Gordon Brown’s ‘utterly dysfunctional’ government
The Guardian has an article by Polly Curtis which I noticed last night but had little time to blog about until now.
According to Polly
Gordon Brown‘s government has become
“utterly dysfunctional”
and needs a major reorganisation to prevent looming spending cuts shackling any future administration, thi is according to the man who represents the most senior civil servants in Whitehall. In a damning critique of the Brown years, Jonathan Baume, head of the FDA union, claimed there was gridlock at the heart of government, with mandarins meeting indecision in Downing Street, ministers who have “given up”, and a culture of “government by announcement”.
“We’ve got to learn from this,” he said. “At the moment No 10 is seen as a blockage. There’s almost a mood where civil servants try to keep No 10 out because you can’t get clear decisions. It’s not sustainable in the longer term. The next government has got to work more clearly, it’s got to take decisions at the centre, because you don’t have that now.
“The dysfunction is partly political and partly organisational. No one is clear how the Treasury, the prime minister’s office and the Cabinet Office actually loop together and come up with a coherent policy initiative. When Gordon Brown became prime minister no clear direction ever emerged from him.” Pressure has grown on the government – and the opposition – to declare how they will achieve the major cuts needed to reduce public debt. Steve Bundred, head of the Audit Commission, warned this week that spending cuts would be the toughest in a lifetime and that it would be “insane” to protect schools and hospitals when they have been most generously funded in recent years.
In the article Baume also goes on to tell how departments have no idea what is going on and how they will be affected by the upcoming cuts. He says there is
“a sense of malaise at the political level. Some ministers have clearly given up the fight and are focusing on what happens after the election. It’s a very strange atmosphere.”
This sound exactly like the the true nature of Gordon Brown. A man who would struggle to run the proverbial whelk stall. Here is a comment that really sums up GordonBrown, It s from a commentator on Political Betting known as EasterRoss. He says
Gordon Brown’s problem has always been that he views himself as a master tactician. Given his background in the Scottish Labour Party, that is easy to understand.
With the exception of Robin Cook, John Smith and Donald Dewar, both much lamented, the average parliamentarian in the Scottish Labour Party is required to have no working brain cells. That is why Tom Harris is so unpopular, possessing more working brain cells than the rest combined. The Scottish Labour Party has traditionally excluded clever people in case they wanted to think for themselves.
Since 1982 Gordon Brown has run the Scottish Labour Party like a private political force and anyone (excluding Dewar and Cook and of course the late John Smith) opposing him found themselves smeared or sidelined very quickly. Surrounded by “yes men” Brown convinced himself that only he knew better than anyone about anything.
Now he finds he cannot manipulate the media or outside world but sadly I do not think he realises it. Brown still thinks he is leading Labour to a resounding victory and a trifle like the Iraq Inquiry offers no threat to his “I saved the world” agenda.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
This is a remarkable article from a Union leader in the Civil Service and is a real blow to Gordon’s hopes as being seen as the “Saviour” of the UK in the lead up to the election.
Time for a change, time for Gordon to go.
Civil servants’ leader attacks ‘utterly dysfunctional’ government | Politics | The Guardian.
