I thought a Tweet from Robert Peston was especially relevant this morning, so much so that it is almost going to feature as a guest post here this morning.
For context, note that Rachel Reeves has just appointed a new Covid corruption commissioner.
And Keir Starmer has just appointed a new UK cabinet secretary - who is the UK's most senior civil servant.
Now let Peston take over, with a Tweet posted at 7.45 this morning:
I agree with Robert Peston. What is going on here? How can a person who oversaw such corruption have any idea how to manage the government as a whole?
And do accounts, managing them, and the internal control system on which they rely - which, as I note in my video this morning, seem to now be in disarray - matter at all? It would seem not.
No wonder this government is already in such a mess. Not only does Rachel Reeves not understand economics, but it is also now clear that she and Keir Starmer clearly do not understand that without good financial controls and having people in charge who really understand the importance of accounting and everything that goes with it, they have no chance of delivering what they want for the people of the UK.
Accounting, accountability, control of financial systems and the good management that flows from those things might be too mundane for Starmer and Reeves to worry their empty heads about, but they ignore them at their peril.
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Part of the standard Labour government approach, announce “it’s not working and it’s a scandal, let’s have an enquiry”.
But this time there is a problem, no steer Starmer has invested in a senior civil servant who will be part of the investigation.
Expect another resignation.
Another example of the utter cluelessness of Labour.
Perhaps it’s hot air policy that drives no steer Starmer?
Unbelievable but not surprised by this appointment
Right out of Liverpool’s Council playbook
When commissioners came knocking
There’s a Yes Minister about this (of course there is). Sir Humphrey made an expensive (£40m) mistake long ago, on some MOD matter, so of course, Hacker blackmails him..
Series 3, episode 3, “The Skeleton in the Cupboard”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k0fx
Wormald’s appearances before the Covid inquiry did not impress counsel for the bereaved relatives.
This will not go well.
And they call Starmer “forensic”…
🙂
Mistake, Sorry:
Yes Minister,
Series TWO, Episode THREE.
BBC Sounds
I am not familiar with this Chris Wormald but James Wormald is a character in Graham Greene’s “Our Man in Havana”…. are they related? Do read the book but if time is pressing the 1959 film with Alec Guinness is fantastic and, perhaps, pertinent to this appointment.
More seriously, to what extent will he be able to say that “I warned ministers about procurement… but was overridden”. Is that a sound defence?
Here is the link to the Horizon inquiry stuff relating to or from Chris Wormald:
https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/search/?date-range-from=&date-range-to=&&query-post-types=false&search=Chris%20Wormald&order=date-desc&order-label=Relevence&page=1&query-postTypes=true
The Inquiry YouTube channel is here, after searching for “Wormald”
https://m.youtube.com/@UKCovid-19Inquiry/search?query=wormald
I haven’t watched this stuff.
A straight video search for Horizon+Wormald should find shorter MSM video clips of topical interest.
Thanks
Thank you, Richard.
I came across the tweet on the commute in and hoped you would address.
A couple of observations:
The style of government, sofa as in with Blair and reliance on outside advisers (often from the Blair machine and its donors in the background and big finance), needs pliable career(ist) officials.
Due to his professional background, dad was involved in some MoD and Home Office enquiries. When he first got involved in the mid-1970s, his commanding officer explained that when a commission, panel etc. was set up, the government had already determined the conclusions. Whatever, Reeves has in mind, and the losses, write-offs, fraud etc. far exceed the billion cited in the tweet, nothing of note will happen.
Thank you, Richard.
A couple more observations:
I note the anonymised rating cited by Peston. One should be wary of such quotes. Having worked at trade bodies, I often engaged the media*. A lack of context around a source, even minimal, makes me suspicious, in this case putting Wormald in a good light.
As with Sunak, it’s odd that the media can’t be bothered to find or report former colleagues, direct reports etc. willing to speak about their experiences with Sunak and Starmer. There have been snippets about Starmer’s management, micro management of staff / issues and, ahem, liberal approach to expenses.
*Richard and Mike know my identity and can probably find some quotes and even a video of me online.
Thanks
And confirmed
Many thanks, Richard.
Off to a City event. I will send a read-out.
Hazarding a guess – he (Wormald) is probably a “go with the flow”/”don’t rock the boat”/”yes we know they are nutters but humour them” sort of chap (1st reference is to “city traders” btw). Which is fine in non-critical situations – not so with global pandemics. All that said, I am certain he will fit in just fine with LINO managerialism (which is already looking pretty tatty around the edges)
Mistakes are understandable in the kind of crisis Covid presented. But not on the scale of failure under Johnson’s government it simply does no wash. The Covid Inquiry is the place to look for answers; but the problem is typical of the public inquiry method; by the time it reports is fr too late for appointments being made now in a Government administration with inescapable ties to the Government disaster. Wasn’t Wormald there during the dreadful problems of ‘herd immunity’ problems.
Covid probably cost £300-£400Bn. Transparency International UK earlier this year issued red flag warnings surrounding 135 equipment and supply contracts requiring close inspection totalling £15.3Bn alone.
