Thursday 19 July 2012

Home is Where the Hurt is

I realised, yesterday, it was exactly five years since I resigned from the Home Office.

It was an elementary decision in the end. Having had six line managers in ten months, I was compelled to accept a demotion from a grade I had held for four years. Annual reports of my performance were not deemed relevant by HR.

From what I hear the working atmosphere has continued to deteriorate and with the almost indiscriminate cuts in staffing since 2010 has reached 'poisonous' levels. The last measure across Whitehall of morale in Departments put the HO at the bottom of the heap concluding: "Home Office civil servants have less faith in their department's readiness to do its job than employees in any other government office."

Although most of the turmol is kept within the confines of HQ in Marsham Street (above) we have all witnessed the suicidal cutting of UKBA staff and the inevitable huge queues at our airports. It does not seem to occur to Home SecTheresa May that you shouldn't cut staff when there is clearly a job for them to do. She acts like some penny pinching spinster running her life by austerity for its own sake, ready to watch her family be half-starved. To the Conservatives, civil servants are amateurish beauracrats first, effective dedicated public servants last.

The G4S "debacle" was a failure of monitoring a contract by the HO. My guess would be there were just not enough boots on the ground to the job, not after 8,500 redundancies. The relationshiip with staff generally could be compared to a dysfunctional family suffering sustained psychological abuse from a despised, aggressive figurehead.

So it was little surprise to see its maligned and ignored workforce seek to demonstrate its anger at the only time it would be noticed: during the Olympics. Ministers are gambling the public will continiue to relate any strike with the 1978/9 winter of discontent and condemn any exertion of union power. That antipathy won't last forever: unions are people too, my friend.

Friday 13 July 2012

One More Heave

This was the scarcely believable slogan used by the old Liberal Party led by Jeremy Thorpe (left) in the October 1974 General Election*.

Suggestions of nausea, notwithstanding, I was reminded of its comic pretensions when it was announced that Nick Clegg's Bill on law reforms would be permitted "one final push."

It doesn't need any degree of political fortune telling to see what was ineviable defeat from the outset for Clegg. MPs have a firm view on Lords reform and no end of pleading and tinkering will overcome either sides' points of principle. For the Lib Dems and some senior Labour figures like Peter Hain it is a simple question of democratic legitimacy. For the right wing Tories led by Jesse Norman it is about the primacy of the Commons. The huge divide between them is quite unbridgable.

But some of Clegg's main arguments were a bit sixth form anyway. He suggested there did not need to be a referendum because all three main parties had pledged for HoL reform. Eh? That doesn't mean the electorate necessarily agree, in fact if you couldn't vote against it then it makes the case for a referndum more compelling not less.

Besides the ponts of principle there is plenty of residual resentment among the Tories about these grand constitutional plans and it must give them immense satisfaction to see Clegg outmanoevured and his Bill in ashes. After the lost referendum on electoral reform Clegg has yet to score a Parliamentary win to restore his relevance. By the election it may be reasonable to ask simply "What is the point of Nick Clegg?"

* Thorpe won 16 seats.

Thursday 5 July 2012

Interest Free

Perhaps the electorate has not noticed but Ed Miliband has shown coniderably more political maturity of late.

His 'two stage' inquiry suggestion into corrupt practises at Barclays at setting the LIBOR and beyond, was a neat political solution. It would have preserved the 'quick fix' element of a Parliamentary inquiry while actually exposing many other banks' nefarious ways over the next 12 months.

Cameron has too much political arrogance to accept a good thing when it is offered and continues to play his 'doublethink' strategy which is to blame Labour but not allow a level of inquiry which show exactly want went on in 2006-9. Pointing incessantly, all wide-eyed, at Ed Balls will not convince a cynical electorate.

Miliband also looked more the statesman when he cited the national interest to Cameron who responded like a rabid political beast. Cameron was found to be, "slow to act and supporting the wrong people" over phone-hacking and eventually appointed Leveson. It was partly because of Rebecca Brooks' warning that there was "more to come."

It would be fairly astonishng if the banks' misdemeanours stopped with the Barclays and their top dog, Bob  Diamond (pictured). 'Red's' relentless stonewalling before the Treasury Committee yesterday was a good indicator of what will ensue. In a judge led inquiry such blatant obfuscation would have been met with the irresistable force of a barrister such as Leveson's Robert Jay QC.

Cameron's political immaturity was succicntly captured by Steve Richards' excellent piece in the Independent this week. He may not yet realise but he is exactly where he said he didn't want to be when he became PM: shouting loudly to MPs much to the annoyance to the general public of the pure partisanship.

Transport Secretary Justine Greeming was howled down at last week's QT whenever she tried to blame, "the last Labour Government." To the public it as boring as someone who joins a company and bangs incessantly about what used to happen "at my last job."

After a succession of budget U-turns, if he is forced to back down again, Cameron's stature will be certainly diminished. He may not have noticed the public are watching.