Jill Rutter Profile picture
Jan 21 10 tweets 3 min read
Government is a serious business. But this government is not treating it as such.
Exhibit A - Operation Red Meat - throw out eye-catching policy announcements to "rally the backbenches". Policies should address real problems based on proper analysis, assembly of evidence and be well through through.
Policies are designed to change things. They cost public or private attention at a minimum, but more often divert resources - money, people, time. They need to be thought through and justified.
and most need to be sustained and sustainable in the long-term - not just knock a bad party story off a headline for a day.
Exhibit B - schools for votes aka whip blackmail aka reverse pork. This is public money which is supposed to be spent for public benefit. we do not hand the govt/ whips hundreds of billions to use to terrorise their backbenches.
if a school in Radcliffe was justified before Christian Wakeford thought about voting one way, it is justified after he did.... if it wasn't then the money shouldn't have been being spent anyway. Over to you Accounting Officer.
Meanwhile, progress in difficult areas is delayed by a prime minister distracted by surviving another day in office. Levelling Up still missing in action. #netzero on the backburner.
Cost of living crisis to be managed. NSC should be having long discussions on Ukraine. Govt should be working out where it wants to land the NI protocol and how to ensure that it returns NI to stability.
Its #veganuary. Rather than tossing out morsels of red meat to its backbenchers, maybe the govt could give meat up for the month and show it is capable of addressing big, longstanding challenges. ENDS

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More from @jillongovt

Dec 20, 2021
so the second of @UKandEU #Brexitwitnessarchive interviews is with @OwenPaterson - done well before the events of the autumn. Another leading Brexit supporter who was @DefraGovUK and @NIOgov SoS under David Cameron. Let's dive in
Paterson was a linguist and businessman working across Europe. Whereas it was the EU's treatment of Greece that pushed Davis to support Leave, for Paterson it was the treatment of former Communist countries
Bonus first Johnson sighting there. A very honest answer on the impact of Cameron@s Bloomberg speech (remember Paterson was in the Cabinet then
Read 17 tweets
Dec 20, 2021
Two blockbuster new interviews in the @ukandeu #Brexitwitnessarchive. First up, the first of the resigning #brexit negotiators @DavidDavisMP. He had A LOT to say so do recommend a full read.
we asked about the source of his euroscepticism. Not his early employment at Tate and Lyle as some assume. He reminded he was Whip on the Maastricht bill. Described himself as a "civilised eurosceptic" (not a "bastard" TM John Major
DD was very critical of the Cameron pledge to take the Conservatives out of the EPP (the root of many of his difficulties with Angela Merkel as others have pointed out)
Read 26 tweets
Dec 20, 2021
So Liz Truss is in charge of the UK-EU relationship. May seem obvious but in February @ThimontJack and I argued that @cabinetofficeuk was the right place to coordinate the relationship instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/m…
we assume the "Europe" side of Frost's team transfer to @FCDOGovUK - its a long time since the FCO had serious heft on Europe. That will provide some continuity
But managing the relationship is entwined with lots of domestic issues, way away from FCDO's normal areas of interest. It also requires managing relations with devolveds. Hmm
Read 9 tweets
Oct 18, 2021
Next week Rishi Sunak will deliver his Budget. This week we should finally see @hmtreasury #netzero review. New @instituteforgov report says Chancellor must start talking (publicly) about net zero instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/n…
A bit in Budget 2020. Nothing in Budget 2021 or his party conference speech .. but the impacts on revenues from fossil fuels can't be ignored and the system could do a much better job promoting pro-net zero actions
first we need to see the long-awaited review on who pays. but he needs to go further and set out how he will adapt the tax system to support the transition to a #netzero economy.
Read 10 tweets
Oct 16, 2021
.@jnpowell1 has written an important article in @FT (£ - I assume) about Johnson govt casual disregard for Northern Ireland ft.com/content/bb92d1…
Lots of blame attached to Frost and Johnson. But I think he could cast his net wider. As @UKandEU #Brexitwitnessarchive shows there was hardly any consideration of the consequences of a Leave vote in the decision to hold a referendum.
Read interviews here....ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness…
Read 15 tweets
Oct 1, 2021
really interesting from @so_says_sally (and not just cos she quotes me) .. my experience a decade ago from @DefraGovUK was that it was really hard to get @DHSCgovuk out of its health service silo and interested in wider policy
so its great news they are now interested in air quality (they weren't then); we tried to interest DH as was in fuel poverty (hypothermia kills) - no interest. So I think there is scope for depts realising benefits where there are real synergies
the problems for a line dept come where their cross-cutting priority cuts across a departmental priority and they need to persuade it to go in another direction..
Read 4 tweets

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