Reckless civil service cuts

 Earlier this year, Jacob Rees Mogg announced draconian cuts in the civil service head-count. As Civil Service World pointed out, much of the increase in recent years has been necessary because work which is carried out in Brussels on behalf of all EU nations has had to be duplicated in London because of Brexit. One would expect many jobs necessary for the transition to an isolationist position to become redundant. However, it has become clear that Mogg is intent a crude cull across all Deparments.

What this means in practice is shown by the increasing delays at the Passport Office. These have become so serious that even on a day when the threats to Boris Johnson's office were reaching a crisis, questions to the Welsh Secretary were predominantly about the obstacles to travel for business or vacation that they presented.

Crude, untargeted forced redundancies do more harm than good, though they may garner approving headlines in the Daily Mail. It is to be hoped that the "caretaker" takes a more sensible look at civil service tasks and morale.

Richard Foord's long view

 The new MP for Tiverton and Honiton concluded his maiden speech in the Commons yesterday:

Every time I walk up the staircase to my office here, I find myself eyeballed by a bust of the former Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. Palmerston was the MP for Tiverton for 30 years, and he went on a journey—one recently experienced by a few of my constituents at last month’s by-election. He started out a Conservative but later became a Liberal. I honestly think that is what we are hearing across the country: a groundswell of opinion from people who feel taken for granted. Just yesterday, we saw two senior members of the Cabinet quit, citing a lack of integrity, and I think that it is time for those remaining members of the Cabinet to heed the message from voters in Tiverton and Honiton at our by-election last month and show the Prime Minister the door.

Lord Palmerston was also Prime Minister, at the end of the Crimean war. He spoke about Russian foreign policy in this place 160 years ago:

“The policy and practice of the Russian Government in regard to Turkey and Persia has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go but always to stop and retire when it has met with decided resistance.”

I am much less fatalistic about Russia’s expansionist ways. With a different leader at a different time, I do not suppose that Russia would be bound to invade its neighbour. But the UK is right to support Ukraine for many reasons. For me, the most important relates to the way Ukraine gave up its status as a country in possession of nuclear weapons, in part because of the assurances it received at the time from countries, including the UK, as part of the Budapest memorandum. Under the memorandum, we offered assurances to Ukraine in relation to its security. While they were not security guarantees, I see the support the UK is showing Ukraine as consistent with what we pledged back in 1994.

I suggest that the UK should show the same solidarity and ability to work with European neighbours that Britain showed during the Crimean war. Liberal democracy must be defended and preserved, regardless of who Palmerston’s latest successor might be.

So, not Nadine then

 However, one ultra-loyalist in the shape of Steve Barclay has filled one of the vacated posts. The new chancellor is to be Nadim Zahawi, characterised by a former YouGov colleague as someone who was good at securing favourable deals. One suspects that he will support Johnson only as long as it suits him.

Nadine Dorries for Chancellor?

 Following the headline resignations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary, not to mention the queue of junior ministers for the exit, it is said that Boris Johnson is in a hurry to identify those Conservative MPs still loyal to him. Only Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ben Wallace, Liz Truss, Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries have publicly staked their future on the PM at the time of writing. Will two of those five fill the vacancies?

Labour is calling for a general election rather than a reshuffle, but secretly they must feel that is the last thing they want when their leadership has not made any great impact on public perception. Locally, their MPs are unpopular within the constituency parties for different reasons.

[Updated 2022-07-5 20:51]

Local schools in Neath Port Talbot may gain a reprieve

There is an early sign that the coalition is putting clear (or should that be "rainbow"?) water between themselves and the Labour junto they replaced last month. The first NPT News issued by the coalition announces that it:

wishes to review the decision taken in respect of school reorganisation in the Swansea Valley. It seeks to establish if alternative ways to bring 21st Century School standards to the Swansea Valley can be achieved which would be more acceptable to the community.

If this means that the excessive centralisation, which led to good, popular, local schools being closed, can be stopped or even reversed, then it is very welcome. If the coalition looks at the carbon footprint of the reorganisation, then it is doubly welcome.

Senedd bloat

 On today's Sunday Supplement, Huw Irranca-Davies did not claim, as some summaries have done, that the Labour/Plaid Cymru plans for the future of Welsh government would improve the quality of Senedd members. He did say that it was not a case of "jobs for the boys". But logical analysis surely shows that increasing the number of Members of the Senedd by over fifty per cent and drawing those members from closed party lists is the recipe for filling the Welsh parliament with party hacks. Indeed, I remember when Labour used to denigrate the then Members of the Welsh Assembly (AMs) who  emerged from top-up regional lists because they had not been directly elected in a constituency.

It was also naughty of him to claim total "liberal" support for the Labour scheme because Liberal Democrats have consistently argued for an increase in the number of elected eyeballs to scrutinise legislation. As far as I know, the party has not had a chance to debate these particular proposals. I am not saying that all Welsh Lib Dems are against them, but informal soundings suggest that opinion in the party is divided and they need to be put to the test at the Welsh AGM. Labour has had the opportunity to have a conference to debate them (the inspiration for the Irranca-Davies interview this morning). We should to, before our leader commits herself further.

Qatar hypocrisy

 Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. However, the authorities in Doha have promised that LGBTQ fans will be perfectly safe in the state, a former British protectorate. It is not the only example of Qatar's two faces. It is a hereditary monarchy in which all the civil power is held by the ruling family, yet it hosts a liberal broadcasting organisation with world coverage in Aljazeera. The organisers of the World Cup boast of fair working conditions for the men who built the stadiums, yet rights have not improved for those involved in construction otherwise.

 It is quite understandable that out fans do not take the moratorium on homosexuality on trust and are reluctant to follow their teams in the World Cup finals in person. Sadly, this is not going to change the law in Qatar. 

Arbuthnot's 18th century treatise on lying

 Thanks to Melvyn Bragg and guests for putting me on to this work by the Scottish doctor, mathematician and satirist, Dr John Arbuthnot. Set aside the flowery language, the classical references and the fact that Arbuthnot was a Tory opposed to the Whigs, and much of his prospectus stands up today. It is hard to know whether he was being sarcastic or serious when he suggested that lying was necessary in politics and financial affairs, but there are clearly many people in high places today who believe both. There is less doubt when he goes on to say:

The Seventh Chapter is wholly taken up in an Enquiry, Which of the two Parties are the greatest Artists in Political Lying. [The author] owns the Tories have been better believed of late; but, that the Whigs have much the greater Genius's amongst them. He attri­butes the late ill Success of the Whig-Party to their glutting the Market, and retailing too much of a bad Commodity at once: When there is too great a Quantity of Worms, it is hard to catch Gudgeons. He proposes a Scheme for the Recovery of the Credit of the Whig-Party, which indeed seems to be somewhat Chimerical, and does not savour of that sound Judgment the Author has shown in the rest of the Work It amounts to this, That the Party should agree to vent nothing but Truth for three Months together, which will give them Cre­dit for six Months Lying afterwards. He owns, that he believes it almost impossible to find fit Persons to execute this Scheme. Towards the end of the Chapter, he in­veighs severely against the Folly of Parties, in retaining such Scoundrels and Men of Low Genius's to retail their Lyes; such as most of the present News-Writers are, who besides a strong Bent and Inclination towards the Profession, seem to be wholly ignorant in the Rules of Pseudology, and not at all qualified for so weighty a Trust.