Cookie Notice

WE LOVE THE NATIONS OF EUROPE
However, this blog is a US service and this site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse.

Thursday 27 February 2020

Sajid Javid's uninspired whine

Sajid Javid is not a man who can craft words well. His sad little litany of complaint in the Commons yesterday demonstrated not only his unpolished am-dram rhetoric, but more importantly his utter lack of understanding of the central task of this government. It really is just as well he's no longer in office.

The clue is in Allister Heath's piece in the 'graph today -
Brexit isn’t enough: politicians need to take back control, to renew our democratic culture, reintroduce accountability and improve the quality of the state. They need to be forced to take responsibility even when they don’t want it. They must become their own masters, working on behalf of their electorate, not spokespersons for out-of-control departments. They need to relearn to be managers, moulding the system to their commands. They should hire their own people, not inherit hostile teams.

If politicians cannot make their minds up on an issue, they ought to call referenda, not abdicate decision-making to mandarins or judges. Our system of government is no longer fit for purpose: the old Yes, Minister civil service and its jobs for life and gongs for failure has run out of time; but so has the more recent technocratic and juristocratic experiment.
Javid's exhibition was not so much that of an extinct Ovine as that of a newly castrated goat realising he's missing something but not quite realising what. Ministers who gain their stature from a powerful and unelected undemocratic nomenklatura propelling them into cabinet should not be surprised that their bass has turned to treble, their rumble to a pitiable whine, when their civil service bollocks have been lopped off.

In this period of transition, in winning back the organs of the State for democracy from the unaccountable establishment that has captured them, the powers exercised by Number 10 are a necessary discomfort for ministers. And an opportunity to learn to grow a pair of their own. As Miss Patel is so competently demonstrating.

12 comments:

Stephen J said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephen J said...

Amongst all the comings and goings, this was one that was due, if only because he was one of "Treason's" gang, and never to be trusted.

Not sure about Heath and his idea that MP's should be in charge of direct democracy, that sounds like more of the same?

DiscoveredJoys said...

There are now MPs in government who 'get' Brexit and are keen to implement the democratic decision of the Referendum. But there are some that think Brexit was only about leaving the EU... not realising that the EU technocratic style of government is just as unwelcome when imposed on a UK basis. Continuity Commission is not acceptable but there are many senior Public and Civil Servants who know nothing else.

We cannot 'go back' to how things were, but we can make Free Trade and the Common Law our principles once more - and that includes loosening the grip of the Great and Good.

DeeDee99 said...

Javid was a representative of the "Old Guard" .... the Osborne/May/Hammond Remainers. He was captured by the pro[-EU Treasury a long time ago.

He was given the opportunity to demonstrate that he understood the need for fundamental change in the way we have been governed and he shied away, just as he did when his much vaunted EU-scepticism was "challenged" by the EU Referendum. He is no loss to the Government.

His communication skills always were poor and he is no loss. Sunak is vastly superior. I just wish Boris/Cummings would get on and start the swamp draining that is so badly needed.

Good to see kiddy-fiddling apologist David Steel leaving the House of Frauds. One down, 799 (or thereabouts) to go.

JPM said...

You seemed to me to think that he was great until he resigned.

Raedwald said...

26/5/19
Sajid Javid - Clean and bland and calculating. He's nursed his career with an eye to the top spot and puts his credentials on public display in a noticeable way. But what does he believe in, apart from himself?

9/4/19
She is supported by her sinister Grand Vizier Sajid

9/1/20
Sajid Javid will have his work cut out at the Treasury if he is to use government economic intervention to 'even up' the UK.

14/2/20
I think there are sound reasons why Sajid Javid had to go, not least of which was the damage he could potentially cause to the UK economy by allying himself with the Remainer doomsters and gloomsters at the Treasury.

Those are the only mentions I can find I've made, Cheesy - please explain why you think these depict him as 'great'?

JPM said...

Tsk.

If you say so.

Anonymous said...

JPM said @ 10:45

'If you say so.'

I should jog on if I were you mate. You're hurting so bad it's muddying your judgement - making your comments bitter and reactionary. Have a rest and come back next year. We'll have finally left the Project altogether and we can all put that nasty EU thing behind us. Ok?

Steve

Sackerson said...

His whine was a little corked.

Span Ows said...

LOL...nice one Raedwald.

JPM said...

No, nothing's ever enough for the fanatic, whether it be the religious lunatic for Islam, or the conspiracy-theory-obsessed anti-European.

AH - what's in initials? - admits it, kindly.

Span Ows said...

JPM, I bet AH drank Yorkshire Tea