So Rishi Sunak plans to "cut back 'bloated post-Covid state' with civil service shakeup" (various media outlets including this). Earlier, Jacob Rees-Mogg, effectively Liz Truss's chief-of-staff, had used similar language. One trusts that these could be no more than part of the red meat being thrown to the narrow electorate which will decide the leadership of the Conservative party and thence the kingdom. Having got himself or herself elected, the winner will conveniently forget their pledges, as their lord and master Boris Johnson did after the 2019 general election.
Pre-Brexit, the civil service machine was already under pressure. Since then, extra people have been needed to duplicate the work in trade and some foreign affairs carried out by EU staff. This is surely a continuing task, no matter what Rees-Mogg believes. Likewise, the SARS-CoV-2 emergency has exposed the need for a permanent contact tracing system, reverting to that run down by previous Conservative Health ministers, and avoiding the need for the expensive and often useless panic measures thrown together by the Johnson government in 2020. Moreover, civil servants need to be paid fairly on the basis of equal pay for equal work.
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