Beyond being implicated in the Jimmy Savile scandal it’s hard to imagine how last week could have been worse for the Tories. The build up to their conference in Birmingham has been marked by about as catastrophic an example of incompetence as it is possible to imagine at the Department for Transport. The cancellation of the West Coast rail franchise competition is plain embarrassing and has led to the usual response of this government: blame someone else. Three civil servants have been suspended while Justine Greening, who was Secretary of State at the time of the fiasco, remains in the Cabinet. You had to feel for her successor, Patrick McLoughlin, who was left to apologise on the Today programme for failings in the department he inherited.
Mark Hoban, who succeeded Chris Grayling as employment minister, took a less conciliatory approach when the National Council for Voluntary Organisations revealed that the much-vaunted Work Programme was driving charities to the wall.
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