Cummings is interesting and probably dangerous.
Not sure why he was in the SAGE meetings. Obviously the Guardian and others see sinister intents, maybe he was just observing.
Dominic Cummings ideas for the Civil Service
"...governments have long expressed their dissatisfaction with the Whitehall machine. The critique of the civil service establishment was set out most eloquently in the 1968 Fulton report commissioned by Harold Wilson’s administration. Officials were ‘generalists’ trained in arts and humanities subjects at Britain’s ancient universities. They lacked specialist knowledge and technical expertise. Civil servants were poor managers. They presided over a culture of mediocrity which perpetuated Britain’s relative economic decline. Fulton’s recommendations included bringing more trained scientists into Whitehall, while training mandarins in management effectiveness. Sound familiar? The attacks on the civil service then continued into the 1980s and 1990s. Margaret Thatcher threatened to ‘deprivilege Whitehall’ while her ideological soulmate, Ronald Reagan, spoke of ‘draining the swamp’ in Washington. Under Blair’s New Labour governments, more political advisers were brought onto departments, while there was an air of mistrust towards permanent officials. Yet for all that, the Whitehall model survived."
Funny how history repeats yet the memory of the electorate is short.
Cummings has a dream to clear out the entrenched arts and humanities crowd from the British Civil Service and put in scientists and others with a background in more "practical" areas. I suppose this goes back to the two cultures argument of C P Snow.
This sounds like a good idea, at face value, that might be applauded by many here.
However elsewhere in the linked article it says he wants to challenge the neutrality and independence of the civil service that enables them to speak truth to power such that "His aim is to install a ‘them and us’ model where officials merely carry out the wishes of ministers, focusing on the delivery and implementation of policy."
So basically we have a "populist" government, like many other countries, who see any opposition from the media, the civil service, the judiciary, or politicians from their own party or opponent parties, as something to be shut down where possible and circumnavigated or ignored otherwise, even to the extent of shutting down parliament when it suited them. So with very loosened checks and balances on democracy, when the decisions are good then good stuff gets done but when the decisions are bad then bad stuff gets done regardless.
As populism seems to have been a reaction to the 2008/9 crash it will be interesting to see whether there is a backlash agains populism from this particular Covid crisis or whether voters turn to even more anti-establishment figures.
