Sunday, March 01, 2020
Bringing out the bullies?
The unprecedented sight of a senior civil servant yesterday, publicly resigning and telling the media that he plans to sue the Home Secretary for constructive dismissal, was so extraordinary and damaging, that Number 10 spin doctors were forced to try distract us all and attempt to mitigate the damage, by announcing the engagement of the Prime Minister, and the fact that his fiancé is expecting a baby.
Nobody seems very clear exactly how many children our Prime Minister has now fathered. Speculation is that it is six with this, his seventh, meaning that maintenance payments may well be costing him a significant proportion of the ginormous advance he has received for the undelivered book on William Shakespeare.
What is certain is that the Tory Party has changed beyond recognition. Does anybody remember the fuss when William Hague insisted on sharing a bedroom with his then fiancé at Tory Party Conference?
What has happened to the so-called party of law and order, now that the Tories seem content to make it more difficult to extradite terrorists and criminals by withdrawing from the European Arrest Warrant? Surely the public resignation of a senior civil servant along the lines of Sir Phillip Rutnam yesterday, would have led to the Home Secretary getting their marching orders under any other Tory Prime Minister.
The Guardian believes that Rutnam's resignation over her alleged bullying of staff, calls Priti Patel’s future as the home secretary into question. However, I have my doubts. Instead, the controversy seems to feed into Dominic Cumming's agenda of challenging the civil service. In this scenario, it is inevitable that longstanding and respected senior officials will be uncomfortable with the new regime, and that they will want to move on. Cummings will want to encourage such churn.
Despite that, Patel's future still hangs on the reaction of the Tory backbenches, and how the story plays out over the next week. I believe that the odds are that she will survive, but events often have a way of frustrating such expectations.
Nobody seems very clear exactly how many children our Prime Minister has now fathered. Speculation is that it is six with this, his seventh, meaning that maintenance payments may well be costing him a significant proportion of the ginormous advance he has received for the undelivered book on William Shakespeare.
What is certain is that the Tory Party has changed beyond recognition. Does anybody remember the fuss when William Hague insisted on sharing a bedroom with his then fiancé at Tory Party Conference?
What has happened to the so-called party of law and order, now that the Tories seem content to make it more difficult to extradite terrorists and criminals by withdrawing from the European Arrest Warrant? Surely the public resignation of a senior civil servant along the lines of Sir Phillip Rutnam yesterday, would have led to the Home Secretary getting their marching orders under any other Tory Prime Minister.
The Guardian believes that Rutnam's resignation over her alleged bullying of staff, calls Priti Patel’s future as the home secretary into question. However, I have my doubts. Instead, the controversy seems to feed into Dominic Cumming's agenda of challenging the civil service. In this scenario, it is inevitable that longstanding and respected senior officials will be uncomfortable with the new regime, and that they will want to move on. Cummings will want to encourage such churn.
Despite that, Patel's future still hangs on the reaction of the Tory backbenches, and how the story plays out over the next week. I believe that the odds are that she will survive, but events often have a way of frustrating such expectations.
