UK civil service tweet - done on purpose?

[CoRhona]

The official account of the civil service tweeted this earlier, widely thought to be about Boris' defence of Dominic Cimmings:

"Arrogant and offensive
Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?"

I think some poor sod has tweeted from the 'work' account instead of their own.

DH thinks it was done on purpose.

YABU - it most definitely was done on purpose

YANBU - Ooops...

I should imagine one thing the CS, and government SM accounts, are hot on is accountability.

Then it has hugely helped DC bid to get rid of the civil service; who in government could trust them?

Ah but no - because officially, the CS has come down hard on this absolutely unacceptable breach and has immediately sacked the perpetrator!

Unofficially... they got the message out there £350 million for the NHS oh no we didn't actually mean that cough cough

Played at his own game.

I should imagine one thing the CS, and government SM accounts, are hot on is accountability

I should imagine that they were very hot on accountability until this curent Govt started demonstrating repeatedly that they don't give a fig for truth, accountability or adherence to policy and you play dirty to get what you want.

On purpose, and my career goal is now to be described as a "rogue civil servant" (per the Guardian)

Fizzy they will know who sent the tweet. It will be set up so the person tweeting knows they are accountable.

I reckon they did it on purpose and good for them. Probably someone planning to resign or having resigned already.

Also, for those of you wondering if someone did it by mistake, I believe it's common to use HootSuite for SM messages so pretty hard to tweet by mistake!

Everyone is forgetting that its possible (likely) the civil service use a scheduling tool like tweetdeck, hootsuite etc. If so it's more likely to be traceable.

Well yes, I imagine they do know who sent the tweet! I am just saying that I believe it's perfectly possible in the current climate that it was sanctioned. How that then plays out inside could take many forms. Tweet sent officially from person about to leave anyway/resign. CS lie about perp being sacked. CS lie about what account it came from.

All perfectly possible, surely no-one is wide-eyed enough to believe that they'd never do that.

MN needs HootSuite, that would be great.

Oh right. I don’t think so but obviously can’t say for sure. But I very much doubt it was sanctioned.

Time to take the tinfoil hat off Fizzy….

I remember (yonks ago) when we used to get financial ‘tickets’ on our screens at work. I’ll need to dig up the details but someone was going on holiday and basically resigned just before they went by announcing on the ticker that they were off on holiday, not coming back and where they could shove their job.

(This was a ticker from an external agency that would have been seen worldwide)

If you look at my first post on this Mrs Perks, you'll see I make it clear that I have no idea whether they did sanction it, and I don't even come down on which I think is more likely, I just say that I think it's possible.

Not particularly tinfoil, I think. Perhaps a baking paper chapeau, at best. Or perhaps just a growing awareness of how much this govt's level of contempt for the 'rules' is actually changing everything. How everyone acts.

That's as terrifying to your average Tory as it is to me, I imagine.

Definitely on purpose, and they would have known it was a sackable offence. No civil servant would even tweet that from a personal account, and anyone with access to an official comms account would know exactly what they are doing. They would have decided to resign, then sent the tweet. Good for them.

Ah but no - because officially, the CS has come down hard on this absolutely unacceptable breach and has immediately sacked the perpetrator!

It doesn’t matter that they sacked the perpetrator, it will have hugely undermined trust by ministers in their civil servants. It is not as ‘clever’ as you seem to think it is; if ministers want to get rid of or change the civil service then this is exactly the evidence they will provide. People don’t post posts like that in isolation; they do so because they feel others around them agree with them and the government will be totally aware of this.

But that is just it. I think that trust between certain 'factions' has already been completely eroded. 'if ministers want to get rid of or change the civil service then this is exactly the evidence they will provide' - if they are still in post by then, that is - which is where the CS has the whip hand, to a certain extent.

On purpose. They probably figured either it'd be too hard to pin down exactly who was on Twitter when, or they decided it was worth losing their job over.

It’s not hard to see who logged in and from where.

Unless, of course, it wasn't an actual civil servant who sent it. (You all do know how much DC has always loathed the civil service? And how technologically savvy he is? That's before you even look at the people who support him.)

They’d need login and password. It can still be tracked if it was suspected something dodgy was going on.

Loved it.

However, as a PP said, a resignation letter.

Unprofessional though. They are paid to do this as their job - so risk sacking, pension, references?

They’d need login and password.

Naw...ya think?!