Priti is a good person doing her best against overwhelming odds. I don’t know much about Liz Truss. Gove has gone over to the dark side regarding Covid, which is a terrible shame given all his good work – again against overwhelming odds – in the past. Sunak is just another Goldman Sachs smoothie. Boris has been captured by his girlfriend and her cabal, and plans to destroy us with the Green New Steal. The rest are dreadful, no better than Labour, and you can’t get worse than that.
There is a basic flaw in the system: ministers are appointed for political reasons, and not because they have any knowledge or training in the relevant area. Moreover, reshuffles (also done for political reasons) constantly require them to attempt to master a new field. Imagine if plumbers were told after a couple of years to retrain as plasterers, and then again as carpenters a couple of years after that!
On that note, Rory Stewart aptly commented that “the way government works is very odd. I was just 80 per cent through my prison reforms when they moved me to be secretary of state for international development. [Before that] I was just finishing my Africa strategy as Africa minister when they reshuffled me to become prisons minister. I had five ministerial jobs in four years. […] Is it a sort of pantomime in which ministers are playthings designed to placate different parts of the party?”
Of course, this wouldn’t be too serious a problem if ministers had civil servants working for them who had expertise in the relevant area, but civil servants too shift from department to department; indeed, promotion is sometimes impossible except by shifting departments.
This is obviously counterproductive and must stop. If you enter the Foreign Office in your twenties, you should expect to work there until you are 65. You should spend those four decades acquiring ever more knowledge and experience of foreign affairs, growing in competence and expertise. Needless to say, this should not imply tenure; there should be provision to sack incompetent civil servants.
This is obviously one thing that Rory Stewart is right about. The way that ministers are shuffled around before they have finished what the started is just absurd, and probably goes a long way towards explaining the dysfunction of more or less everything the state attempts to do.
According to Rory (and I believe him) his specialty was Astan/Iran – Boris as FM appointed him African minister. The problem with political/ministerial incompetence is that it falls on the (much maligned) Civil Service to compensate for the ministers.
Technically, members of the House of Lords can be placed in Cabinet.
This may provide a window for actual Ministerial expertise in the various departments of state, though it’s rather open to abuse (cash for peerages, anyone?), being that the PM can give anyone a peerage. But hey, someone could reform the process.
I’ve no doubt people would argue it’s undemocratic as well, but – to defend my already flawed idea – would you rather have career politicians with a 50/50 chance of them being good at their job, or members of the Lords that have an expertise (not all do I know, but that’s were reform comes in – vague I know) and know their subject well.
I’m thinking Lord Sugar for the Exchequer and Lord Dannatt for Defence!
Well said Basil, particularly about the provision to sack the incompetent.
I have always found Rory Stewart a very decent chap to deal with. Perhaps, to the horror of some, he went to that dreaded school in the mid Thames Valley, known as Eton College.
In the not too distant past, he would have made an excellent Proconsul.
Ah well, Eton too will be Woke soon, as these pages have shown! Then perhaps “some” will moderate their horror!
Rory Stewart was my mother’s MP, and although she is not a Conservative voter, she certainly respected him.
I was at a dinner at the Carlton Club, about eighteen months ago in the midst of the last Tory leadership election – but despite the venue, this was a politically diverse occasion, since it merely happened that one of the company was a member and had hired a private room there. There were supporters of all three main political parties, Brexiteers and Remainers, etc, etc. Out of curiosity we went round the table, asking everyone whom they would support as Tory leader. And almost everyone, whether of Conservative sympathies or otherwise, opted for Stewart.
Remember Yes Minister-Sir Humphrey was for shuffles because they made his job easier!
Warren Alexander
3 years ago
Incompetent leadership results in failed organisations.
Terry Needham
3 years ago
“…has again fallen foul of the ministerial code ” this time in regard to bullying allegations. Despite the official enquiry into the matter, she escaped unscathed.”
