Mediocre Ministers go with the flow. Civil servants present them with issues to consider and problems to tackle. The Minister accepts the inherited policies and is guided by the submissions, often consenting to the civil service description of the problem and the preferred solution. The minister will let the civil service organise the diary which will shape the agenda and define the problems to solve in the way the diary master wants.
The advice has usually been through many hands, and a consensus has been reached. If options are offered the preferred solution will often run alongside clearly bad choices. The advice may suffer from being a compromise view. The Minister really needs to know the range of views and examine whether a different option could be better.
Quite often the best response will be to do nothing. The problem may be contrived or beyond government power to resolve. Any further intervention may make things worse. Doing nothing is an undervalued option, leading us to governments that over claim and underperform.
In recent years from Blair onwards there has been abuse of the power to legislate, with various laws Ā instructing the government itself what to do in the future. This is fatuous. An honest government can announce what it Ā is going to do and then over the years do it. It does not need to embed it in law. These so called laws never have clauses to impose penalties on Ministers and senior civil servants for breaking them. If the government finds it no longer wants to do what it said or is incapable of doing it it can anyway repeal the requirement.
Ministers are most wanted by officials when the department has made a major mistake. The Minister may have known nothing about it or the mistake may predate the Ministerās arrival Ā in the department. It will however be the Ministers job to explain the failure and remedial action to Parliament, and to take the blame. Internal review will always show no single official or small group was in sole and continuous charge. No- one is to blame and maybe a lack of resources can be blamed again however much is being spent on failure. .
August 20, 2024
Good morning.
Essentially, the Minister is there to rubber stamp what has already been decided. Who knew ?
/sarc
As I have said here numerous times – You can always tell where the government has been by the mess it leaves behind.
I once worked with an ex-civil serpent who was at a minor level in the system. To quote one of my former colleagues.
“You do like a meeting, don’t you Owen ?”
You see, Owen, thanks to his CS training, had already decided on what course of action that we were all expected to take, but did not want to be held responsible for any adverse outcome. So he would engineer a meeting where he could get ‘collective’ agreement on what ‘he’ wanted and so, when it all went wrong, which it usually did, it was a collective decision not his, so he was not solely to blame.
Sounds familiar ?
August 20, 2024
Sound very familiar.
The current main āgroupthinkā lunacies are Net Zero/Green Energy Super Power, Open Door Immigration, State sector wage increases will pay for themselves, VAT on School fees and abolition of Non Doms will raise net tax, the Lammy etc. race baiting agenda, ever more taxation and more government, the woke lunacy, the Starsi Starmer agenda to kill free speech, the blatant two tier justice systemā¦
Now they even want to treat Misogyny as āterrorismā doubtless this will not include certain religious practices such enforced requirements for women to cover everything but their hands and face in public or even wear a niqab complete face covering.
August 20, 2024
Good to hear JR on talk radio agreement that Doctors are under paid. Junior doctors start on about Ā£34K (in London) and it rises to about Ā£60K by age 35. But they mainly have student debt of circa Ā£100K and have given up 5 or 6 years of income to study plus interest on this. To repay this debt over 10 years taking them to age circa 35 takes about Ā£26,000 of this gross salary for ten years. So if in these ten years the average salary is Ā£47K gross. The real income is really Ā£21,000 after tax and NI and commuting costs they are left with circa Ā£15K. Rent on a room in London is about Ā£12,000 PA. So how the hell are they expected to live? They have worked for 15 or 16 years including university and have zero to show for it. Just subsistence living.
My son has just had to pay Ā£500 for an exam he is expected to sit too. The NHS do not pay for this or even his comp. prof. fees.
August 20, 2024
Looked at like this they get less than the minimum wage for 10 years or 15 or 16 years if you include university.
Similarly bright lawyers are paid about three times as much and with only three years of university debt and unpaid years.
Even the 22% increase is not remotely enough.
