercises power in these situations. The answer is civil servants, and people should be worried by this. It was the permanent secretary of the MoD who was asked to look into Dr Fox’s case, and the Cabinet Secretary who took charge. Why is this considered appropriate? Civil servants are, as their name suggests, supposed to serve ministers, not discipline them. If they invigilate ministers’ conduct, it is only natural that they will tend to apply to them the standards which they would use for their own kind. They always detest the idea that ministers should be advised by anyone but themselves, so they will use petty scandals like this one to circumscribe them still further. Yet ministers are different, being directly answerable to the public who elected them to office. They have even heavier moral duties than civil servants, but they should also be freer, and should be able to insert various irregulars into the system. It doesn’t look as if Dr Fox did so very sensibly in this case, but he was entitled to try, and he should be judged on this by his political colleagues and public opinion, not by bureaucratic process. Prigs like Sir Alistair Graham say how disgraceful it is that the last word in handling this still rests with the Prime Minister. Actually, Mr Cameron has farmed out too much of his responsibility.

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Public schools are being urged to set up academy schools, as Wellington College has done. David Cameron called for it in his party conference speech last week, rather in the tone of a housemaster complaining that his boys are not doing enough social service.