The news that Boris Johnson wants to get rid of 91,000 civil servants should come as a surprise to no one. Nor should it come as a surprise that this is not part of a plan. It’s a ‘dead cat’ strategy, designed solely to distract a weary public that Johnson’s government has made a mess that it is plainly incapable of clearing up and it’s a slice of red meat to the Tory right, which these days is most of it, who want a ‘low tax, small state’ country. The main reason we know it isn’t a real plan is the man who is nominally in charge of it: Jacob Rees-Mogg. who has the biggest non-job in politics.
Rees Mogg is the ‘Brexit opportunities minister’ which is pretty rich since there are no opportunities and he has been put in charge of government inefficiency. Few MPs are more inefficient than the MP for the 19th century.
But if Johnson is serious about what he calls the ‘bloated’ civil service, then how does he define it? Rees-Mogg gave an impressive example of how little he understands the subject by saying that the current problems at the Passport Office, which are in large part caused by staffing shortages, could be resolved by cutting numbers at the Passport Office. This is a logic that passes me me by. So, which other areas of waste could be tackled by cutting civl service numbers? Here are some examples:
- If Johnson slashed Border Force staff numbers, they could stop more illegal immigrants.
- If he did away with tax and benefit fraud investigators, he could crack down on tax and benefit fraud by investigating less of it
- If there were less officers working at airports in both security and passport control, we could speed things up for passengers
- If there were less air traffic control staff, more planes could fly safely
Think of a government department and the important work staff carry out and then imagine massive cuts to staffing levels. It makes no sense at all but then it’s not supposed to.
The government complains we’ve needed more civil servants because of Brexit. Hello? Many of us were saying that long before the 2016 referendum where Johnson and co told us to vote for more bureaucracy. Oh yes they did. Brexit is an administrative disaster, as it was always going to be. It was a job creation scheme for civil servants and they will always be there because Brexit is never ending.
I’m sure there are plenty of non-jobs. 10 Downing Street is full of highly paid political advisors, spin doctors and experts, all paid for by us. I would suggest they are not quite as important as – let’s see – immigration staff but that’s politics and that’s what Johnson is up to today.
The civil servants I worked with worked bloody hard for often modest wages, partly because they enjoyed the work but also because they had a strong belief in public service. Shysters and hucksters like Johnson and Rees-Mogg wouldn’t recognise public service if it pissed down their legs.
in any event, the 91,000 is just another headline for another day. Know what these people are about but don’t believe a word.
