Dominic Raab says he was forced out of office by ‘activist civil servants'.
His former permanent secretary, speaking this morning, clearly disagrees. He said:
I witnessed a tough task master, I witnessed a minister who knew what he wanted to do, and frankly I witnessed somebody whose methods did not help him achieve what he wanted to do and that I raised with him more than once.
The investigation into Raab's conduct clearly agrees with that.
So what is the agenda Raab is raising now? It is, of course, that there is a left wing enemy within, seeking to undermine the government's purpose. The Daily Express has already bought the line, suggesting Raab could not do what he wished fir the country because civil servants prevented it. No doubt Matthew Goodwin's views on there being a woke elite ruling Britain now will surface soon. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/14/first-edition-new-elite-matthew-goodwin
The agenda is, of course, very clear gross misinformation. It is a distortion of the truth. Call it disingenuous, at best. But what does that matter if the Express, Mail and Telegraph reader buys it? Raab believes the claims will work for him. He would not, I presume, be taking this line if he did not.
So what is his goal? There are three.
First he wants to create ‘an enemy within'. The notoriously reliable civil service is being chosen as the target.
Second, the object is to spread division. ‘Us v them' (in this case ‘us v those nasty people in the civil service who are trying to undermine all we want') is the aim.
Third, the objective is to permit the abuse Raab wishes to pursue. Whether that is Brexit, the racist migrant policy, the undermining of the rule of law, or other ongoing abuses does not really matter. The aim is to create a diversionary tactic that makes ‘the other' the focus so that the abuse might continue.
This is straight out of the far-right playbook, of course.
Raab is still delivering. Even his wrongdoing serves up the opportunity to create division, and nothing else matters to the Tories anymore.
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So, the Bully thinks that he gets to decide what bullying is. Has he any idea how stupid this makes him look?
Being a bully is bad enough… but what does being a stupid bully make you? A Cabinet Minister!
Second, the object is to spread division. ‘Us v them’ ..
If ever a term applies to you then this is it..you promote division and hate, it is your calling card.
Wrong
I am intolerant of intolerance, it is true
But that is the necessary price of maintaining tolerance
For Raab, and I suspect you, the opposite is true
The reason you’re no longer invited to Young Fabian events is because of your hectoring, bullying behaviour towards a student who dared to have a different opinion to you in a zoom conference.
So you’re hardly one to talk about such behaviour.
It was funny though. You being muted and carrying on ranting not realising no one could hear you.
I challenged a fellow presenters opinion at a conference. I had mo idea who they were
Apparently only one view was allowed
The lesson I learned is that young Fabians only want to hear opinion they agree with
And what was clear was that very strong pro-market neoliberal opinion was favoured and I was not allowed to challenge it and the extremity of view inherent in it
If disagreeing is bullying I disagree
But is as apparent you censored me and never had the decency to say so
I am unapologetic about standing up to neoliberal views even when presented by faux leftists like Fabians
And let’s be clear: if there were conditions attached to an invitation it was your job to make them clear to me. You didn’t.
Gosh! Are the Young Fabians still a thing? Are any under seventy? Or is that just the antiquity of their thought processes? If we are reduced to relying on the Fabians for hope I suspect we are all finished…..
🙂
1st rule of far right politics: ‘always accuse others of the thing you are most guilty of yourself’.
As you’ve just done. And as Raab is doing, trying to make himself out to be the victim instead of the bully he is. BTW ‘simon’ (whatever your name is), here’s a quote from Twitter about Raab, from Jess Phillips MP.
“Just watching Raab interview and I have never met a single person working in the court services or justice space who had anything good to say about him.”
Got any evidence to refute this?
From Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism definitions.
I think these could be applicable in Raab’s specific case.
Clause 4 Disagreement is treason. Clause 7 The obsession with a plot. Clause 10 Contempt for the weak. Clause 12 Machismo and weaponry.
More generally we might apply other clauses to this tory administration.
Clause 1 The cult of tradition.
Clause 5 The fear of difference.
Clause 6 Appeal to social frustration.
Clause 14 Selective Populism.
The right to withdraw ones labour is about to be challenged by Mr Barclay. If he doesn’t succeed it will be cited as ‘yet another example of lefty lawyers and arrogant judges’.