August 20, 2024
It is always easy to be wise after the event but the Bayesian yacht does seem to have an absurdly high (246ft-high mast). How was it ever expected to quickly right itself with that huge lever in the water and wind? I suppose in the world of super yachts & skyscrapers size, show and appearance matters far more than function and practicality. Rather like so much of government. Built in Italy it seems. More decent engineer please.
Condolences to all involved.
August 20, 2024
Lifelogic
Rather like the larger and more modern day cruise ships with huge and high slab sides, which make them far more vulnerable and prone to the variations of the wind.
Hence the reason some have broken away from their moorings in the last few years, as the ropes could not take the increased strain.
August 20, 2024
Indeed.
August 20, 2024
The purpose of the high mast is to have a large sail area which must be counterbalanced by a massive keel so its unlikely that the wind force against the mast alone would cause the yacht to capsize provided the keel wasn’t damaged.
August 20, 2024
It looks very much like Ms. Gray is ruling Britain at the moment
Another supposedly impartial civil Serpent who has eventually shown her colours
Never voted for, unheard of before but now dictating government policy.
August 20, 2024
Seems so, David Stakey is good on this his Stasi Starmer Video I think.
August 20, 2024
IW,
Read Guido another Labour activist appointed into another top civil service role which looks into propriety of civil service!! Former Sue Greyās post who got rid of Johnson and Labour finding her son an MP position!
Where is the leader of the opposition hammering home institutional corruption! Oh, in California after his love fest with Two-Teir Keir!
August 20, 2024
CS meetings take great care when discussing proposed actions, and minute taking on Action points.
It has to be contrived to avoid any direct naming of responsibility.
Praise is acceptable, blame never.
August 20, 2024
What do mediocre Ministers do?
Alas they nearly all seem to be mediocre the ones who go along with the mad group think seem to keep their ministerial positions. The ones who suggest sensible policies that would have helped the economy and saved the country Ā£ billions (like JR largely stayed on the back benches). Or were kicked out for bullying or similar. We also had cross party support on insane policies like:- the ERM membership in order to join the EURO, HS2, Covid Lockdowns, abolition of grammar schools, the net harm vaccinations (14,000 claims to far and to claim you have to be 60% disabled to get a mere Ā£120k), to be a green energy super power, net zero, burning wood at Draz and pretending it saves CO2, pretending CO2 is causing a climate emergency, pretending waking saves CO2ā¦
August 20, 2024
Robert Jenrick on Talk Radio just now. He is still on the side of the totally insane net zero policy like zealot Miliband. I assume lefty Jenrick (private school then history at Camb) is either a grade one fool or lying because he thinks the 221 Tory MPs are mainly net zero loons so as to get into the last round. What hope is there for this moronic party? A party that wants open door low skilled immigration, net zero, rip off unreliable energy, big government, dire public services, lockdowns, net harm covid vaccines and ever higher taxes.
So nothing remotely conservative. Perhaps 10% of their MPs are at best and even some of those are net zero loons like Jenrick.
August 21, 2024
Sad but true.
I have very reluctantly come to the only possible conclusion : There is no chance of a return to Conservative principles if we rely on the current make up of the Conservative Parliamentary Party.
An electoral pact with Reform is our only way forward from here.
.
August 20, 2024
LL,
I think they got radicalised at Oxbridge along the same lines as Philby did in the sixties. Oxbridge ripe for Hoover type investigation.
August 20, 2024
This is why I believe it is important for Ministers to have some sort of real life or work experience of the department they are supposed to overseeing, and be able to see through, or have concerns, or a second sense about the Bull..it being presented to them.
Likewise the constant merry go round movement of Ministers to different departments, some on an almost annual basis by the Prime minister, does not give anyone any real time to get familiar with their brief.
August 20, 2024
Anyone with any common sense will soon know if their manger is any good or not within a few days.
If the management is poor, they will simply get played along and taken for a ride.
August 20, 2024
In rectifying the appalling situation you describe, any political party needs to up the qualty of its MPs. There should be no such thing as a career in politics that is not preceeded by a successful career elswhere. This might then produce a pool from which really able ministers can emerge.
