Gruyere rather than granite
It is no wonder civil servants are restless, no wonder so many of them have rapidly declining morale, and it is not surprising that leaks are growing in number.
If you look at this week, the reasons are all too obvious. The GP sick note “get them back to work” announcement was a simple re-hash, and backfired. After five months of possible preparations, the Northern Rock nationalisation legislation proved to share the characteristics of gruyere cheese: some poor draughtsmanship and some policy elements that did not stand up to close scrutiny as a result.
Yes it did pass into legislation last night but it leaves behind an unpleasant taste of ill thought out incompetence. The words dogs and breakfasts spring to mind. Then databases seem to have a habit of disappearing all too frequently.
With the embarrassing reversal on non-domiciles and capital gains tax, civil servants’ faith in the judgment of their political bosses will have plummeted. There is now an air of drift and lack of focus - it is so palpable- all of which arises out of a lack of management by politicians of their respective departments.
This week this sorry state of affairs really did come into focus.