Expect no retreat because as Eco says in Clause 9 Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
Among Eco’s characteristics of fascism are:
* disagreement is treason. So civil servants doing their job and warning Raab about potential downsides or problems are enemies of democracy. In his brittle lawyerly words, they are “relitigating” points he has already decided.
* obsession with a plot. So of course he blames an over-unionied left wing claque that organised a slew of spurious allegations and leaked them to the press to force him from office. Rather than reflecting on his own behaviour which he changed in response to justified criticism.
* that the enemy is simultaneously strong and weak. So we have “snowflake” civil servants who lack the resilience to deal with Raab’s robustly direct approach (that is, abrasive, insulting, intimidating, humiliating), but they are strong enough to stymie him in office and force him to resign.
I also see some machismo (I wonder if he modifies his behaviour with people we perceives as his equals or superiors, or with women and people of colour), and (at least in his antipathy to human rights) the cult of tradition (Magna Carta, British Bill of Rights) and reflection of modernity (UDHR, ECHR, HRA).
Yes, his response to criticism had been quite Trumpian.
Raab is not yet 50 years old and had a majority of under 3000 in Esher in 2019. I wonder what he thinks he will do for the rest of his life. Perhaps he’ll seek a place in the Lords near Dan Hannan.
No commentator has yet stated the essential: politicians are public figures with reputations to defend and promote- civil servants are not. Raab, as manager, has been ,as is so often the case, unable to motivate people with reason and clear persuasive guidance. When things go wrong in any organisation the rot starts from the top. One hopes Starmer’s Labour, if elected, would be different. The signs are not good!
Mr Strutt, a good observation. I am struck by the complete lack of executive management competence among Conservative ministers. But of course politics is 90% news management and manipulation and 9% self promotion. Running the country is carried out by what, and whomsoever is left over. Even Northern Ireland somehow functions with no government. We overestimate what politicians actually do, or their touching faith that the levers they think they pull, are actually connected to anything at all.
The play book is to undermine the institutions that help to keep the elected dictatorship in check – the civil service takes its place along with the BBC, the Judiciary ‘enemies of the people’, the Electoral Commission, House of Lords, suppression of voting, limits on the right to protest etc
Keeping the ‘divisions’ going also helps to keep attention away from the criminal refusal to actually govern in health and educaiton etc etc. Actually killing people.
Enlightened(woke) thinkers have routinely met this reaction. Diderot’s Encyclopédie (1750’s) was suppressed because it asserted that the main concern of government should be the well-being of the common people. Th authorities claimed it was the work of an organised band of conspirators.
“Th authorities claimed it was the work of an organised band of conspirators” – perhaps it was.
As the book by Greaber & Wengrow (The Dawn of Everything) showed, the enlightenment (the idea of equality etc) originated through European contact in the 17th century with east coast native Americans – This group pitied Europeans & regarded most of them as little better than slaves. Plenty was reported back on how Indians lived & what they thought – Jesuits being amongst the most prominent. I suppose one could thus class the Jesuits as conspiritors & Diderot et al simply reporting the Indian “condition” and extending it to benighted Europeans. It would all be quite funny, if it were not so sad.
Anecdote: on the road from Dolgellau to Barmouth there is an old court house and old prison & stone pier. A tunnel runs under the road from the court house on one side to the prison on the other. In the 1980s I was there on electrical business. I remember standing in the prison where people were held prior to transportation to “the Americas” (18th cent) or Australia (19th cent) ……..for stealing………a chicken, sheep etc. Beautiful estuary & the last view the poor prisoners would ever have of home. I guess I’m being “too woke” showing empathy for unfortunates and “the well-being of common people”.
‘Dolgellau’, ‘Barmouth’
Oh, the beauty!
Visiting a friend in Bristol, my wife and I were having a pleasant walk by the river Avon in Bristol and then we passed the old slave pens and even today you can still sense the horror of those Africans torn away from their homelands awaiting further horror and death on the slave ships. It was a lovely sunny day but we both shuddered.
The three points you make (‘an enemy within’, spread division. ‘Us v them’ and permit the abuse) are indeed “straight out of the far-right playbook” but in the spirit of calling a spade a spade, this is the fascist/Nazi playbook.
Raab is a fascist plain and simple, as are an increasing number of tories.
