by D.J. Webb
Francis Maude has complained that senior civil servants are deliberating blocking policy implementation and advising other civil servants to ignore government decrees. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9580069/No-minister-Senior-civil-servants-deliberately-block-policy-says-Francis-Maude.html My problem with this is that it is the ministers who are to blame. If they are too timid to sack the civil servants responsible – I would sack them and cancel their pensions by order in council – then they can hardly complain about it. The whole intention of the EU and quangocracy is that government should be by civil servants, not elected governments, which is why EU directives, statutory instruments and regulations passed by government departments without going through Parliament are now our preferred mode of “legislation.”
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EJ Webb – in principle I agree with you about Civil Servants and Ministers.
However, in practice, the situation is (and has been for a long time) very difficult. The officials control information – and they stay in place (whereas politicians come and go).
This is why I believe that the creation of the Civil Service in the 19th century (in both Britain and the United States) was a terrible mistake. Ministers should “hire and fire” their own staff – only then do such doctrines as “ministerial responsbility” make any sense. and only then do ministers (and the Prime Minister) have a good chance of being “in power – not just in office”.
As for the power of the European Union (once the European Economic Community, then the European Community) – it is a good example.
Why did I (and, I dare say, Sean Gabb) have a better knowledge of the probable effects of Single European Act (agreement in 1986 – came into effect 1987) than the Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher?
Ordinary folk (such as myself and my undergraduate friends) did not need the works of Christpher Booker and Richard North (mostly written years later) to know that the Single European Act would give the Euros (and local British officials) vast power over vast areas of life – down to the most minute details. However, Mrs Thatcher (and others) did not know this – they honestly did not.
Why not? Where we young students vastly more intelligent than Mrs Thatcher? I do not think so.
However, Mrs Thatcher (like other ministers) was subjected to a tidal wave of “official” information (i.e. a tidal wave of disinformation and other propaganda) and we were not. And Mrs Thatcher was very good at “doing her boxes” – i.e. going through every peice of paper the Civil Service gave her (rising early in the morning and going to bed late at night – in order to make sure that every report was duely read, and every form filled in).
That is why a minister (far from knowing more about “what is going on”) may actually know less about the world than an ordinary person – providing the ordinary person is reasonably interested in political matters.
Anybody who sticks it to Maudie (a truly repellant entity indeed) can’t be 100% evil–perhaps just 99.99999 recurring.Whatever dear Frankie was hatching it will be to the absolute detriment of some group unable to defend themselves
However, the civil service must be destroyed. The top 50-60,000 of them (esp the 4000 of the senior civil service) should be sacked on the spot without any compensation and their pensions confiscated. Any “honours” they may have must be stripped from them and note made in all public media of the treasonous and dishonourable nature of this group. They are the ones who co-operate with and enable the Eurotrash to undermine us. They are also the ones behind the endless snooping, spying and oppressive laws.
The ordinary employees of the civil service can be phased out slowly by natural wastage, denying leftists any ammo about job losses among the lowly paid (which many low level civil servants are–the state is no friend even to its own employees if they are just proles and not in the enemy class proper)
More than the Civil Service must go of course. ACPO (the chief clodstables) and all councils/social srvices/the BBC/fake charities etc,etc. But losing the top uncivil servants would be a flying start.
Mr Ecks – there is a lot of truth in what you say here.