‘Tis outrageous: he’s not just a paper shuffler but also a shuffler of Whitehall ministries

 

 

Well, that didn’t take long: news of the devastating, catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have been dropped from their top spot and are sharing space on the MSM front pages with the ‘too lenient’ sentence given to a police ‘rapist’, especially in the lefty ‘quality’ papers (link).

Interestingly, the papers still writing about the earthquakes on their front pages use one or the other of two photos only, to accompany their story. One is of a man sitting next to his dead daughter, the other is of a baby born in the rubble. I don’t know if the editors believe “we” need our heartstrings pulled by such photos or if they believe people won’t buy their product if they don’t have the same photo on their pages as all the others. 

There was one other event: yesterday, Sunak did a cabinet reshuffle. The DM’s usual, summary headline is sufficient:

“Rishi Sunak reshuffles Cabinet with Greg Hands taking over as Tory chair, Kemi Badenoch as head of business and trade department, Grant Shapps responsible for energy security and Michelle Donelan getting the science brief” (link)

However, The Times dedicated three long articles to this event, garnished with the inevitable Whitehall gossip, for example:

“The changes took Whitehall by surprise, with some MPs and officials questioning whether they were the right priority during a cost of living crisis with the Conservatives so far behind in the polls. Several ministers told The Times they were baffled by the changes, which they argued expended significant political capital for what they said appeared to be little purpose.” (link, paywalled)

Oh dear. Were there no ‘Whitehall sources’ agreeing with Sunak’s reasons for this shake-up, e.g. turning Britain into a ‘scientific superpower’ which The Times cared to mention? There’s more, and I for one can see why those MPs and ministers were moaning to their handlers in The Times, sounding somewhat miffed:

“It was one of the most closely kept secrets in Whitehall. For weeks, Rishi Sunak and a small group of about a dozen aides and officials drew up plans to reshape Whitehall. Most members of the cabinet and the vast majority of the most senior civil servants — including in the affected departments — were kept deliberately in the dark. Ministers learnt from the media about the planned changes to their departments.” (link, paywalled)

So No 10 can keep a secret and can be kept ‘leak-proof’? How fascinating! As for ‘learning about the reshuffle from the media’: well, that would be the reports of Sunak’s announcement. ‘Ministers’ must feel so devalued, not being able to moan in advance. In their third article, The Times goes into interpretational mode:

“Veterans of Whitehall and Westminster spent the day scratching their heads over the political logic of Rishi Sunak’s reorganisation of government, a costly and distracting exercise centred on areas that voters care little about. With no plausible electoral or party management rationale, we are left with a conclusion that the prime minister did it because he thought it was the right thing.” (link, paywalled)

Good grief – the PM did something because he thought it was ‘the right thing’, with no thought for immediate, short-term gain? Horrible, innit! And how come those Whitehall ‘veterans’ know what we voting plebs actually care about, never mind wanting government to do? A bit of hybris there, methinks. However, reading between the lines it becomes clear what this is about:

“Sunak has long felt that Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was a cumbersome department that was too distracted by gas bills to focus on the growth areas of the future. Fundamentally, he wants a more powerful and strategic government focus on the scientific advances that will drive the economy of the future. If Sunakism means anything beyond balancing the books, it means a belief that growth will come not from speculative tax cuts but from cultivating innovation and harvesting its fruits.” (link, paywalled)

While Net Zero lurks behind the reshuffle curtains even Sunak, never mind our Westminster ‘veterans’ and their MSM mouthpieces, must know that without a radical reform of our education establishment there won’t be any scientists worthy of that description which could implement his vision.

Speaking of education, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ms Reeves, has dropped the cuddly image Labour is projecting. Savour this:

“You go into any state school and you see the shortage of staff, the shortage of books,” Reeves told LBC Radio. “Politics is about choices and private schools are many things, but I don’t think that they are charities. And I don’t see why you shouldn’t pay VAT on sending your child to a private school in the same way you pay VAT if you take your family out for a meal at the weekend.” Pressed on whether children’s education could be compared with going out for dinner, Reeves replied: “What I’m saying is you’re paying for a service. I’m saying there are state schools providing education and if you’re paying to go private, you should be paying VAT.” (link, paywalled)

Words fail me! One’s children’s education is like taking them for a meal in a restaurant? What attitude! This is Labour in full levelling-down mode. Just as the one size fits all NHS, where private health insurance is of the devil and needs to be VAtted into unaffordability, so now Labour aims to level down education because state schools are just fine for every child.

Sunak’s attempts at making this country a haven for scientific innovation will run into the sands when Starmer is in No 10: “we” don’t need no education and no proper health service as long as everybody shares in the same expensive misery, especially if it’s dripping with wokeism.

The latest example for that is a ‘project launched by bishops of the CoE. This was the lead article on this morning’s DM front page. The relevant article has vanished from the online pages, but here’s the headline:

“Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns ‘He’ and ‘Him’ when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase ‘our Father’ from the Lord’s Prayer” (link)

Read the whole thing – they are serious. I find this seriously sickening. Shouldn’t they focus their attention on Charity, i.e. organising help for the dreadfully large number of earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria? Or don’t they count because they’re muslims? Surely, this difference ought not to matter to the woke CoE! I wonder though why our learned Westminster cabal isn’t trying to inject wokeism into the teachings in mosques ….

That’s all I have for today. I’m not surprised at the miffed Westminster veterans who seem to think that it’s their right to know everything at once, in order to leak it to their MSM mouthpieces. I am surprised at Labour dropping their veil of not really being socialist in tooth and claw. Meanwhile, beware mawkishness and keep warm. Have a good day.



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