Hostilities deepen in Whitehall Wars

‘The relationship between my civil servants and me is summed up by trust and understanding. I don’t trust them and they don’t understand me,’ one Secretary of State likes to joke. The quip sums up the current, tense mood in Whitehall.

Today’s Times has done a superb job chronicling just how bad things have got. Many ministers and special advisers feel that they are being made to do huge amounts of work to compensate for the failings og the civil service and being made to carry the can when the permanent bureaucracy messes something up. But before this is dismissed as just griping from ministers who are struggling with mid-term, it is worth noting Tony Blair’s trenchant criticisms of the civil service. He says that it has ‘inherent dysfunctionality’ and that he tells other countries to avoid setting up a Whitehall-style system.

But, I understand that civil servants are pointing journalists to a heads of news meeting held by Craig Oliver last week.