The musical chair career of ministers only reflects poor choices by whoever is Prime Minister, and gives the current CS an easy ride. A parliamentary stint of five years as a minister should be the norm. A Beaverbrooke insertion from outsids should be permitted if necessary. One from the board of Rothschild’s might be a good move as Chancellor, to re-orient priorities and revert the UK to an enterprise economy from its current dependency economy. A 25 year plan, subject to annual adjustment is essential, subject also to outside influences. Reflect how we currently live with the mal influences of Blair. Left behind as IEDs to catch the unwary. Our supreme court for one, designed to subvert Parliament.
As I said yesterday the CS should be contractually restrained and its heads of department subject to parliamentary interrogation and investigation should things go pear shaped, when their actions stray beyond government policy. Essentially they are servants of government not executives of their own pilicy or that of any outside body, such as the EU or WEF.
The above is a blueprint for a successful government and the UK. I hope that Reform have realised this and will be fully prepared should they gain power in 2029. Gaining power, through the trust of the electorate, is only a first step. They need to arrive with legislation drafted and hands on the swamp plug chain.
August 20, 2024
We knew this Sir John, thanks to Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn – the writers of Yes, Minister. Some people thought it was a sitcom; it was really an exposĆ©.
It looks like the process was designed and intended to ensure that no-one responsible for a failure can ever be identified or held to account. So failure is baked-in to the system.
August 20, 2024
Yes, quite so. I understand Anthony Jay had a number of ‘informants’ who told him their stories. Your analysis must be correct; if there’s no consequences for errors and failures, then nobody will prevent them from happening.
We are now in the realms of political absurdity with Starmer. Dogma and arrogance running wild without question or limit; and reasonable criticism prevented by legally defining it as ‘hate speech’. This will not end well.
August 20, 2024
Indeed.
Bernard Woolley:
It used to be said there were two kinds of chairs to go with two kinds of Ministers: one sort that folds up instantly, the other sort goes round and round in circles.
August 20, 2024
I think Sir John, you have summed up the ACC, GW, NZ scam! The evidence for which has long ago been debunked but the policies carry on with ministers and those with financial interests displaying zealotry that beggars belief.
August 20, 2024
I wrote about this the other day concerning ‘The Blob’. Virtue signalling, as in the Climate Change Act, sets fixed legal guidelines, which disempower ministers, who are then unable to respond to changing events and are at the mercy of campaigning groups using judicial review through the courts to enforce laws that are now impractical.
August 20, 2024
Doing nothing is an undervalued option
Government that governs least, governs best.
Collective responsibility of cabinet is responsible for many mediocre ministers Sir John.
August 20, 2024
Indeed. First do no harm. Applies to doctors too, alas they the MHRA and government decided to inject millions of people with net harm Covid Vaccines – even people who had zero need of them. Thousands of other government and medical disasters. Blairās moronic wars, blood contaminationā¦ group think or follow the money?
August 20, 2024
Doing nothing when promised to do so much ought to be a dismissal offence – -for Government a GE after 2 years.
August 20, 2024
The transition from electing MPs with previous careers, or who carry on alongside being an MP to full time, career politicians who become SPADs straight out of university (with a PPE degree) on the road to being MP and Minister cannot help. They become expert at climbing the greasy pole to preferment and high office. But being a Minister must require a very different set of skills. It must be all too easy to float along in the bureaucratic treacle and group think that characterises the civil service.
August 20, 2024
Mike Graham on Talk Radio just now suggests getting prisoners to cycle on generators to generate “free” electricity. Rather like Coldplay with their light show dynamo cyclist gimmicks.
Alas physics is not like that, you rarely get “owt for nowt”. You would have to feed them much more human food so they did not waste away, So it would actually be very expensive electricity and as human food is very inefficient energy it would be very high in CO2 and energy wasted too. Perhaps something like 25KWH of energy needed to produce the 10KWH of food to then get 1KWH of electricity out less transmission losses and all the energy needed to make the bikes, generators, connect to the grid and maintain all the gear.