Given the support for him from the Express, Mail and Telegraph – this places them in the same recepticle as the Völkischer Beobachter. Of course the Daily Heil has form – “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” was one previous headline (& let’s not forget, the same family then still own the rag now), doubtless (I extemporise) it will soon be “hurrah for the Raabshirts” ,
Meanwhile “woke” subjects such as shit-filled rivers and starving kids are ignored by the UK Nazis, their supporters and the printed toilet paper pretending to offer news.
I was being tactful, for once
In a truly democratic country the Daily Mail would have been shut down well before WW11 for outright lies and fascist propaganda.
My wife has a friend who she has known since nurse training a long, long time ago – she is an avid reader of the Daily Mail and buys hook, line and sinker all it prints. Last year I brought up the outright murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. She immediately interrupted to say “you mean the terrorist who jumped the barriers in the Underground station with wires hanging out of his jacket”.
Even though this was soon denounced as a total lie propagated by the Met. police, it was this lie that she remembered from 18 years ago – first impressions/propaganda are what people remember.
Correct Stuart, the DM is our equivalent tof the vile Nazi paper ‘Der Sturmer’. As I said in my previous post about the far right, their no1 rule is to accuse others of the thing they themselves are most guilty of.
‘Unpatriotic’, ‘enemies of the people’, ‘anti British traitors’. The DM summed up in a nutshell.
And Mike is right, this lot increasingly resemble the nazis in their hysterical fanaticism and deluded English nationalistic exceptionalism.
Was this bound to happen? Once Britain had left the EU, it seems now rather inevitable that the pent up hatred towards the EU civil service would shift to the UK civil service.
No one elects the position of deputy prime minister. Raab too was an appointee (an unelected bureaucrat). There is an element of pot calling kettle black.
Doesn’t Raab have pent up hatred towards the British? He was co-author of Britannia Unchained well before Brexit, saying the British worker is one of the most idle in the world. Never intended to endear himself towards the people he represents.
He’ll now have more time to focus on the Free Enterprise Group, set up by Liz Truss in 2011.
There are a couple of things that strike me in your post and the comments. First is that the civil service and their unionisation are the target and it shouldn’t be forgotten that legal action is being sought against the RCN. Presumably pliant non Unionised Civil Servants are not included in Raab’s vitriol. It’s part of their playbook to demonise Unions as Thatcher did. Secondly after reading your responses I suspect you might be further left than you imagine . This can happen by just standing still as the Tories and their fellow travellers move further right. I suspect the accusations will increase as your work gets a wider audience. This can also be seen on the increase of debate around MMT which is welcome. You must be doing something right, keep up the good work
If being what was once called a social democrat is left wing, so be it
The comment suggesting you are further left than you think is, of course, because you have remained in the same place ideologically. You profess to be a social democrat, I a democratic socialist. I was very milquetoast Labour in the 1970s and 80s, you appear to be a Grimond style Liberal. Stand still long enough in this country’s drift towards outright fascism (at least in the political classes), and we all become left wing, and even ‘extremist’. There appears also to be a widening of the divide between those seeing the need for radical reform of politics in this country (all the euro stuff like PR, elected upper house, marginalise the Royals) and not just the rump of little Englanders, but those who think they are socially liberal and MOR politically, who at the crunch, wail “Yes, but….”.
Agreed
I will think about the Grimond style liberal
We all make slips when posting but as you have expressed it I think your idea that as the Tories move ever rightwards anybody standing still near the centre of politics must be further too the left than they think definitely needs correction.
Well, in perspective, the British public are not big on theory. So what will they remember?
1. That he was an overbearing manager. We’ve all known one.
2. That he sat on a beach towel in Greece whilst the Army evacuated Kabul.
3. That Rishi Sunak re-asserted common sense and threw him out.
I suggest that the point to worry about is no.3, don’t you? These people make a huge song and dance about themselves… which, unless they manage to make themselves ‘a character’, doesn’t age well. Raab was hardly a jolly bunny, was he?
I’d add “Raab confessed after he was appointed Brexit secretary that he hadn’t realised until then quite how important Dover-Calais is for UK imports.”
Sunak didn’t sack him – Raab resigned. Perhaps Raab hoped to tough it out and had to be pressured to go, but Sunak could have sacked him immediately on Thursday if that is what he wanted to do. The delay to Friday and the surrounding atmospherics seem much more about news cycle management.