If she has escaped unscathed from an enquiry into allegations of bullying, then in what sense has she fallen foul of the ministerial code? Sometimes pedantry matters.
On what basis would you claim that he should punish her, given that you were not privy to the results of the investigation? And why do you think that he should be obliged to publish the results of that investigation? Perhaps your desire to see her punished is motivated more by your opposition to her policies, than by any principled objection to the manner in which she runs her department. It was ever thus: It doesn’t matter how you get ’em as long as you get ’em.
My desire (or comment here) is utterly pointless. Leaks (if you want to believe them) report that she did bully the staff. That is a sackable offence – BoJo decided not to do so. He is the PM he can do that.
Leaks? Do you mean unattributable gossip? “My desire (or comment here) is utterly pointless.” You make my point far more eloquently than you make your own. Thankyou.
No I mean “leaks” as reported on respectable news sources. Unlike you I don’t suffer from the delusion that my comments here are going to change anyone’s mind – hence they are pointless.
” Leaks” without a named source are worthless. Respectable news sources? But without attribution, news sources are not respectable (Well except in the eyes of the true believer, I suppose). You mean gossip mongers.
Jeremy I follow your incisive comments closely don’t have to agree of course. But seriously I must ask what your ‘respectable news sources’? I have looked for longer than I can remember with no success. To me respectable equals unbiased accurate and factual. Suggestions welcomed.
Why should he publish the investigation? It was advice commissioned by him for himself, not you. He read it and made his decision. His decision, not yours. Because he is the PM, not you.
The guy tasked with investigating breaches of the Ministerial Code has resigned, saying that if Boris Johnson is going to simply ignore the conclusions of enquiries, then there is no point in having them.
That is damning. Unless you are a member of the BoJo cult, of course. I notice that fewer are nowadays.
And the sacking she suffered before was because the then PM was an inferior control freak who resented Priti having a very good and constructive idea. The anti Israeli mandarins in the FCO were furious too. I’ll wager it was having too many good and constructive ideas in the HO that incurred the vengeful wrath of the mandarins there.
You can’t, as a Minister, hold a meeting with a foreign PM which your own Foreign Office doesn’t know about. You can’t run an independent personal foreign policy. That’s what Priti Patel did.
Apparently, the first that the British PM knew about it was when she was hosting Benjamin Netanyahu in No.10 and Netanyahu mentioned his discussions with Patel. Patel was still keeping them quiet at that point. With the bullying of those below her, and failing to even keep her boss informed, she clearly isn’t a team player. So she was rightly forced to leave the team.
He “let her off” because she hadn’t done anything wrong.
mark.hanson
3 years ago
Quite a good piece until the author tries to analyse the Housing Crisis and proceeds by absolving the planning system and blaming “landbankers”. Having spent over thirty years in the housing industry I can tell him that is utter tosh. Planning has become more and more difficult and bureaucratic with endless calls for more and more specialist reports before a council will even look at an application. I am not aware of a single developer that deliberately sits on consented land waiting for teh price to rise.
However, they do tailor build rates to what is called the absorbtion rate. That’s the number of houses you can sell without the price having to fall to bring in a more marginal tranche of purchasers. Here, they are simply being rational, their job is not to stop house price inflation, that arguably is government’s job if they want to bring “generation rent” onside. Its not something that Housing associations could do either as they are closely watched on the subject of financial viability and would be in bother with their regualtor if they deliberatly sold homes at a loss.
THe HCA, or Homes England, or whatever they are called this week, could in theory act as swing supplier to hold prices down if the government asked it to , but lacks the people skills and knowledge to do so. That said, there are land speculators who buy sites, work them through planning and then try and sell them for outrageous sums. Perhaps giving local authorities the money and power to compulsorily acquire such sites would clean that area up though I think they are marginal in their impact. There are clearly problems in the housing development world, but the people who actually do build the homes are not the bad guys as is so often suggested.
