The Guardian article tells of a mother of all battles in the mother of all parliaments over the neutrality, or otherwise, of the civil service.
The civil service is not neutral.
We know this because the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) say so
The RICS UK Parliamentary Affairs Manager, Mary Thorogood stated;
" Peter's (Peter Bolton-King) appearance (at the Communities and Local Government Committee) is part of our on-going political influencing and engagement programme to achieve better regulation of letting agents. RICS has worked with other organisations in the sector to host events and Party Conference...
And,
"Over the past 18 months, RICS has undertaken a great deal of influencing work - both publically and behind the scenes - to drive home the need for change to Government and policy makers. This work has included events in Parliament, briefing MPs, Ministers and Civil Servants...
(RICS Member Briefing - lobbying Vince Cable to fix the letting industry)
And it worked because Vince, "fixed" it.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, we know civil servants are politically influenced and therefore neither neutral nor independent because RICS say they aren't. Why is it acceptable to have politically influenced civil servants working in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy but not at the Treasury?
Knowing this, thanks to the evidence provided by the RICS, would seem to render the row below over civil service independence 10 years out of date.
Q. Mrs Leadsom we asked Parliament for a Pass for our UK Parliamentary Affairs Manager so that we could politically influence and engage MPs, Ministers and Civil Servants to drive home the need for Vince Cable to "fix" the surveying market but we didn't get a response. Why was that?
Brexit attacks on civil service are reminiscent of 'pre-war Nazi Germany’
Ex-cabinet secretary attacks tactics of leading Brexiters who have accused Whitehall of sabotaging UK’s exit from EU
Michael Savage
The former cabinet secretary Andrew Turnbull, who is one of a number of senior figures worried about attacks on the civil service, which he headed. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images Leading Brexiters who accuse civil servants of sabotaging Britain’s exit from the EU are adopting dangerous tactics similar to those of rightwing German nationalists between the two world wars, a former head of the civil service has warned. In a stark assessment of the acute tensions developing over the issue, Andrew Turnbull, who led the civil service under Tony Blair, said that Whitehall officials had become the victims of “pre-emptive scapegoating” by Brexiters who feared they were losing the argument.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, are politically influenced and engaged civil servants - really victims?
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the new leader of the European research group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs, has suggested that Treasury officials could be deliberately trying to frustrate Brexit. Yesterday he repeated a claim that the Treasury was “fiddling the figures” to emphasise the downside of a “hard” Brexit in which Britain would leave both the single market and customs union. Former chancellor Nigel Lawson also recently claimed that officials would attempt to frustrate Brexit because they were opposed to “radical change”.
Lord Turnbull is among a number of senior figures concerned about attacks on the civil service, with many worried that the atmosphere will deteriorate further as more difficulties emerge.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, since the departure of DJS Research and their detailed and highly critical Customer Satisfaction Reports from Ombudsman Services, what exactly have the government civil servants been monitoring? And will the atmosphere deteriorate further when it emerges they haven't actually been monitoring anything?
Robin Butler, another former cabinet secretary, said he believed the actions were part of a deliberate “Brexiteer process of intimidation”.
Turnbull told the Observer that the attacks on Whitehall were reminiscent of the “stab-in-the-back” myth, which emerged in Germany after the first world war and was later taken up by the Nazis.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, isn't it the consumer who has really been stabbed in the back by government monitors who have failed to monitor the OS:Property redress scheme?
Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested Treasury officials could be deliberately trying to frustrate Brexit. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images “‘Dolchstoss’ means ‘stab in the back’,” he said. “After the first world war there was an armistice, but the German army was then treated as the losers. Then, at the start of the Nazi era, the ‘stab-in-the back’ theme developed.
“It argued that ‘our great army was never defeated, but it was stabbed in the back by the civilians, liberals, communists, socialists and Jews’. This is what I think these critics are trying to do. They are losing the argument in the sense that they are unable to make their extravagant promises stack up, and so they turn and say: ‘Things would be OK if the civil service weren’t obstructing us’.
“When you don’t succeed, you find someone to blame for your failure.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, isn't this exactly what the current Chair of Ombudsman Services did when blaming the 80%+ property complainants for suggesting that his best efforts we simply not good enough?
Tensions are running high before a crucial week for Brexit, during which the prime minister and key cabinet ministers will meet over two days to hammer out details of a final deal that can keep all Tory factions on board. The stakes are high, with Theresa May under huge pressure to make her plans clearer.
Insiders said officials were examining options that would reduce delays at the UK’s border without keeping it fully inside the EU’s customs union. The crunch point is whether there is any way Britain can strike up a customs agreement that stops chaos at the border but also allows some flexibility for the government to sign its own international trade deals.
Rees-Mogg made clear yesterday that there could be no limits placed on Britain’s ability to strike deals. He repeated his claim that the Treasury’s Brexit models were politically influenced.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, with 80%+ property complainants suggesting that their customer journey was not fair doesn't this suggest that Ombudsman Service CEO's model is far from being, "superb?"
Butler said there was a “movement among the rabid Brexiteers to point the finger at the civil service, which I think is completely unjustified”.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, RICS pointed the finger at civil servants and politically influenced them. Aren't the public justified when calling its neutrality into question?
He added: “It is unwise on the part of the Brexiteers, because the government can’t do this operation without the civil service. To demonise them isn’t really very sensible.”
But to question their independence and impartiality along with that of ombudsmen - is.
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