Iy isn’t just Raab. Sunak allowed Raab the space and time to present his case, spin it; cover the media with lickspittle ex-spad journalists or whtever to preach his message; and with-hold the tolley report unti lunchtime the next day over 24 hours after receipt of the judgement. This was a Government orchestrated fix, and only Sunk could conduct the band. It is a disgraceful use of prerogative power open only to a PM.
Here is a prim and prissy lawyer spurning a quasi-judicial Government-sponsored request to investigate, and report. Raab is a mere conspiracy theorist. It is absurd.
It is sunak’s part in it that is particularly appalling; because I can see no other way Raab could have mounted that crackpot campaign.
Orwell’s term “organised lying” perfectly describes the fascist reaction to Raab’s sacking.
The reporting of this event by the supposedly balanced BBC Radio 4 has used just about every propaganda trick in the book to project Raab as the martyred patriot.
So far I have always resisted the idea that it was time to give up on the BBC as we know that is exactly what the the far-right clique that run this country wants but enough is enough.
My view is that Raab is talking absolutely crap.
My concern IS the civil service, in fact I’m damn sure that in HM Treasury austerity is as natural as breathing and racism is as natural as that too in the Foreign Office.
No ‘Dom’ – sorry it’s YOU who are the problem mate.
Stop being in denial and go see a shrink.
PSR please, with all due respect, can we pull back on the generalisations? Criticise policy and posture by all means, but speaking for those of us who have worked outside the UK in outward-facing international organisations, navigating these interfaces on a day to day level is extremely challenging and nuanced: cross currents of power dynamics, cultural assumptions regarding power differentials, organisational sensitivities – they don’t work in one direction only. To be told that for those working in FCO/DfID ‘racism is as natural as breathing’ is quite the simplification of the years of listening, learning, and understanding many have put in under the circs! I appreciate the sentiment but please, talk to some people at ground level before generalising about a whole organisation – it doesn’t help.
While we’re on the subject of fascism, Ruth Ben Ghiat’s blog is well worth a read:
“However we define Fascism, remembering that its essence is violence is more important than ever.”
Which I think includes violence towards anyone and anything that differs from or disagrees with and opposes the actions of the perpetrator of the violence.
https://lucid.substack.com/p/what-is-fascism
The press management operation seems to be focusing on three strands.
First, that Raab was just demanding, not abusive or bullying.
The report categorically finds that Raab went beyond demanding into intimidating and humiliating. For example, see paragraph 176(2)(b) : “he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.” And paragraph 176(3)(b) : “On a number of occasions at meetings with policy officials, the DPM acted in a manner which was intimidating, in the sense of going further than was necessary or appropriate in delivering critical feedback, and also insulting, in the sense of making unconstructive critical comments about the quality of work done (whether or not as a matter of substance any criticism was justified).”
On the definition of bullying that Tolley takes from the judgment of a 2021 High Court judicial review case, that is bullying.
Second, that officials are not sufficient resilient. Paragraph 143 of the report expressly says “I did not detect any material lack of resilience in those who had made the Complaints. Most of the individuals in question had many years of experience working closely with Ministers.”
And finally that report uses a threshold for behaviour to be considered “bullying” which is too low. So why in that case are many of the allegations dismissed?
It strikes me that the claims that were older and/or not well documented or particularised (what Raab might complain were vague or unsubstantiated) are dismissed. But there was enough evidence of egregious behaviour on at least four separate occasions for Tolley to reach an adverse conclusion on the balance of probabilities. Raab just doesn’t like it.
I suspect this is the tip of a massive and very ugly iceberg. I’ll just leave this one here. You decide who you believe. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-raab-gina-miller-brexit-b2324068.html
One possible reason for Raab’s bullying (ditto Patel’s) was that the civil servants were opposed to Raab’s proposals. Of course this is speculation. What is not speculation is what happens when a well established civil service is perfectly accomodating to the wishes, no matter how mad or abhorrent , of the politicos. We seem to have established that Raab and indeed a significant segment of the Tory gov, are fascists/Nazis, certainly incompetant, possibly insane.
