The Spectator’s Notes | 4 July 2019

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, is offering to meet Jeremy Corbyn about the Times story last week which reported that senior civil servants were worried Mr Corbyn was ‘too frail and is losing his memory’. As usual with such stories, one cannot know their exact truth, but there is a general trend in the civil service to be looser-tongued. A recent column by Rachel Sylvester, also in the Times, contained a long string of insults of Boris Johnson from unnamed officials. Sir Mark did not offer to meet Mr Johnson about that. Before and after the Brexit referendum, government officials, especially at the Treasury, repeatedly briefed views hostile to Brexit. A Remainer, Olly Robbins, took charge of the Brexit negotiations. Recently, in a row about leaking, Sir Mark is said to have insisted on the sacking of the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, and indicated that he would not work for a government which contained him.