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It’s Not That Ministers Can’t Control Their Civil Servants – They Can’t Even Influence Them

by Ian Price
2 December 2023 1:00 PM

Allister Heath lamented in the Telegraph this week that David Cameron’s appointment to the Foreign Office showed that the “pro-EU anti-Israel blob” was now back in charge. The truth is far worse than that. The blob was always in charge just as it also appears to be in charge of every other key department of state.

If James Cleverly had genuinely been in control of the FCDO, would the U.K. in late October have abstained rather than vote with the U.S. against Jordan’s motion at the United Nations general assembly for a prolonged humanitarian truce in Gaza?

The fact is that cabinet ministers are not just unable to control their departments – they are now barely able to merely influence them. Jacob Rees-Mogg has talked candidly of ministers’ lack of direct line management authority over civil servants. As Cabinet Office Minister in April 2022 he was frustrated with their work-from-home culture but could do little about it. He was reduced to touring empty offices and leaving behind cards on empty desks that read: “Sorry you were out when I visited. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.”

According to Yuan Yi Zhu on Unherd, Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, told his civil servants to comply with the Government’s instruction for Whitehall departments to fly the Israeli flag for a week as a gesture of solidarity after the October 7th Hamas massacres. Barclay’s officials refused. Barclay “persuaded” them to put the flag up only, it was reported, for it to be taken down by a “recalcitrant” civil servant. As Yuan Yi Zhu writes:

Meanwhile, Barclay tried to cajole his civil servants into lighting the entrance to the department’s building in the colours of the Israeli flag, but had only managed to have blue light projected in the face of official opposition. Apparently, the department’s projectors, which are quite capable of reproducing the rainbow, could not provide white lighting on that particular occasion.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is studiously polite and Barclay is nobody’s idea of a bully. Perhaps ministers with a more forthright reputation hold more sway over their department. Kemi Badenoch, for example? Badenoch has been very vocal about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and has been dismissive about the value of training in the divisive pseudoscience. In the House of Commons in 2020 she described CRT as “a dangerous trend in race relations”. And yet the Department for Business and Trade has a Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage (Reach) network which recently met to discuss the book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. As Matthew Goodwin told the Telegraph:

For all of Kemi Badenoch’s [the Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade] rhetoric attacking Critical Race Theory, it is now clear that this divisive ideology has captured her own department. Whilst civil servants should not waste their work time discussing these radical narratives around race, it is up to ministers to put an end to this. The Conservative Party has had 13 years to clamp down on officials who promote concepts like CRT, yet nothing ever seems to change. Instead of talking the talk, as Kemi and other Conservative MPs sometimes like to do on these issues, it is time for ministers to walk the walk.

Surely, someone more fiery – say, the recently defenestrated Suella Braverman – would be better at imposing her will on civil servants. Not according to an anonymous Home Office Staffer writing in the Telegraph:

For all her strident bearing, Suella was cringingly apologetic in speeches to Home Office staff. Instead of instilling much needed discipline, she would tell us what a great job we were doing, not that this got her any kind of loyalty. She was mocked and insulted by London-based staff furious at the refusal to extend safe routes to an ever-growing number of countries.

It is possible that some past ministers genuinely stood up to their civil servants. Both Priti Patel and Dominic Raab fell to confected bullying complaints against them which suggests some form of falling out. But the depressing truth appears to be a tacit acceptance on the part of ministers: Talk tough in public but do not attempt to change the direction of travel chosen by the blob. That direction is very much leftwards – anti-Israel, pro-open borders and all the other items on the misanthropic prix fixe menu of the New Left. Much as Foreign Office staff may welcome the appointment of Cameron, it makes little difference – they’ve been in control for some time.

Ian Price is a Business Psychologist. Find him on X (Twitter).

Tags: Civil ServantsCivil ServiceConservative PartyGovernmentThe Blob

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27 Comments
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Shimpling Chadacre
Shimpling Chadacre
1 year ago

So what is the point of democracy? The parasitical class, aka those that work for the state, will always act in their own best interests. At this point the only political party I would support is one whose entire purpose was to dismantle the state itself.

105
-1
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago
Reply to  Shimpling Chadacre

The snag could be that if we got rid of Councils and national governments, we’d be left with large corporations et al without any organised political influence.

3
-12
stewart
stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  JohnK

That’s a common error of thinking.

The state works for the large corporations, not for you. Corporations are the ones that hijack the state apparatus and use it to set up regulations that favour them.

If you take away the state you won’t be less protected from corporations. THEY won’t have the protection of the state and will have to perform for their customers.

Last edited 1 year ago by stewart
69
-1
Smudger
Smudger
1 year ago
Reply to  Shimpling Chadacre

Yes, we know we have a fake Conservative Party and the men in grey suits who run the Tory Party and two third of their ‘wet’ MP may be much closer to the blob than most realise. Publicly ministers may rant on about the awkwardness of the blob but privately the party and the mandarins appear to be pushing the same agenda.

Last edited 1 year ago by Smudger
0
0
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago

“…cabinet ministers are not just unable to control….” Almost certainly true, but is it real news? Years ago, a late Borough Councillor explained to me the internal structure on similar lines. In effect, he described the boundary between elected Councillors and professional servants, e.g. the Borough Solicitor, or other departments. My experience as a Parish Councillor has been similar – an employed Clerk can be quite robust when they want to be, e.g.