Page 113 (Penguin edition) of Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem describe the meeting in Berlin – January 1942 between political lunatics (Heydrich & Co) and German undersecrataries and legal experts. Had the German civil service not been so accommodating (indeed they were positively supportive), it is doubtful if “the final solution” (agreed at the meeting) could have been so rapidly (& efficiently) implemented. The meeting was followed by “a cozy little social gathering”.
It is part of the civil servant’s brief to ensure that the Minister is aware of potential problems with their proposals. A narcissistic bully (should there be a Minister who qualifies for such a description) may see that advice as an intent to thwart their intentions. Of course they would also have to be completely indifferent to the problems inherent in their proposals.
The part I found most telling was the clear evidence that, once formal complaints were put in Raab’s behaviour changed and no-one had any complaints about it. Not only a buly, but a bully who knew how not to be a bully.
As for Diane Abbot, I don’t believe she is a racist but she can be very, very stupid.
On a separate matter, Toon Army, Toon Army!
I think Abbott was beyond stupid on this
This is precisely the point I am trying to make above and commented on by Joanna.
I think that the civil service is part of the problem itself. It’s inculcated with racism (Home Office), eugenics ( DWP) and policy orientation that favours the wealthy (the Treasury).
What Raab does is portray the civil service as being anti- his ideas and policies in order to cover up his basic obnoxiousness.
But I actually think the civil service has been very accommodating. I’m sorry but I need convincing a lot that this is not the case.
My judgement is based on what I’ve seen in the public housing sector since 2010. I know what I’ve seen.
People who make out that I don’t understand the ‘subtleties’ of the civil service role are not very convincing.
I admit I think you are guilty of stereotyping whole ministries
But there is undoubtedly a Treasury view
Any comment on Diane Abbott getting the whip removed? Racist to the core than one..
I have only just seen the story.
I am on a big family day.
The comments appear to be straightforwardly wrong at many levels.
I am baffled as to why she would think such a thing, let alone say it. Playing hierarchies in the face of prejudices seems wholly inappropriate.
I note she has apologised but Labour is right to investigate and to suspend her whilst doing so.
Sorry, I did not say that you said she was racist to the core, and if that’s what you thought I meant, I apologise. It was Steve who said it and all these comments come from him saying that.
You also don’t know what you are being accused of as I didn’t accuse you of anything. Again, sorry if it came across that way.
What I was asking was if anyone had read the article that Diane responded to.
If I responded to that article I would probably be kicked out of the party if I hadn’t left already, as Starmer is always looking for reasons to remove anybody from the party who doesn’t agree with him. Diane will be permanently on the bench with Corbyn until she decides not to stand any more.
Accpeted, of course
Misunderstandings happen
I hope Labour gives Diane Abbott a fair hearing
I am not optimnistic
Steve, do you have any proof that Diane Abbot is racist to the core? She is the most abused black MP on social media. Despite them knowing that, she has never had any support from Starmer and cohort. Have you seen the Forde report? Or the Al Jazeera papers?
I agree she shouldn’t have said what she did as it was red meat to those who do not like her. I am surprised she was kept in the party for so long. Starmer needed a reason to get rid of her and she’s given it to him, unfortunately.
I have to say Abbott’s comments are racially offensive.
I have a large extended Irish family who think 1848 was not a famine but genocide. How could she ignore that?
And that is before we get near to the crassness of the comments on Jews and travellers
I have met Dianne and spoken to her a number of times at length, but if this is her thinking she really does not really understand racism. Sure it is about abuse based on skin colour. No one pretends otherwise. But she should know it is much more than that.
Starmer had to react. I don’t think she will get the whip back.
Saying Diane is racist to the core is pretty extreme.
Jewish Voice for Labour knows what racism is all about, and they do not think she should have been dismissed from the party, but they know how Starmer reacts to anyone who believes that Palestine has a right to exist.
I have seen you on nottheandrewmarr show a few times. Have you watched the programme all the way through, and seen how unjustly Starmer treats those who are not on his side? Lots of Jewish people have been kicked out of the party for antisemitism.
What seems to have been missed in all this is the article that Diane Abbott was responding to.
I did not say she was racist to the core as I recall
I said what she said was wrong
She has agreed
I am nit sure what you are accusing me of that she has not agreed with
whenever they start talking about serving or delivering for the BRITISH PEOPLE, I know they have run out of arguments and doing what Samuel Johnson said was the ‘last refuge of a scoundrel’ -claiming to be patriots.