Douglas Carswell's Blog

Civil servants decide

There is to be a Policy Unit in Downing Street run by civil servants.

Politicians might deliver the speeches, but civil servants seem set to determine the policy. 

What, you might wonder, is the point of having 650 elected MPs if a little circle of unelected courtiers decide things?  What is the purpose of politicians having ideas about public policy if they are, like Merovingian kings, mere figure-heads, reading at the despatch box what someone else has scripted for them?

Given the influence that judges, civil servants, quangocrats and former management consultants seem to have over public policy, perhaps standing for Parliament is the last thing you should do if you wish to have any say.    

I once read somewhere that the Conservative administration of the early 1970s set up a Downing Street policy unit staffed by civil servants, too.  How did that work out? 

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