Elected MPs can find that it’s a long drag to re-educate the Permanent Secretaries and others, if there has been an established set up over the years, until the other side wins an election.

The psychology of civil service management is not limited to Westminster, but is most likely similar at all levels of nominal democracy.

37
-1
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
1 year ago
Reply to  JohnK

“A long drag”? The Tories have been in office 13 years!

11
-1
NickR
NickR
1 year ago
Reply to  JohnK

My old employer sat on an EU committee. The committee was tasked with defining a new set of EU regulations. The 1st item on the agenda at each meeting was ‘where should the next meeting be held?’
The committee was still going strong 15 years later when I left. No new regulations, but plenty of all-expenses paid meetings.

21
0
Baldrick
Baldrick
1 year ago

Maybe just, maybe it is time to start again. But we need a new everything- a new political, financial, medical, media, internet, energy system.

39
-1
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago
Reply to  Baldrick

New public?

9
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago

The modern state is out of control. The only solution is to dismantle most of it. Which is actually good because the modern state is also bankrupt and can’t afford it’s technocratic infrastructure.

Radically reduce the state’s budget. Urgently!!

79
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

Cut cut cut like in Argentina!

12
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

That’s the promise. Let’s see if it happens.

10
0
Monro
Monro
1 year ago

Politicians will never control their ‘civil’ ‘servants’, the NHS, the BBC, the public sector at large, para-statal large companies, unless they use the levers of power actually available to them, budgetary control and statutory reform.

The Conservative party was given an eighty seat majority to enable it to get off its backside and become a reforming government under an eloquent and apparently far sighted PM.

Unfortunately both party and PM ‘talked the talk but didn’t walk so good’, preferring to ‘swank about in footer bags’ locking its citizens up in their houses for no scientifically discernible reason.

Difficult to say which is more bat shit crazy, the King and all his horses or this mind bendingly crass numpty dumpty of a government.

55
0
stewart
stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

One just has to stop and consider the typical skill set of a successful politician. Their main skills are good at talking, good at making themselves look good compared to others, good at sussing out who to be friends with, who to suck up to and who to stab in the back.

They don’t know how to run anything. They can rally people around an idea or a cause, but when it comes to executing they have no clue. They look around for someone to execute for them.

Who do they have to execute for them? Effing civil servants, another class of people who have no clue how to run anything. Glorified admin workers.

So when someone who doesn’t know how to run anything relies on a bunch od arrogant, glorified admin workers who are limited at best and don’t even want to do the work, you end up with nothing. Well with a guy going round desks leaving “please come back to work” notes.

It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.

20
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

Glorified Marxists more like….And you can’t even protest them at their building cos they’re all working from home!

1
0
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
1 year ago

Can they sack them?

14
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

If they could, can you imagine Rishi Sunak putting an advertisement in the press: “Wanted – entirely new civil service. Great opportunity for ambitious young minds, as no training can be given, the last lot having been sacked and ideologically corrupt anyway. Apply to the Minister of your choice, who actually knows zilch about how his/her brief works on the ground.”

No doubt Dominic Cummings and his equivalents would apply, together with lots of bright young politics graduates and technocrats eager to bring in the new order.

It seems that the history of collapsed states shows anarchy (like armed gangs robbing you and no redress), chancers grabbing the resources, and only a slow claw-back to some kind of freedom under a ruthless but far-sighted leader. Think USSR.

5
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

If they were all sacked tomorrow, or a bomb went off (can only wish) there would be chaos but when you consider how most are working against the interests of the British citizens, it would be for the better in the long run.

17
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

That seems to be the policy of Reform…I prefer Reclaim but that policy is good red meat. We all know about the long march through the institutions, Whitehall is an example.

7
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

Nobody can really influence the senior civil service or the currents of thought that go on beneath.A point has been reached where the schism is too wide to even countenance compromise. We are in the process of taking control of this country and attempting to move it in the right direction. The enemy is simply involved in trying to grab the last of the spoils before the system goes down. It isn’t difficult to see who the winner will be. It will have to have authenticity it will be interesting to see what it looks like. I think in most minds it is still waiting to be born.

3
-1
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

The takeover was finished in 1996. You should’ve been paying more attention.

2
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

It won’t be so easy in a few months time in the sense that we won’t be able to just read at our leisure and talk shite on social media. It will be a situation where you wouldn’t even have time to think about such trivialities.

1
-1
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

That is why most of the third world isn’t woke!

0
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

Completely different status quo and power arrangement. I mean it is happening as we speak. You have to have a grasp on it.

1
-1
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

They will try to bully you ansd if you resist they will try to size you up. As long as you are beyond their parameters. They don’t know dick about real resistance.

5
0
Brett_McS
Brett_McS
1 year ago

The Blob works best in the dark. The Blob people exchange notoriety and publicity for power. A charismatic politician who connects directly with the citizenry, and who exposes actors and actions of The Blob is its worst nightmare. It’s part of the reason Trump was targeted by the bureaucracy. It’s also the reason why I think Javier Milei in Argentina has a decent chance of making a difference.

6
0
CircusSpot
CircusSpot
1 year ago

Go for their money with anyone funded by the taxpayer having PAYE removed at source.
Stop the tax loophole for “charity” foundations and gifts.
Bring in purchase tax for online orders to protect the public facing shops and businesses.

1
0

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