Thank you for your illuminating comments. It seems to me that the author lacks understanding of how a market economy works in relation to house building. He seems to prioritise the inefficiencies that government in general introduce, in this case through bureaucracy and the planning system.
Carl Goulding
3 years ago
Even if the reasonably competent round pegs were all in round holes what real difference would it make? Todays article by Tom Chivers applies….. they may be loud but at the same time are silenced. The government may be running the country but they are far from dictating the narrative.
uztazo
3 years ago
Couldn’t agree more with this article. Why on earth would a PM appoint members into cabinet without knowing what role they want and how good they are for the role they want?
Too many Ministers are appointed because of political expedience. As far as I can tell it is about the very poor quality of MPs. But those people are elected by the people. In democracy the people get the government they deserve.
that quote you use is naive in a basically 2 party state – do try and think a bit more before you type
Peter KE
3 years ago
Thank goodness for Patel and Truss at least we get some movement in the correct direction.
Terry Needham
3 years ago
“…has again fallen foul of the ministerial code ” this time in regard to bullying allegations. Despite the official enquiry into the matter, she escaped unscathed.”
If she has escaped unscathed from an enquiry into allegations of bullying, then in what sense has she fallen foul of the ministerial code? Sometimes pedantry matters.
Jeremy Smith
3 years ago
I have been banging on here about COMPETENCE but people prefer to “trigger the libs” over “getting the sh*t done”. I really can not quantify it (can anyone?) but what we are witnessing (starting with Brexit) is the revolt of the part of the “elite” that is left behind – Peter Turchin has written about “elite overproduction”. And they were left behind because they were mostly incompetent.
Baffled not to find any mention of the current SoS for Work and Pensions, the invisible Dr Coffey, whose apparently ineluctable but equally incomprehensible rise up the greasy pole has startled me ever since she became my MP over here in true-blue Suffolk Coastal. I was hoping to find a clue somewhere about her competence and its true focus.
rosie mackenzie
3 years ago
“Raab needs a big spending department to run; and though that would technically be a demotion, it would be the best thing that could happen to him.”
What bigger spending could there be than of our foreign aid? And he has the whole world to go at, not just England, or England and Wales.
rosie mackenzie
3 years ago
Where are the testing fiascos? Testing has been a phenomenal success considering Jeremy Hunt left us with a capacity of 2,000 a day. Now it is 5 or 600,000, more than anyone else in Europe. The tracing and confining to home is another matter. But how much responsibility should the media, including the present author, take for that? Since day 1 they have worked to discredit the Government and make people lose confidence in it, particularly in test and trace. Who is going to answer the telephone to T and T now? What is their incentive, now it has been rubbished by the media?
Yes!- they backed the Conservatives, and Brexit as ordered to do so by their offshore tax-dodging owners. Once in power Johnson realised he needed some real fire power in the education department , so he appointed a guy with real experience of fire places.
Well they have told the truth about test and trace, if that has discredited the government as you put it them perhaps that’s because they didn’t do a very creditable job. Sure they have managed – eventually got testing humbers up, though have clearly massaged the figures to show themselves in the best possible light. On the “trace ” side of things their work has been lamentable.
The problem has been that they decided to use a centralised approach and fell for a line of patter from one of the ususal suspects in the call centre selling world, instead of recourcing local councils and letting them get on with it. THe problem has been larelgy one that has been caused by the obsession with centralising power. All good managers delegate, recent governmants seems ot hate this idea, probaly because no-one in them is a remotely good manager.
In the Spring, Boris was claiming that test-and-trace would be “world beating”. By October, the Government was admitting that T&T would have only a marginal effect. Not surprising considering the lamentable failure to trace people. But still, it created a job for a Tory peer married to a Tory MP.
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
3 years ago
For some reason I like Williamson. Telling Russia to “shut up and go away” makes sense. Why hit back with grandiose rhetoric when they are so grubby and pathetic in their attention seeking? Alot of the MOD had respect for him- and not just the civil servants either.
