What is this rhetoric concerning Rees-Mogg v civil service all about?

[Calafsidentity]

Am I missing something obvious? What's at the heart of it I mean? Can anyone who is a regular on the political threads, or anyone "in the know" , kindly explain to me what is going on please?

I always get anxious when there is talk of governmental interference with the civil service as they are all we have to rely on, when, as now, the elected government of the day is less than trustworthy and/ or incompetent.

Is it, as a recent Independent article implies, a ploy to distract the public from the fact that poor investment and low level resources, not to mention Covid plus Brexit, lie at the heart of most of the problems associated with passport, tax, DVLA delays, the prison service, asylum claims, and I imagine the number of civil servants required in the MoD has risen since Putin invaded Ukraine?

Or is it the fact that Rees-Smugg can't make a success of his post- Brexit promoting role simply because the reality is that Brexit is proving to be a disaster in terms of the economy and trade, so he is making headlines about something else?

Or is it, most worryingly for me, given Boris's lack of respect for the UK's system of government, and of the UK constitution as a whole, how he almost casually prorogued parliament, how he lies in the HofC, is there something more sinister going on?

[I am a long-term poster, interested in UK and EU politics, not a journo.]

Noted leotardrock. I have a friend of a friend in the cs who says the same.

As explained up thread, LetitiaLeghorn , when I started this thread, I was actually thinking more about Boris Johnson sweeping aside all the usual conventions of government as a “rogue prime minister unworthy of the Queen” who is “sweeping aside all the conventions” in an “assault on the institutions of the state,” according to
Peter Hennessey, a crossbencher in the House of Lords and Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary University of London.

[See Prospect Magazine]

He said Johnson had “broken the law, misled Parliament and has in effect shredded the Ministerial Code.”

“The decencies and probities and conventions of public life are not enough to constrain the ego that is currently filling No10,”

Time and again, the PM is distracted from sustained deployment of “the Whitehall apparatus” you need for serious reform, by “a cunning plan or a wheeze to get him through the next few weeks or even days, but not beyond.” Time and again, he falls back on his old tricks: “to bedazzle with language, to boff and bash… His whole way of operating cuts against the grain of what is needed at this time.”

Apologies but I don't think this is a laughing matter. And I'm beginning to think we need a written constitution.

What I would like is for people to educate themselves about what the civil service is, what it does, the services it delivers. That it's not all about Whitehall, no we haven't spent the last two years wandering between laptop and fridge, eating cheese and forgetting what we were doing.
No we don't all have huge pensions.
90,0000 people were not recruited for the pandemic.
For the sake of transparency I will declare that on Friday mornings I do meet some friends for coffee and then I go to my allotment and have a jolly nice 3 day weekend.
But wait, maybe that's because I work 0.8 fte and am paid 0.8 fte. Many people work part time or do compressed hours or nine day fortnights.

@Calafsidentity There's always been rounds of redundancies in the civil service. It's not just a Tory or a Johnson idea to look at how bloated it is. I worked for a short time in the CS and got told off for working too fast. They were set clear time allotments for different bundles of work and you were to work to that speed ratio and not faster.
It's not sweeping aside conventions or assaulting the state to look at redundancies in the CS. You might not like it but it's not breaking the law in any way and a written constitution wouldn't prevent it. It's not a besieged organisation. There are always more people applying than there are vacancies, it's a stable job with a guaranteed pension. But it should work in a sustainable way just like private companies.
And to be clear, I wasnt laughing at the CS, I feel several emotions that that organisation, laughter isn't one, but I am laughing at your totally over the top statement of "what can an ordinary member of the public do to support the besieged civil service".

Fair enough if you find it amusing and "over the top" LetitiaLeghorn that's your prerogative. And I wasn't suggesting that sensible rounds of redundancies - by themselves - represent a disregard and disrespect for the institutions of state and the conventions of government. Rather that Boris and his government's pattern of breaking or over-riding the law, lying in the H of C, illegally proroguing parliament etc together with an attack on the C's does represent this.

I felt the same level of disquiet throughout the period leasing up to Brexit. That rather murky , powerful forces were working behind the scenes to choreograph events, without much regard for the democratic process.

