I was on the radio this morning with David Mellor who accused the Cabinet of being appallingly ill-disciplined because of ‘leaks’ in the weekend press. James Forsyth revealed on Saturday that Philip Hammond had told Cabinet that being a train driver is so easy that ‘even’ a woman could do it. Yesterday, Tim Shipman revealed in the Sunday Times that Hammond had gone on to declare that public sector workers were ‘overpaid’.
But here’s the thing: that meeting took place on Tuesday. If Cabinet members were queuing up to leak to journalists then we’d have read about it in Wednesday’s newspapers. It took several days for the information to become public precisely because it was not being made generally available: Hammond’s indiscretions were exposed by two of the best political journalists in Britain who used their contacts to do what they’re paid to do: tell the public what’s being said behind closed doors.
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