Let us hope the net zero zealot Ed Miliband does not hear of it. He loves insane ideas like this – witness the insanity of burning wood at Drax or trying to switch older houses to heat-pumps, This idea is even more insane & so Ed (PPE) Miliband and Starmer are likely to love it.
August 20, 2024
Needless to say Ed Miliband read PPE (Oxon) and knows almost nothing about climate, CO2, energy, entropy, energy engineering or energy economics… so ideal as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (an oxymoron). In the same way John (ERM fiasco) Major, who failed his Maths (and nearly all his O levels), was a great choice for Chancellor of the Exchequer and then PM. From the point of view of Civil Servants anyway.
August 20, 2024
Many failed at school and are now university lecturers in physics etc.
August 20, 2024
LL
Without the extra food, would it not be one means of reducing the prison population? Then there will be an endless supply of criminal tweeters to man the cycles as they are freed up, and then yet more that hurled an insult or two at the old bill…. šš
August 20, 2024
Take our money, talk to their chums, refuse to represent their constituents, then bow down to the leader that anointed them and express undying loyalty to that gang leader.
Defend democracy, free speech unless its their buddies talking, refuse to be part of the democratic legislators for this Country.
As ‘two-tier’ has stated it is WEF that runs the country not a democratically elected parliment
August 20, 2024
All good reasons for why the selection process for MPs needs to be fully revised to provide members of Parliament who are capable, ethical, have experience of commerce, and can think for themselves.
Going along with the flow doesn’t just affect ministers – it happens in the Commons all the time. All too often MPs will simply follow the will of their party leader without it seems working out the imp0lications involved.
We need a more informed parliament, not one indoctrinated by briefing papers from civil servants that intend only to influence towards the position they desire.
August 20, 2024
Many failed at school and are now university lecturers in physics etc.
August 20, 2024
Perhaps – they probably are climate change and net zero “experts” at the ex-poly now Metropoliton University of Bognor! Though it is true some people who are quite bright do sometimes fail badly in GCSE levels and A levels.
August 20, 2024
That defines the problem of the last 14 years and the next five. Weak Ministers with no vision with Civil Servants
running rings around them! Partly driven by the EU, from which most of our laws came in the last 50-plus years.
Cut the Civil Service to 120,000, and maybe it could function with less, then we need highly intelligent Ministers with an iron will to make their vision happen, backed by a strong, determined PM who does not care about being popular, but doing what is right for the UK. I suspect that Nigel Lawson was the last Chancellor who dominated his Civil Servants and told them what would happen. What a contrast to our last few pathetic Chancellors.
But where is the Conservative leader with that vision and iron will?
August 20, 2024
Some issues. The PM appoints these people, why if they havenāt got the ability and from what you say are ājelliesā
Why does the previous incumbent not prepare a handover dossier. Civil Servants to trust, those to be cautious with, refused projects that will be resurrected to get past a newbie, employ SPADs that can read and review legal and business docs as an independent oversight and take control of diary etc.
How are these ministerās performance managed? Projects classified by a traffic light system, bi monthly reviews etc.
Strikes me the management of this country is stuck in some ādark ageā
August 20, 2024
Mediocre Ministers should never be put in place, simples, but of course that will depend upon the skill, intelligence, and competence of the Prime Minister at the time.
August 20, 2024
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister were brilliant comedies approximately 40 years ago. While still hilarious to watch today they have subsequently achieved documentary status.
August 20, 2024
Where’s John been since 1997, living on Planet Zog? The rules of the game changed when filth Blair came to power. Democratic accountability was abolished. Socialist client state bureaucrats became all powerful, Ministers became mere lackeys to rubber stamp decisions
I sometimes wonder what Tory MPs have been doing for the last thirty years. It seems nothing much even when in government
It’s all immaterial now, it’s game over for our democracy. Speech under attack, civil freedoms targeted, Marxist ideology unleashed on an unsuspecting and in many cases naive public
Don’t expect the Tory party to oppose this fascist shit. For them it’s all about protecting the status quo and their careers. They’ll be doing exactly this when this politics drags us all under
August 20, 2024
‘when the department makes a mistake’
Like yesterday’s one from the Home Office when they tweeted that the demonstrators/rioters are ‘criminals’
They may be or they may not be – it seems just standing watching from a distance can now land you in jail. Anyway it is not the business of the Home Office to decide, that is for the courts. However it does give us a steer on what we were thinking, that the Starmer approach is autocratic, having already more or less told the courts to impose the harshest sentences, and it now assumes everyone is guilty until proven not guilty. He does deserve his nickname of ‘Keir Stalin’ and it is going to be a very long 5 years ahead. His arrogance seems unbounded.
