Douglas Carswell's Blog

Sir Humphrey takes control of government

It's official.  Or to be precise, the gifted political writer, James Forsyth says it is so - so it must be.

There has, James writes in this week's Spectator, been "a creeping technocratic coup" in Whitehall.  Having "relinquished political control of the [Downing Street] policy unit" and having "let it be staffed by the civil service" the civil service is in control and "bolstering the position of the permanent bureaucracy".

As an elected MP, ought one perhaps try to point this out?  

It might help explain why the bonfire of the quangos went out, and why public borrowing keeps snowballing.  Or why the Whitehall's recruitment freeze thawed. 

Or why the the Freedom Bill morphed into a Bill to ban things.  Or how plans for Open Primaries got dropped.  Or plans to make civil servants answer to the Commons got forgotten ....

Incidentally, I gather that a new series of Yes, Minister has just been commissioned.   

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