Fox-hunting, as Lord Burns famously put it, ‘seriously compromises the welfare of the fox’. Everyone agrees that the welfare of Dr Fox, the Defence Secretary, has been seriously compromised, so I suppose everyone is right. But amid all the aerating about standards in public life and ministerial codes, no one seems to worry who now exercises power in these situations. The answer is civil servants, and people should be worried by this. It was the permanent secretary of the MoD who was asked to look into Dr Fox’s case, and the Cabinet Secretary who took charge. Why is this considered appropriate? Civil servants are, as their name suggests, supposed to serve ministers, not discipline them. If they invigilate ministers’ conduct, it is only natural that they will tend to apply to them the standards which they would use for their own kind. They always detest the idea that ministers should be advised by anyone but themselves, so they will use petty scandals like this one to circumscribe them still further.
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