David Mitchell in the Observer:
Cameron also doesn't realise, or is wilfully ignoring, how important our large and basically effective bureaucracy is to our place in the front rank of free nations. Without the civil service, acts of Parliament are only words and elections just millions of little slips of paper, like they are in Afghanistan. Civil servants don't merely oil the wheels, they're the axles that join them. Without them David Cameron and his policies would be no more a government than Ian Hislop sitting in a field being sarcastic would be an episode of Have I Got News For You.
Mitchell is right.
Cameron not only does not undertsand government.
Cameron does not undertsand failings are politician's fault - his inlcuded.
And Cameron does not appreciate civil servants are just that.
Mitchell clearly thinks Cameron is more than a fool.
I agree. This is not foolish. It's wanton, deliberate abuse.
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It’s a great article. David Mitchell is better than most of the “official” politics writers in the press. I also enjoy him on 10 o’clock Live on Thursdays on Channel 4.
I’m not sure Cameron understands the private sector either. What are banks, insurance companies, energy retailers, raings agencies, management consultants etc but bureaucracies?
@Howard
This is an excellent article by David Mitchell and should have been written by Ed Miliband. I realise he is ‘playing the long game’ with respect to the Coalition , but he should have to come to the defence of all civil servants who maintain the functioning of our civilised state. Cameron should visit a poor third world country like the Gambia to see what happens when there is no properly functioning bureaucracy – he needs to read Weber’s work on rational bureaucracy.