Oh I didn’t mean the civil service

I meant the broader “machinery of government”. The whole minister/spad/No 10 coterie.

There *are* issues with the Civil Service in Whitehall but broadly it’s much easier to deal with the Civil Servants than their bosses not least because generally they have a very good grasp of what you’re talking about and when they don’t agree with you it’s usually for a well thought through reason, because difficult problems rarely have a simple or clean solution. And if a problem isn’t difficult you’re probably not talking about it in the first place.

Posted By: Old Man, Dec 17, 09:05:24