No Minister

It is a strange week to be a UK blogger with pretensions to comment on current affairs.  There has been a terrorist attack in London and this Wednesday the process for Brexit will actually start.  I send all love and sympathy to those affected by the attack last week.  Any lives lost is too many.  However, I suppose we should be very thankful that it is twelve years since a major attack succeeded and very grateful for the professionalism and sacrifice of those who dealt with the events of last week.

And in a way that links to my thoughts about the Brexit 'triggering'.  I did not vote for Brexit and I greatly resent that such a momentous, complex decision has been made on the basis of one vote.  However, since our government are determined to stand by that one (very close) vote and exit the EU, I believe we now have to fight for the details of that exit.  

The British civil service is one of the major factors which has kept our country from stumbling into extremism.  With a big enough mandate, the elected government can push through what it wants in Parliament - as long as it keeps its own MPs happy.  But the detail of how things are actually implemented and what they mean further down the 'food chain' is very much influenced by what ministers are told is possible or by how civil servants interpret the demands of ministers.

Yes Minister, the 1980s sitcom about the civil service, runs very close to the bone.  (Sort of how I might prefer my husband think it was his idea to book a holiday - but on a much grander scale!)

I do not doubt there are civil servants at all levels who supported Brexit.  I should imagine dealing with EU law and institutions is very frustrating for a start.  And I myself did not vote Remain because I think the EU is perfect.  Far from it.  But I would have preferred to be working for change from within the grouping.  The loss of so many protections and freedoms in order to be free of bureaucracy was, in my opinion, too high a price to pay.  Especially for future generations.

The close protection officers who whisked Theresa May out of Parliament last week would have done so whoever was Prime Minister.  Our security services continue to perform their functions whichever party is in power.  In the same way, other civil servants keep government ticking over through elections, reshuffles, etc.  A short while ago, one of the newspapers saw fit to publish outlines of the plans for when the Queen dies.  They are drawn up according to past history and long experience.  To be implemented by the occupants of ministerial offices, regardless of party loyalties.

And now we desperately need our civil service to step up for the Brexit negotiations.  It is their job to be politically neutral and to do the best for our country.  Ministers are too driven by the big pictures, by election results, by social media.  What we need for the next two years is people who will focus not on their own concerns but on what is best for our future.  They may not have long experience of this issue.  There was apparently very little contingency work done before the vote.  But they do know how to get things done despite the politicos.

Some commentators have said the gates through which the attacker arrived at Parliament last week were a security weak spot.  In part because ministers and members insisted on to being able to get through quickly by car. 

The government's majority in Parliament means that 'No Minister' needs to be heard far more often and more firmly as we enter these talks.  Or who knows what will be let through in the interests of government supporters.  

Opinions for the Future

 

Once again, there are any number of unbelievable events which I could write about from the last week.  It is impossible to do justice to the suffering of those caught up in the latest attacks/coups.  To say nothing of the continuing wars and refugee crises.  Maybe the person who posted this week that David Bowie had been the glue that held the Universe together was actually right... 

 

Before the horror of Nice though, the entire world seemed to shout a collective 'What the f...??!!!' at the announcement of Boris Johnson as the new UK Foreign Secretary.  Clearly Prime Minister May now has Johnson, the Leave figurehead, firmly in her debt but it does seem incredibly risky to be sending such a buffoon (polite description) on diplomatic errands.  We will have to pin our hopes on the ever present Civil Service to keep him under control, a la Yes Minister.

 

But future descendants of Boris will at least have access to a mass of information and speculation about the motivations on all sides.  Chapter and verse for his personal and political histories.  Possibly his own diaries.  However badly he performs.

 

This is the 'privilege' of fame or notoriety.  Descendants of the very famous or aristocratic never need to grub about in county records offices or trawl through online newspapers.  Their family history is freely available.  (Distant relations of Big Brother contestants or other minor celebrities will have a job separating the endless 'saucy' selfies from the true facts but hey, it'll add a new dimension to family history.)

 

I have argued many times on this blog that our historical records lack ordinary voices.  In 1937, a project called Mass Observation was started in Bolton.  It began as an artists' curiosity project but once the Second World War began, it was an important exercise in public opinion and requirements.  Its people observed, eavesdropped on and photographed ordinary lives.  Plus members of the public kept daily diaries.  To quote David Dimbleby's BBC series Seven Ages Of Britain, governments began to realise that they 'could not just tell people what to do, they actually had to listen to what they were saying.'

 

For something like Brexit, our descendants should not be left with simply academic or journalistic opinions.  Or with the thoughts of the privileged.  Somebody or some organisation needs to be recording ordinary opinions.  Social media is all very well as a record but Mass Observation, for example, was very fond of gleaning information in the pubs or on the streets.  Social media generally excluding the views of the elderly being a good example of the need for this.

 

To quote Dimbleby again, 'Bolton stood as an example of the great Northern cities which supplied much of the nation's wealth but which had a long history of being ignored by the South.'  Sounds terribly familiar in the context of what we already know about the split of the Brexit vote, doesn't it?  Someone should have been 'mass observing' before David Cameron decided to assume he could win a referendum.