Other than that, not a bad article.
Oliver Johnson
3 years ago
Technically, members of the House of Lords can be placed in Cabinet.
This may provide a window for actual Ministerial expertise in the various departments of state, though it’s rather open to abuse (cash for peerages, anyone?), being that the PM can give anyone a peerage. But hey, someone could reform the process.
I’ve no doubt people would argue it’s undemocratic as well, but – to defend my already flawed idea – would you rather have career politicians with a 50/50 chance of them being good at their job, or members of the Lords that have an expertise (not all do I know, but that’s were reform comes in – vague I know) and know their subject well.
I’m thinking Lord Sugar for the Exchequer and Lord Dannatt for Defence!
Malcolm dunn
3 years ago
Agree with most of this. Raab and Gove are the best we have. Jenrick and Williamson clearly not up to it but who should replace them?
stop and consider what your contention that “Raab and Gove are the best we have.” implies as to the competency of the Tory Party end to end”there is none.
Nun Yerbizness
3 years ago
The problem is not with individuals in the Tory Party”the problem is Conservative Ideology.
Priti is a good person doing her best against overwhelming odds. I don’t know much about Liz Truss. Gove has gone over to the dark side regarding Covid, which is a terrible shame given all his good work – again against overwhelming odds – in the past. Sunak is just another Goldman Sachs smoothie. Boris has been captured by his girlfriend and her cabal, and plans to destroy us with the Green New Steal. The rest are dreadful, no better than Labour, and you can’t get worse than that.
Don’t forget Gates’ best friend, Hancock – that world famous epidemiologist.
Priti is a good person??????
There is a basic flaw in the system: ministers are appointed for political reasons, and not because they have any knowledge or training in the relevant area. Moreover, reshuffles (also done for political reasons) constantly require them to attempt to master a new field. Imagine if plumbers were told after a couple of years to retrain as plasterers, and then again as carpenters a couple of years after that!
On that note, Rory Stewart aptly commented that “the way government works is very odd. I was just 80 per cent through my prison reforms when they moved me to be secretary of state for international development. [Before that] I was just finishing my Africa strategy as Africa minister when they reshuffled me to become prisons minister. I had five ministerial jobs in four years. […] Is it a sort of pantomime in which ministers are playthings designed to placate different parts of the party?”
Of course, this wouldn’t be too serious a problem if ministers had civil servants working for them who had expertise in the relevant area, but civil servants too shift from department to department; indeed, promotion is sometimes impossible except by shifting departments.
This is obviously counterproductive and must stop. If you enter the Foreign Office in your twenties, you should expect to work there until you are 65. You should spend those four decades acquiring ever more knowledge and experience of foreign affairs, growing in competence and expertise. Needless to say, this should not imply tenure; there should be provision to sack incompetent civil servants.
This is obviously one thing that Rory Stewart is right about. The way that ministers are shuffled around before they have finished what the started is just absurd, and probably goes a long way towards explaining the dysfunction of more or less everything the state attempts to do.
According to Rory (and I believe him) his specialty was Astan/Iran – Boris as FM appointed him African minister.
The problem with political/ministerial incompetence is that it falls on the (much maligned) Civil Service to compensate for the ministers.
Nothing like a true specialsit – I believe the population of Astan is all of 89 families, say 450 people.
Do we take it he knows them all?
Technically, members of the House of Lords can be placed in Cabinet.
This may provide a window for actual Ministerial expertise in the various departments of state, though it’s rather open to abuse (cash for peerages, anyone?), being that the PM can give anyone a peerage. But hey, someone could reform the process.
I’ve no doubt people would argue it’s undemocratic as well, but – to defend my already flawed idea – would you rather have career politicians with a 50/50 chance of them being good at their job, or members of the Lords that have an expertise (not all do I know, but that’s were reform comes in – vague I know) and know their subject well.
