Ed Davey as Post Office Minister joins very long line of U.K. senior politicians who have failed to intervene in the aftermath of state inflicted disaster and injustice. Over my time I have observed a number of reasons why this happens…
Ministers are often at mercy of what and who briefs them (a major problem in the pandemic) and as I say in #WhenTheDustSettles by the time of coalition it was “no bad news for the Minister”. They rarely get access to wildcard views.
Regardless of party, I often find Ministers are quite protective of the “establishment” and really struggle with the imagination required that it’s the state that is failing here or there is a wider nasty game at play
Ministers may also be vulnerable to lobbying, whipping and the use of past indiscretions to leverage the turning of a blind eye (not suggesting this was used in this case)
Sometimes Ministers are simply too close to the state/ corporate perpetrators and the degrees of separation can be mind-blowingly tiny. People meeting for dinner regularly or being related by marriage as examples.
Davey now joins a long list of those who claim that if they had been more fully appraised of the injustices and issues they would have acted earlier (Burnham has said similar for health scandals)
All if this may explain that while I regularly brief advisers I am rarely allowed near the Minister 😆
You can’t take “bits and pieces” to Minister or gut/ hearsay (all of which usually turn out to be spot on). As I say in #WhenTheDustSettles in relation to a nuclear exercise Ministers have to get better at hearing uncertainties (similarities to issues with Whistleblowing)
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