Dan Hannan has an excellent column in the Telegraph today pointing out that whether you support Dominic Raab or not probably reflects your prior politics rather than the merits of the case – but even so, there is a clear problem now that ‘bullying’ is defined subjectively of allegations being weaponised against disliked bosses and colleagues. Here’s how it starts.
Which camp are you in? Is Dominic Raab a hatchet-faced tyrant who has finally had his come-uppance? Or is he the victim of snowflake snivel servants who can’t stand being given their instructions by someone who voted Leave? Here’s the thing. Whichever camp you’re in, I bet you were in it before the publication of Friday’s report. That’s how our minds work. We begin with our preferred conclusion, and then cast around for ways to sustain it, convinced all the while that we are being wholly rational, and that our critics must therefore be acting in bad faith.
For what it’s worth, my sympathies are firmly with the former Lord Chancellor, on three grounds. First, the allegation of bullying always struck me as implausible. In all our dealings, I have found Raab correct and courteous – despite his features being habitually set in an expression of apparent ferocity. Second, some civil servants plainly dislike being told what to do by ministers whose opinions they despise. Third, bullying is now defined subjectively, covering anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable, even when there was plainly no malicious intent. We see this absurdity in complaints listed by the report: that Raab reminded an official of the civil service code, that he held up his hand for silence when staff were repeating themselves, that he complained about inadequate briefings.
You might object that I was always likely to come down on the former Deputy PM’s side. I have never hidden my view that power has shifted dangerously from Jim Hacker to Humphrey Appleby, that free-market policies are being deliberately frustrated by ideological bureaucrats, and that ‘bullying’ now often means being told to do your job.
But, if you are fair-minded, you must surely accept that the converse is at least as true. Those columnists and MPs who are now claiming to be outraged about Raab were silent about what were, by any conceivable measure, vastly more serious bullying allegations against John Bercow.
That, I’m afraid, is how politics works. We struggle to tell the difference between opposition and corruption – or, to flip it around, we blur the distinction between “integrity” and “agrees with me”. Which is why we should worry about the growing tendency to drive politicians from office through mock-judicial processes rather than through the voting urns.
Worth reading in full.
Not only bullying but also ‘harassment’ is now defined subjectively, including in laws and guidance made by this Conservative Government – an extension of the problem with subjective ‘hate speech’ that is often noted – so the Tories really only have themselves to blame for not realising sooner the danger in defining offences based only on ‘victim’ perception. In truth, the whole subjectivity of harm and offence – including the ‘believe the victim’ mantra – has crept into law and regulation in the past 20 years and it all needs reviewing and unpicking before any more harm is done.
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On the one hand, civil servants who don’t like you will get up to any manner of things to do you down; a toxic public sector culture.
On the other hand, a Foreign Secretary who thinks it is okay to remain on holiday while British passport holders, British armed forces lives are in danger overseas during a foreign policy crisis is clearly something of a stranger to sound judgement.
Nobody voted for Raab being lord chancellor. Unless he is being expelled from parliament, alleging that he was driven from a job the electorate voted him into is wrong. Similar, he wasn’t driven from office by a mock-judical procedure, somewhat like a show trial under a communist dictatorship, but by a proper judical procedure according to the laws of the land. Reportedly, the Tories are in government, hence, it’s up to them to change laws they believe to be inappropriate.
Nobody ever voted for a Lord Chancellor in the whole of British history. The Lord Chancellor position ranks higher than that of the Prime Minister, constitutionally, hence the New Labour vandals – in their attempt to ‘European-ise’ the UK in order for it to be broken up as part of the United States of Europe – desperately tried to rip the role from the British constitution and create a Justice Secretary. They realised that the Lord Chancellor is so vital to the constitution that they had to restore it.
Raab was wrong to say he’d resign. Sunak was wrong to accept the resignation. The Civil Servants who bleated should have been shifted to different departments and the department itself cleared out.
Fishy and Chunt are WEF placemen. Possibly Raab isn’t so he has been removed.
End of story.
He was a covidian so no sympathy from me, though from what I read the “bullying” didn’t seem to merit that description to me.
The boundary between politically elected people, either MPs or Councillors, and professional officers, can be hard to understand. I remember a late colleague of mine, who was an experienced Councillor, trying to explain it all in the context of Planning. In particular, what the boundary was between him and the Borough Solicitor, and the full time staff in the Planning department. After all, you don’t have to be competent in anything in particular to get elected.
Anyway, trying to change course of someone like Humphrey Appleby can be hard work for some, and some of them can’t do it.
Andrew Lillico put his finger on it in a series of tweets. Dominic Raab regarded a cabinet minister as equivalent to a head of department in a big company: entitled to chair meetings, call for silence, tick off subordinates for missed deadlines or poor preparation and to issue direct instructions. Many civil servants now seem to see themselves as consultants supplying policy as a service and someone like Raab as a meddling client telling an interior decorator how to do their job.
30 years ago, people typically referred to the civil service and its advice as impartial. Now it is said to be ‘independent’. The word makes no sense when applied to advice (is there supposed to be something called dependent advice?) but plenty if it refers to advisers. At the start of the Covid crisis, the government relied on the independent body SAGE, but the moment it showed signs of thinking for itself a self-appointed group of people set themselves up as Independent SAGE. The real issue in all this is who makes policy? Ministers or advisers? Intelligent, hard-working politicians who have mastered their brief like Dominic Raab or the Blob?
The real issue in all this is who makes policy? Ministers or advisers? Intelligent, hard-working politicians who have mastered their brief like Dominic Raab or the Blob?
A pointless question. The operation of the civil service is bound by law. If something illegal was done to Raab, he needs to seek redress from the courts. If it was legal and enough MPs are convinced that it shouldn’t have been, the law must be changed. If neither the first nor the second is true, then, everything is by definition alright and the almost pathological hatred neoliberals have for anything associated with the state is completely misplaced here.
The power has shifted from Jim Hacker to Humphrey Appleby under 13 years of fake Conservative governments. The Conservative Party must be destroyed at the next election if small state, sound money, low debt and strong nationstate conservatism is to breathe again. We can no longer count on the conservative associations up and down the country to put their house in order.
The major cause of the power shift is inadequate politicians who don’t master their briefs. These lazy no-gooders thus rely on Civil Servants who hate and despise them. As time goes by, the Civil Servants begin to think of themselves as the leaders and refuse to work for the small number of ministers who have mastered their brief.
The Civil Service needs an overhaul and much of it needs abolition. The days of a Government being installed and the Civil Service supplying them with workers has to go. A political party should line up all the heads of departments they want for when they take over and those heads of department should hire whomever they want. Career civil servants need to go the way of the dodo. Why should, say, an incoming Tory administration inherit the same civil servants as the previous Labour administration? Better, surely that they bring in their own people who they know will do the job they want done properly?