I’m thinking Lord Sugar for the Exchequer and Lord Dannatt for Defence!
Well said Basil, particularly about the provision to sack the incompetent.
I have always found Rory Stewart a very decent chap to deal with. Perhaps, to the horror of some, he went to that dreaded school in the mid Thames Valley, known as Eton College.
In the not too distant past, he would have made an excellent Proconsul.
Ah well, Eton too will be Woke soon, as these pages have shown! Then perhaps “some” will moderate their horror!
Rory Stewart was my mother’s MP, and although she is not a Conservative voter, she certainly respected him.
I was at a dinner at the Carlton Club, about eighteen months ago in the midst of the last Tory leadership election – but despite the venue, this was a politically diverse occasion, since it merely happened that one of the company was a member and had hired a private room there. There were supporters of all three main political parties, Brexiteers and Remainers, etc, etc. Out of curiosity we went round the table, asking everyone whom they would support as Tory leader. And almost everyone, whether of Conservative sympathies or otherwise, opted for Stewart.
Precisely Basil, he has all the characteristics of a proper Tory leader, but sadly those virtues are now, so obviously, redundant.
As to Eton, a lost cause, in fact a case of “Damnatio Memoriae !
you are correct, there is a basic flaw”Conservative ideology.
Remember Yes Minister-Sir Humphrey was for shuffles because they made his job easier!
Incompetent leadership results in failed organisations.
“…has again fallen foul of the ministerial code ” this time in regard to bullying allegations. Despite the official enquiry into the matter, she escaped unscathed.”
If she has escaped unscathed from an enquiry into allegations of bullying, then in what sense has she fallen foul of the ministerial code?
Sometimes pedantry matters.
BoJo refused to punish her or publish the investigation.
On what basis would you claim that he should punish her, given that you were not privy to the results of the investigation?
And why do you think that he should be obliged to publish the results of that investigation?
Perhaps your desire to see her punished is motivated more by your opposition to her policies, than by any principled objection to the manner in which she runs her department.
It was ever thus: It doesn’t matter how you get ’em as long as you get ’em.
My desire (or comment here) is utterly pointless.
Leaks (if you want to believe them) report that she did bully the staff. That is a sackable offence – BoJo decided not to do so. He is the PM he can do that.
Leaks? Do you mean unattributable gossip?
“My desire (or comment here) is utterly pointless.”
You make my point far more eloquently than you make your own. Thankyou.
No I mean “leaks” as reported on respectable news sources.
Unlike you I don’t suffer from the delusion that my comments here are going to change anyone’s mind – hence they are pointless.
” Leaks” without a named source are worthless.
Respectable news sources? But without attribution, news sources are not respectable (Well except in the eyes of the true believer, I suppose). You mean gossip mongers.
Jeremy I follow your incisive comments closely don’t have to agree of course. But seriously I must ask what your ‘respectable news sources’?
I have looked for longer than I can remember with no success. To me respectable equals unbiased accurate and factual. Suggestions welcomed.
Guardian, Spectator, The Times, FT
Then perhaps you should stop posting here. After all nobody care what you think. I will help you by blocking you. Goodbye Jeremy
Then perhaps you should stop posting here. After all nobody care what you think. I will help you by blocking you. Goodbye Jeremy
Then perhaps you should stop posting here. After all nobody care what you think. I will help you by blocking you. Goodbye Jeremy.
Hang on! As you well know that is not how we do things in England.
Jeremy should be encouraged to play Devil’s Advocate in these pathetic times.
The next two weeks will tell us whether Bojo is Spartacus or Nero, let us wait and see.
You probably won’t be able to see this as my post was cancelled by the spam filter.
Hah!
Well then perhaps you should stop posting here. After all, by your own admission nobody care what you think. I will help by blocking you.
query ? Small lady bullies £200,ooo a year permanent secretary who doesnt even report to her ? How does that work ?
