And so we bid farewell to Sir Mark Sedwill

And, unsurprisingly, I am not exactly choking back the tears, in fact, it's more like I am trying not to cheer too loudly!  Not that I know too much about Sir Mark but the fact that he was an assiduous anti-'Brexiteer' who attempted to pull every governmental lever he could get his pudgy mitts on in an effort to deny the peoples' choice to leave the EU, is enough for me to decide that I will not be sending him a Xmas card - again!

In the meantime, 'Killer' Cummings stalks the corridors of Whitehall power and numerous other top civil (non)servants will be running their fingers round their starched shirt collars!  Oh please God, let me live another 20-odd years so that I can read the 'Heffalump's' detailed back story to this massacre of the 'mandinerate'!  Simply too, too delicious!

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

Sir Mark, don't let the door knob hit you where the good Lord split you?

[Loz]

Do you honestly think that Dombo's Kommissars will be any better than civil servants? Remember Bojo and Cummings haven't run so much as a whelk-stall in their lives in a competitive market and risen to the top. They're no Branson, Sugar, or Gates. Appointing people is the special skill of the successful entrepreneur or charity / mutual / not-for-profit operator that got them to the top. The very skill lacking in Dombo that meant they had to go into politics to get anywhere in life.

And now the precedent has been set for political appointees to operate public services. When the boot's on the other foot and Keir Starmer is in office you can expect some proper, genuine article Kommissars to be installed into the top jobs of the civil service, to join up with their lesser brethren in the middle and lower ranks of the public sector.

That will be truly horrific. If 60,000 massacred in one quarter, 10,000 starved and dehydrated every year, and 1,300 white girls handed over to Pakistani Muslim rape gangs for use as masturbation toys was bad enough you ain't seen nothing like what's coming when the proper Leninist / Stalinist's get going.

SoD

[Whyaxye]

John Redwood has done a nicely-understated (as usual!) blog post on this, where he contrasts the two traditional roles of Civil Servants. They are there to help formulate policy by advising politicians on political/economic consequences of their actions; and also to just get on with implementing policy by making sure their department delivers. Sedwill was, shall we say in diplomatic terms, insufficiently clear in the practical differentiation of these dimorphous functions.

Less diplomatically, he seems to have been an arrogant saboteur who thought he knew better than the electorate.

[Glesga]

Whyaxye, I enjoy reading John Redwood. He seemed to be marked for years for his failed attempt at the Welsh national anthem. The man is a sensible thinker and a solid brexiteer. He has never waivered on exiting the EU corrupt mafia.

[David Duff]

Jimmy, I agree! When I used to live up in his constituency, I went to a couple of his public meetings. Intelligent, clear and obviously well thought out.