August 20, 2024
Chanting a few times ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire’ is about offensive and abusive you can get and deserves a spell inside with softies who caused road deaths, arson resulting in deaths, rape and murder, ignoring pronouns, calling someone ‘dear’ or suggesting a sweet looking person might be male.
August 20, 2024
In other words there is constant failure, and the civil service is responsible, with no punishment. And for parliamentary government there are indeed far to many laws on matters of tiny details. Most of the problems are because existing laws are not enforced.
Complete civil service restructure including minimisation is urgently needed. This ought to include abolision of many departments.
All present complacent civil service leaders must replaced, and their replacements made directly answerable and their actions open to public questioning.
August 20, 2024
To be fair, the system is absurd. A person with no experience of life becomes an MP. Then he is appointed as a minister – and is expected to direct a department with a budget of billions and tens of thousands of staff. I canāt think of one minister who was not mediocre in my lifetime.
August 20, 2024
Mike
The fact that Civil Service jobs are advertised in the Guardian or internally should tell us all we need to know about the Civil service personnel and their Political thoughts.
Why have successive Prime Ministers put up with one train of thought recruitment nonsense.
August 20, 2024
Yep. We need to elect the officials and hold them to account.
The ministers are now just the tools of the state and the MPs represent the Government round the country, the inverse of what should happen.
We canāt fix it. We must just ditch them. They are in the way and of no use to us.
August 20, 2024
True we need a sort of dictator, BUT then Sunak, Johnson, May, Cameron and possibly Starmer came into my thoughts… aaargh.!
August 20, 2024
We absolutely do NOT want a Dictator.
We need to use what we know works, competition, accountability, the power of the Sovereigns (the people) to sack those who rule them.
The political class chose to allow the Civil Service to rule us. OK. They have made themselves redundant.
August 20, 2024
Of course Labour does the reverse – it appoints Labour activists to top Civil Service jobs.
Always do the reverse of what you enemy is doing or trying to make you do.
August 20, 2024
One problem is that the Conservatives thought it was a good idea to swap ministers around very frequently thus handing an advantage to the Civil Servants who might stay in place for a few years. Where ministers tried to take them on the civil service simply put in complaints of bullying to get the minister either removed or as a warning to them.
August 20, 2024
LOL, so the Minister is useful for something. The civil service fall-guy.
It’s always the Minister who loses his job never the civil servant so why are they allowed so much power as an unelected body?
August 20, 2024
āWhat do mediocre Ministers do?ā canvas for jobs in well paid unaccountable QUANOās
The gravy train that is jobs-for-the-boys when you are unqualified for real honest productive work.
Sir John, you are turning me into the Worlds biggest cynic.
August 20, 2024
Ian, look around. The cynic queue is enormous, like our GP answering service ‘ you are many thousands in the queue’.
August 20, 2024
It’s no surprise that there is hardly any change of direction when a government is replaced.
When Cameron replaced Brown, very little was done differently and we all know what happened to “reducing inward migration to the tens of thousands” don’t we !
The Civil Service has moved dramatically to the left in the last 15-20 years resulting in policy that was clearly against the wishes of many appointed ministers in Cameron’s government. Of course, the direction of the government suited those ministers appointed from the Lib Dims.
It is hardly surprising that that ministers in the May and Boris governments wanting to implement Brexit found everything stacked against them, particularly under May, when she allowed herself to be unduely influenced by Robbins and his Remainer Civil Service cronies.