That's my current view too.

leading up to

This is so true. I was civil service during the austerity redundancies and what happened was some of the brightest and most marketable people saw the compulsory redundancies/ pay freeze coming, got worried they’d be fired, and so took the higher paid voluntary redundancy and found themselves a better job. Our department lost our best and most experienced people that way.

Meanwhile the (few) useless lazy unemployable types, who wouldn’t survive 5 mins in any other workplace, linger on in the civil service because no line manager can be bothered to fire them, it’s so much easier just to manage them into a different role and write that up as a mentorship success 🙄

But why is Boris on about it? Well when MPs disagreed with him he booted them out of the Tory party, so I imagine he’s got tired of hearing “But with respect Prime Minister that’s illegal” over issues like closing Parliament, discharging covid patients into care homes, partying through lockdown, sending vulnerable asylum seekers to Rwanda etc etc.

And when I talk about "powerful forces" I don't generally believe in wierdy conspiracy theories, I'm talking about people with financial interests in disrupting governments, civic stability and financial markets.

It's two different issues. Johnson poroguing of parliament might represent disregard and disrespect, but legally enforced and paid redundancies have nothing to do with that. They are a fact of life. I used to work for a huge and successful national company thar had partnerships around the world. Part of my job was to organise the huge redundancy programme that took out about 15~20% of the workforce.
To mix the two seems incongruent but is in actuality just a result of you not liking Boris Johnson so you're just sticking issues together. As for murky, powerful forces choreographing events, how can they be murky when every day there's a leak or a mole, with pictures, videos and quotes? Or are you talking about Russia? Surely if Johnson is in Russia's pocket, why are they not doing more to hide his stupid behaviour. What have they gained if he gets kicked out and Labour gets in? It doesn't make sense. Johnson was elected democratically and he is allowed to cut staff in the CS.

First the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the prorogation was both justiciable and unlawful, and therefore null and of no effect. The court found that Johnson's advice to the Queen to prorogue Parliament 'was outside the powers of the Prime Minister' so it was more than just disrespect.

And no I am not talking about Russia.

The Tories are pandering to their voter base of retired people who think WFH people are skivers because they don’t understand how effectively modern technology enables it.
This stuff also goes down well in so-called ‘Red Wall’ areas which have large numbers of Leave /Tory voting people who can’t WFH because of the types of manual jobs they do.

My husband is CS and is nearly at 40 years service. He works hard for relatively low pay. But his department continually bring in external contractors on big money to do the job he and his colleagues used to do competently. We are talking £500 per day pp and more. You have to ask why the government are creating these jobs in the private sector when they already have civil servants qualified to do the work already. Think back to when they overrode the civil service to buy ppe - all their mates got the contracts instead of the best tender. It pretty much stinks of Boris and his wheeling and dealing

If there is 'dead wood' in CS then it's because its so hard to hold onto talent when the old pension benefits are no longer and JRM attacks work flexibility. The two major perks that made a lower wage more tolerable. Now the best talent get trained up by CS and hop to private sector, which now offers better benefits and more flexibility, to triple their salaries.

Yeah that's the truth Pesky Civil Servants holding people to account making sure they follow the procurement rules & get value for money!

You pay a civil servant - a third of it comes back in tax & NIC - not the same with a contractor who probably a Ltd company - no NIC no tax & just pays himself a big fat dividend at the end of the year - but somehow we're the problem! 🙄

"First the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the prorogation was both justiciable and unlawful, and therefore null and of no effect. The court found that Johnson's advice to the Queen to prorogue Parliament 'was outside the powers of the Prime Minister' so it was more than just disrespect.
.................
I've acknowkedged this but what has it got to do with JRM and the CS as per your title?
Poroguing ruled illegal.
Redundancies not illegal.

Fundamentally, this government can only break things. They don't understand how to build them.

I've explained three times!

I've explained three times!
You have?! You've explained how legally making someone redundant ties in the illegally poroguing Parliament?

If you've explained, then I'm lost in some murky choreography so I'm just going to leave it there. 🙂

YY that makes a lot of sense Libertaire

Yes indeed.