With so many unanswered questions, and so much bad government already revealed at various public inquiries, and with all the continuing uncertainties and questions ahead (with all the unknown consequences yet to be discovered), was that the best Ministry, and the best background to look for a head of the Civil Service? So badly has Britain been governed that challenges to the whole methodology of Government and the archaic system we use, which are long overdue, are now impossible to resist. We begin to look more and more like an abjectly incompetent, failing state.
Much to agree with
Thank you, both.
Did Mike Parr not say recently that the UK was a failed state, but did not know it yet. In the summer of 2017, I was at an event in the City. A former Commission official thought that if the UK did not have a Brexit in name only, it would end up a failed state like Greece.
Greece had a safety net of sorts. England does not. Wales, Scotland abnd Northern Ireland do.
I have Danny Dorling’s book Shattered Nation in which he talks of a failing state. The content is now nearly two years old and nothing has been done to address those many failings. Inequality is the worst in Europe with the continued two child cap, Labour’s policy of freezing pensioners and no suggestions of a massive overhaul of the UK’s infrastructure to repair the last fourteen years, suggest very close to failed state.
Starmer is a former civil servant. The appointment of the new cabinet secretary tells us that fixing the NHS is number one priority. This chimes with the shedloads of cash going to the NHS in the next two years.
Labour seem to think that if they deliver NHS results by 2029 they can get re-elected as voters will respond to “We fixed it”.
This is delusional. The NHS needs good people as well as cash, and highly-qualified doctors can only come from Europe. But without free movement, they will not pay UK visa fees. The UK is competing for scarce resources with its hands tied.
Starmer will not fix the NHS with or without Wormald. Labour will fail.
There is no faith that anyone will be held to account for any of the long running scandals – infected blood, post masters, Grenfell, covid etc etc
A covid corruption ‘commssioner’ to start work 4 years after £billions were squandered on dodgy companies, useless PPE, government ministers mates – reeks of kicking the can down the road – just a delaying tactic, so police or SFO or whatev never take action.
Such a contrast to police currentlylocking up and ransacking the homes, of mothers of an anti-arms to Israel demonstrator.
Andrew Broadbent- Bravo. Your comment pinpoints the squalid, corrupt, hypocritical moral bankrupty that passed for governance in the UK under the Single Transferable Party system.
The question I ask is, knowing of the workings of the ‘VIP lane’ (as I’m sure we all do by now), how much control did Wormald actually have over the awarding of contracts?
It seems to me that the VIP lane should have been useless if Wormald had had the final say on contracts, but it clearly wasn’t and it enriched many ‘associates’ of government ministers. Or was he in on the corruption?
OTOH, I don’t recall him saying at the Public Inquiry that these contracts were foisted on him, but I’ve by no means watched all of it and only one interim report has been published.
He was the Accounting Officer responsible for this spending. He must have known what was happening, and must have sanctioned it. If he did not, he would have required minsuteral written direction to ignore it. If that can be produce the evidence on his role changes.
The Guardian’s profile on Chris Wormald is not positive, one former official said it was an example of “failing upwards”. The end of the profile points to a closing submission in the covid enquiry last week when Alison Munroe KC, counsel for the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK, described Wormald’s evidence as “an object lesson in obfuscation, a word salad – so many, many words, so very little substance”. It doesn’t point to someone who is going to improve the operation of government!
Thanks
Hmmm……………..interesting.
Well, it’s either a shove it under the rug job or Wormald was bullied, undermined and ignored by his Tory masters and we know what they are like – rule breakers not rule takers. They thought that they were going to rule for a thousand years.
So, Wormald (unfortunate name) might know where the bodies are buried. It would be nice to see that or once and for someone to actually be accountable for with a decent confession or a no holds barred attempt at pointing the finger.
Hallo Richard,
Steve Keen recently posted a new Episodeon his podcast Debunking Economics: “Government debt, bonds and money supply”, talking about the importance of governments negative equity.
I could follow all of his reasoning.
I would love you to make a video on this topic in your unique, very comprehensive style of eyplaining accounting logic
OK….noted
Also see Prof Kelton’s latest newsletter “The Lens” (2nd Dec), with comments about Trump’s apparent earlier grasp of MMT principle regarding money creation in Covid, and the currency issuing powers of a country like USA.
“Can Donald Trump Revolve on Debt Before it’s Too Late?”
(With reference to the reinstatement of the federal debt limit in one month’s time)
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/can-donald-trump-revolve-on-debt?
It get’s worse. Wormald’s father was the senior person in charge of the blood products scandal.
A scandal Wormald himself sat on for a long time.
I suggest you read the hundreds of pages of the latest DHSC annual accounts for a measure of the man.
Sir Humphrey lives.
The people operating at PUS level are first and foremost accomplished politicians in their own right. They will be careful to ensure that those reporting to them are clearly responsible for what has been done and that Ministers/SPADs are clearly responsible for giving direction. The latest crop of politicians will want to believe this because they need such people and their immediate direct reports to run the govt machine including manning inquiries. The Institute of Govt and others have been pointing out for some time now a radical rethink of how the upper echelons of the CS work, skills, etc needed is long overdue. This latest Cabinet Sec appointment reinforces the case for change.
PUS? Permanent under-secretary?
Yes