It happens with many Governmnents at mid-term.
Ater blaming the last lot, then the EU they come round to blaming civil servants for all their woes. Francis Maude made a ferocious attack on the rubber levers. Ministers decide, pull the levers and nothing happens. Yesterday Michael Heseltine rejected Maude's suggestion that politicians should appoint their own permanent secretaries. David Cameron has dumped David Kennedy under pressure to retreat from his claim to be a green Government. Slippery David has surrendered again to his own yahoo backbenchers.
Early Day Motion
That this House is alarmed at attempts by the Government to politicise the Civil Service; notes that the Prime Minister personally overruled the appointment of David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change, who had been selected as the new permanent secretary of the Department for Energy and Climate Change; is surprised at the claim of the Minister for the Cabinet Office that some top civil servants have deliberately obstructed plans that Ministers want to be implemented; recalls that many past failing governments, in mid-term, blamed civil servants for government ineptitude; and asserts the prime need for the independence of the Civil Service to provide stability and moderation in government.
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