Why should he publish the investigation? It was advice commissioned by him for himself, not you. He read it and made his decision. His decision, not yours. Because he is the PM, not you.
He shouldn’t publish it for me, it should be for the whole country!
Surely a transparent government is better?
The guy tasked with investigating breaches of the Ministerial Code has resigned, saying that if Boris Johnson is going to simply ignore the conclusions of enquiries, then there is no point in having them.
That is damning. Unless you are a member of the BoJo cult, of course. I notice that fewer are nowadays.
And the sacking she suffered before was because the then PM was an inferior control freak who resented Priti having a very good and constructive idea. The anti Israeli mandarins in the FCO were furious too. I’ll wager it was having too many good and constructive ideas in the HO that incurred the vengeful wrath of the mandarins there.
You can’t, as a Minister, hold a meeting with a foreign PM which your own Foreign Office doesn’t know about. You can’t run an independent personal foreign policy. That’s what Priti Patel did.
Apparently, the first that the British PM knew about it was when she was hosting Benjamin Netanyahu in No.10 and Netanyahu mentioned his discussions with Patel. Patel was still keeping them quiet at that point. With the bullying of those below her, and failing to even keep her boss informed, she clearly isn’t a team player. So she was rightly forced to leave the team.
She was damned by the enquiry. But Boris let her off for the reasons given in the article above.
He “let her off” because she hadn’t done anything wrong.
Quite a good piece until the author tries to analyse the Housing Crisis and proceeds by absolving the planning system and blaming “landbankers”. Having spent over thirty years in the housing industry I can tell him that is utter tosh.
Planning has become more and more difficult and bureaucratic with endless calls for more and more specialist reports before a council will even look at an application. I am not aware of a single developer that deliberately sits on consented land waiting for teh price to rise.
However, they do tailor build rates to what is called the absorbtion rate. That’s the number of houses you can sell without the price having to fall to bring in a more marginal tranche of purchasers. Here, they are simply being rational, their job is not to stop house price inflation, that arguably is government’s job if they want to bring “generation rent” onside. Its not something that Housing associations could do either as they are closely watched on the subject of financial viability and would be in bother with their regualtor if they deliberatly sold homes at a loss.
THe HCA, or Homes England, or whatever they are called this week, could in theory act as swing supplier to hold prices down if the government asked it to , but lacks the people skills and knowledge to do so.
That said, there are land speculators who buy sites, work them through planning and then try and sell them for outrageous sums. Perhaps giving local authorities the money and power to compulsorily acquire such sites would clean that area up though I think they are marginal in their impact.
There are clearly problems in the housing development world, but the people who actually do build the homes are not the bad guys as is so often suggested.
Thank you for your illuminating comments. It seems to me that the author lacks understanding of how a market economy works in relation to house building. He seems to prioritise the inefficiencies that government in general introduce, in this case through bureaucracy and the planning system.
Even if the reasonably competent round pegs were all in round holes what real difference would it make? Todays article by Tom Chivers applies….. they may be loud but at the same time are silenced. The government may be running the country but they are far from dictating the narrative.
Couldn’t agree more with this article. Why on earth would a PM appoint members into cabinet without knowing what role they want and how good they are for the role they want?
it is a crazy idea – brace yourself! – BoJo is incompetent!
indeedbut this has been going on for years
Too many Ministers are appointed because of political expedience. As far as I can tell it is about the very poor quality of MPs. But those people are elected by the people.
In democracy the people get the government they deserve.
that quote you use is naive in a basically 2 party state – do try and think a bit more before you type
Thank goodness for Patel and Truss at least we get some movement in the correct direction.
“…has again fallen foul of the ministerial code ” this time in regard to bullying allegations. Despite the official enquiry into the matter, she escaped unscathed.”
