Our constitution, such as it is, is a set of cultural norms of which the civil service is the primary guardian. Politicise it (further) and that function will be damaged.
For example, on Monday I spoke to a leading academic about what I believe to be the use of public money for the political purposes of the Conservative Party including advertising and private polling. We will shortly be launching litigation in this space...
... "Ah," he said, "but is legal intervention useful? Can civil servants not be relied upon to secure the right thing is done?" I said the way to test that apple was to taste it, but his answer reveals what is at stake when Govt pursues the politicisation of the civil service.
Other countries might have politicised civil services - but they also have proper constitutions embedding checks on Executive power elsewhere. In the UK, all we have is judges, who are under political attack.
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This is troubling. The original reports were unequivocal about the injuries officers suffered. The Chief Superintendent misled the public about the injuries in a way that harmed the exercise of the right to protest. We really should have an explanation. itv.com/news/westcount…
Here's ITV's original report. I'm pretty clear myself that misleading the public is the very opposite of public service.
Imagine the shoe was on the other foot and you had misled a policeman or woman? Very serious inferences would be drawn about your character and conduct, and rightly. Shouldn't we hold the police to at least as high a standard?
Postscript on the attack on the women running @ReclaimTS in @PrivateEyeNews. There's a writer there, a man, who had been a supporter of my work. He asked me to brief him on stuff I was doing, on eg tax avoidance, Brexit and procurement and wrote about it there and elsewhere.
There was a week in which I briefed him on a piece featuring our work he was writing for a prominent left wing newspaper.
Then I tweeted about the absurdity of the claims Suzanne Moore had been cancelled emitting from almost every major media platform after leaving the Guardian.
The thing is, the law can't stop protest. All it can do is criminalise the people for doing it. That's the path this Government has chosen. As intolerant, autocratic governments do.
We all know what relationship a Government that criminalises dissent has with its people. It's that relationship this Government is choosing. But they can't silence the people.
It would be somewhat awkward not to, given we are breaching them ourselves.
"The insider was also told she was paid 30% - likely a seven-figure sum - of Worldlink's profits on the deals. But Ms Ley's lawyers would not tell the BBC how much commission she earned." bbc.co.uk/news/uk-564005…
If we could see the meta story of PPE deals this - well connected and usually undisclosed parties brokering deals for money - would be a big part of it.
I make no allegations about Ms Ley but where you have undisclosed insiders brokering contracts with companies - especially in combination with the VIP lane and companies being introduced by Ministers - you have the clearest possible opportunity for corruption.
A criminal justice system that decriminalises rape isn't worthy of the name.
A Government that cared about the epidemic of sexual violence against women would legislate to address failures in the criminal justice system rather than legislating to limit the right of women to complain about them.
Here's my 2018 cri de coeur - saying what I can for the women I love whose lives have been destroyed by rape - for Government to take the continuing crisis seriously. newstatesman.com/politics/femin…