After the latest election, it has been increasingly clear that Labour have found it much easier to move policy even further to the left than we saw under Boris and Sunak because that is where the CS group think is.
August 20, 2024
Agree 100% that laws comitting future governments to particular courses of action are fatuous. T hey are also extrememely dmaaging giving rise to conflicts of interets when actionms by private companies are subject to those laws. Net Zero, for example, not only commits future governments (false but taken to do so to avoid the effort of changing policy) – but enables local authorites and others to be a pain in the neck when companies want to do something not considered compliant with Net Zero legislation.
August 20, 2024
The problem is that many old fashioned and dried out views originate from universities and the less intelligent with exam success and an inability to implement sensible ideas and practicalities still dominate ministerial platforms. From what I gather according to John’s comments is that it follows that MP’s play a yes game,so crusty old ways follow.
August 20, 2024
Clearly, Cooper wanting to categorise misogyny as terrorism has no been thought through properly.
It will be seen as a widespread attack on their religion by Islamic men and their imams, because they have a hold on their women that would be completely unacceptable to the indigenous population of these islands and should rightly be outlawed in any civilised society.
Unless, of course, Cooper is prepared to tolerate two tier treatment of women in the UK :
one set of laws for us and a completely different set for muslims, particularly women. She has boxed herself into corner over this and I cannot see any way out, other than via a humiliating climb down.
August 20, 2024
What about a few books ā¦
First some old(ish) ones āThe Civil Servantsā, Kellner & Crowther-Hunt, 1981.
P.Hennessy, D.Normington āThe Power of Civil Servantsā, 2018.
Isabel Hardman, āWhy we get the wrong politiciansā, 2018.
M.Stanley āCivil Servants, Ministers and Parliamentā, 2024 (only Ā£1 to download it).
Ian Dunt, āHow Westminster works, and why it doesnātā, 2024.
Sam Freedman, āāFailed stateā, 2024.
Obviously others are also available.
My point is that reading some of them would avoid some rather āstrangeā comments, not even worth the local Spoon.
Another point is āwhy no comment about special advisers who have been directly chosen by the PM, SoSs and Ministers.ā How are those to be held to account? Are we to elect them, Lynn?
August 20, 2024
More whataboutery from hefner
Should the PM and Ministers be banned from having any advisors?
Are civil servants elected?
August 20, 2024
S, the point was made by Lynn that CSs should be elected.
As for the SpAds they have been around in ever growing number for almost 70 years. My comment was more about āfine to question/criticise CSs, but arenāt ministers also heavily influenced by SpAds? (See the past cases of A.Campbell, C.Wheelan, F.Hill, N.Timothy, J.Stein, R.Porter, D.Cummings, ā¦)
August 20, 2024
I don’t know about others,but looking after a home, a garden, trying to keep fit so as not to put undue pressure on the children, working in a busy NHS environment, keeping updated at home with research and courses leaves little time to read books.This is one of the reasons why I rely on people like John to inform me and then can assess counter arguments which the general public are aware of from popular sources.
August 20, 2024
M, To each their own.
August 20, 2024
No because the relevant MP chooses their own special advisor and is therefore responsible for them directly. The Secretary of State in each department does NOT choose the Civil Servants, therefore they re NOt responsible for them, but end up subject to them.
To be plain. If an MP is badly advised by somebody of their own choosing we sack the MP and the Spad goes with them.
Nobody can sack the civil servants. Of course Labour are appointing (spads) to the civil service direct. How do you deal with that do you propose? I propose holding the civil servants to account because one this is critical Authority and Responsibility must never be divided.
Comprehend the problem?
August 20, 2024
Perhaps you should add āThe Failure of the Stateā R Atkinson 1989.
All this is old hat you us you see.
The critical thing is not to point out problems, but to propose solutions.
I proposed what I think would be a solution to the failure of the Political Class.
Knock it down if you can and propose something better.
August 20, 2024
206 illegal economic /criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France ā¦.Mediocre ministers allow this to happen