If she has escaped unscathed from an enquiry into allegations of bullying, then in what sense has she fallen foul of the ministerial code? Sometimes pedantry matters.
I have been banging on here about COMPETENCE but people prefer to “trigger the libs” over “getting the sh*t done”.
I really can not quantify it (can anyone?) but what we are witnessing (starting with Brexit) is the revolt of the part of the “elite” that is left behind – Peter Turchin has written about “elite overproduction”.
And they were left behind because they were mostly incompetent.
You have a gift for lowering the level of debate.
Yes it is called the truth.
A child’s truth, Jeremy.
Baffled not to find any mention of the current SoS for Work and Pensions, the invisible Dr Coffey, whose apparently ineluctable but equally incomprehensible rise up the greasy pole has startled me ever since she became my MP over here in true-blue Suffolk Coastal. I was hoping to find a clue somewhere about her competence and its true focus.
“Raab needs a big spending department to run; and though that would technically be a demotion, it would be the best thing that could happen to him.”
What bigger spending could there be than of our foreign aid? And he has the whole world to go at, not just England, or England and Wales.
Where are the testing fiascos? Testing has been a phenomenal success considering Jeremy Hunt left us with a capacity of 2,000 a day. Now it is 5 or 600,000, more than anyone else in Europe. The tracing and confining to home is another matter. But how much responsibility should the media, including the present author, take for that? Since day 1 they have worked to discredit the Government and make people lose confidence in it, particularly in test and trace. Who is going to answer the telephone to T and T now? What is their incentive, now it has been rubbished by the media?
The media is to blame for Gavin Williamson?
Yes!- they backed the Conservatives, and Brexit as ordered to do so by their offshore tax-dodging owners. Once in power Johnson realised he needed some real fire power in the education department , so he appointed a guy with real experience of fire places.
But look who Labour have appointed as his opposite number? Williamson may be fairly useless but compared to his opponent he’s Einstein.
Well they have told the truth about test and trace, if that has discredited the government as you put it them perhaps that’s because they didn’t do a very creditable job. Sure they have managed – eventually got testing humbers up, though have clearly massaged the figures to show themselves in the best possible light. On the “trace ” side of things their work has been lamentable.
The problem has been that they decided to use a centralised approach and fell for a line of patter from one of the ususal suspects in the call centre selling world, instead of recourcing local councils and letting them get on with it. THe problem has been larelgy one that has been caused by the obsession with centralising power. All good managers delegate, recent governmants seems ot hate this idea, probaly because no-one in them is a remotely good manager.
In the Spring, Boris was claiming that test-and-trace would be “world beating”. By October, the Government was admitting that T&T would have only a marginal effect. Not surprising considering the lamentable failure to trace people. But still, it created a job for a Tory peer married to a Tory MP.
For some reason I like Williamson. Telling Russia to “shut up and go away” makes sense. Why hit back with grandiose rhetoric when they are so grubby and pathetic in their attention seeking? Alot of the MOD had respect for him- and not just the civil servants either.
Other than that, not a bad article.
Technically, members of the House of Lords can be placed in Cabinet.
This may provide a window for actual Ministerial expertise in the various departments of state, though it’s rather open to abuse (cash for peerages, anyone?), being that the PM can give anyone a peerage. But hey, someone could reform the process.
I’ve no doubt people would argue it’s undemocratic as well, but – to defend my already flawed idea – would you rather have career politicians with a 50/50 chance of them being good at their job, or members of the Lords that have an expertise (not all do I know, but that’s were reform comes in – vague I know) and know their subject well.
I’m thinking Lord Sugar for the Exchequer and Lord Dannatt for Defence!
Agree with most of this. Raab and Gove are the best we have. Jenrick and Williamson clearly not up to it but who should replace them?
stop and consider what your contention that “Raab and Gove are the best we have.” implies as to the competency of the Tory Party end to end”there is none.
The problem is not with individuals in the Tory Party”the problem is Conservative Ideology.