Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service.
In relation to the linked article above, my criticism is not actually of Labour. Rewarding the party's cronies and cementing leftist control of the "Deep State" (the modern name for what – when it was conservative and patriotic – was known as the "Establishment") is the obvious thing for a new left-wing government to do. My criticism is of the Conservative Party, which never did it. All through its time in government the Deep State was staffed by New Labour appointees or the successors they collectively appointed. The "Blob" that frustrated even the few almost-competent Tory ministers did not get there by accident. It was placed there to make elections irrelevant and ensure constant "progress" towards socialism.
How naive was Boris Johnson, for example, when assuming that Comrade Sue Gray – left enough to make Lenin blush – was an impartial civil servant?
I have a friend who quit her job as a judge in the immigration courts during New Labour's time in power. The bench was being packed by Labour's then Lord Chancellor with politically-driven judges sympathetic to immigrants, regardless of the law. DEI regimes were applied to court staff and she was under constant threat of re-education and indoctrination. Her work environment was horrendous. Had she been Millennial, she'd have considered herself bullied. As she wasn't, off she fucked to find a more congenial life.
More importantly, she'd had to watch her colleagues flout the rule of law – the very basis of our civilisation. The reason why so many immigrants from safe, peaceful Albania are granted political asylum in Britain, for example, while almost none achieve it in, say, Germany (where the same treaties and international law apply) is precisely because the bench in those courts is intent on – what was the phrase? – "rubbing the Right's noses in diversity."
This has been going on for even longer though. The late Mrs P. was a modern languages teacher in a series of state comprehensive schools in the 80's. She had grown up in a Labour family and might have been expected to fit right in to the Red Blob of education, but she didn't. She was ambitious, centre-right and voted Conservative. She wasn't foolish enough to make a point of it, but her silence in staff room discussions (and her nice outfits, which her Head of Department listed sarcastically in his farewell speech when she left) were enough to signal to her scruffy, thoughtless colleagues that she was not "of the faith." The British public sector is a horrible place to work if you have any tendency to doubt its moral superiority to the productive sector that pays its wages. The late Mrs P. was a great teacher much respected and admired by parents, but hated her hostile work environment. That was why she leapt at the opportunity I offered to move abroad with my job and apply her language skills practically to living in other countries.
I had a glimpse of how this works in America when I was headhunted back in the 2000's by a Washington-based US law firm. Mrs P. prevented me accepting their offer to advise US and international banks on projects in Eastern Europe – my area of expertise. Unlike me, she didn't want to be American. One of the things I learned during the discussions was that the big Washington firms are either Republican or Democrat. During a Democrat administration, I could expect many of my would-be partners to disappear into the West Wing because the US doesn't have our myth of an apolitical civil service. A new administration hires its own – entirely partisan – staff so that satisfying the peoples' will is attempted by the whole machine - not just the new driver. Law firm partners are ideal material for heading legislative initiatives – especially as most lawyers in DC are more lobbyists than advisers. They tell you what the law says and if it doesn't suit you, they say "let's make law". That is also very different from the UK, where (apart from partners in the Brussels offices lobbying the massively-corrupt EU) the service stops when the law has been explained and its obstacles overcome as well as possible.
Governing parties in Britain don't have to be as corrupt or partisan as Labour, but they mustn't be naive. I personally hope that the useless, clapped-out and amoral Conservative Party will never be in power again. I am hoping that from its smoking ruins a new classically-liberal, free market-favouring party will emerge – perhaps involving Reform UK, though I doubt it can lead it. When there is a new government one day that reflects the socially-conservative British people and is forced to adapt to market realities as it picks over Labour's economic wreckage like rag and bone men, I recommend its very first action is to pass legislation to allow it to fire the entire Civil Service and re-staff it (on a much smaller scale) with people screened – at the very least – for their ability to work honestly with non-leftists.
I find the Labour Party's lack of ambition very dispiriting... Only a few thousand quid to party funds appears to buy you a quite well-paid senior Civil Service post - a very good return on your money. One would have thought that if they were selling influence etc., they'd at least charge a decent price for it! :-)
Posted by: Pogo | Monday, October 21, 2024 at 12:03 PM
I fear the Conservative Party is way past redemption and saving. Being composed of politicians but not having the "big State imperative" of the left to bind it, it's just become - for the most part - a collection of narcissistic individuals on the make, entirely divorced from their voters and the ordinary members. One would hope they could find in common a "small State imperative" but I suspect the narcissists in the Westminster party will never allow change to threaten the source of their massaged egos, feelings of power and (dare I say) bank accounts.
The Ronald Reagan (pbuh!) solution for the Civil Service would be a delight, too. And make sure the replacements are on a DC pension scheme! If I had to pick one Conservative who strikes me as more likely to be an influence for the better it'd be Kemi Badenoch, but even she looks like a long shot for real change and I certainly don't like her stance on the ECHR.
Posted by: MarkC | Sunday, October 20, 2024 at 08:01 AM
Hear hear...
Posted by: patently | Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 12:48 PM