Heywood's never-ending cuts, Doctors discontent and braving Britain's bankruptcy.

Cruising in the Med some twenty odd years ago my step-son, then around 11 years old suffered a nasty collision between his face and an out of control winch handle. We put into Gibraltar and at the Royal Naval hospital he was x-rayed, treated and comforted and combined with the delights of the islands and coasts of our cruise, he suddenly professed a desire to join the RN as a career. I cautioned that holding joint US citizenship as he did, that should he wish to pursue a "seagoing" career, he had better aim at the US Navy.

Doctors and Consultants in the NHS and Mandarin Senior Civil Servants, ripping off Britain's taxpayers in a multitude of highly discreet ways as they do, may not have enjoyed similar options, but coming as they mainly do from the well-educated levels of the upper middle-classes they should have foreseen that the institution which they were joining for a lifelong career, was led by obviously dishonest manipulators - the politicians of the two main parties and was therefore heading for certain and early bankruptcy.

These powerful groups are now stuck with the results of their earlier career decisions, just as the middle and upper management of such companies as Enron, with no knowledge or culpability for the mispractises at the top, were stuck with their redundancy. Read what Britain's Senior Civil Servant now has to say on the nation's prospects for the coming years in the Daily Telegraph today from here.

Britain was a prosperous world trading country and its public servants enjoyed the benefits that such accrued. The upper middle classes, have supported our entry into the EU, the effects of which THEY are now suffering. In Asia, Australasia and elsewhere there are incredibly prosperous booming economies. Our upper class influential opinion formers have all along the way supported policies that have put trade with these areas beyond Britain's reach and bound us tightly to a sclerotic, cancerous and now barely living corpse that is the EU.

In the process thay have removed the democratic accoutrements that would have earlier allowed full debate on these issues and driven us to a sensible and soundly based national financial future which the country does not possess today.

I am afraid the senior civil servants of Britain, attract my extreme distaste while the doctors of the dreadful NHS get none of my sympathy. These are the people who have set our course towards the rocks, taking "industrial action" as we are about to hit, when we could be turning about, seems odd and ignores the long-coming realities!

The knives are out for Sir Jeremy Heywood!

Quentin Letts wrote a brilliant article on the odious Sir Jeremy Heywood which appeared in The Spectator, 17th March edition, on which I blogged on 15th March which is linked here.

Today, the same magazine, has a follow-up piece by James Forsyth, full of criticism of Heywood's takeover of the Number 10 policy unit, which may be read from here. That Speccie article concludes with the following paragraph, a dire warning for Cameron in light of the latest Home Office fiasco:

Throughout his leadership of the Tory party, Cameron’s saving grace has been that he’s managed to change direction just before it’s too late. At the moment, though, he does not appear to be in the mood for doing that. One confidant says, ‘He doesn’t think there’s an existential threat to his premiership. It takes a lot to shake him out of his complacency.’ Cameron is used to having his critics talk this way, but when his friends join in then he ought to take notice. There are, after all, only a certain amount of mistakes and U-turns that a government can survive before it loses its most valuable asset: credibility.

Perhaps Cameron's only hope, at this late stage, is throwing the Knights of the Civil Service overboard, they are expendable and make perfect jetsam, thereafter we could as a country face up to the real crisis which is caused by the EU and is rapidly getting out of control!

Another Knavish Knight - Sir Jeremy Heywood

I owe it to Douglas Carswell MP for tweeting this link to Quentin Letts article in The Spectator on the thoroughly odious sounding Sir Jeremy Heywood, read Talk Carswell from here and The Spectator article in full from here. Meantime recorded for posterity on this blog the following brief extract from the latter:

Astonishingly, this was Heywood’s first proper public grilling. To make it to Cabinet Secretary without submitting to this parliamentary wringer is like becoming head chef at the Savoy without ever having cooked quenelles. But Jeremy Heywood is not a front-line Freddie. He has been a Treasury high flier, head of policy at the Cabinet Office, a fixer for prime ministers since John Major. He has never run a big-spending department. Far too exposed. Please. That sort of thing is for the bungling Bob Kerslakes of this world.

Sir J. Heywood is a backstairs Bertie, a smudger, a whisper-in-the-PM’s-ear sort who shrivels from public view. The worry for Conservatives, and the rest of us, is that this shrewd murmurer, this eminence grease, has acquired unprecedented power over not only the Prime Minister but also Nick Clegg, Cabinet, the coalition and much of the rest of the state apparat. There is talk of Heywood obstructing secretaries of state, shafting Cameroons and organising Downing Street to his own convenience. We have gone beyond ‘Yes, Minister’ and now have ‘Yes, Sir Jeremy’. Worryingly, no one seems more in hock to him than our soigné, someone-take-care-of-that PM.

The Cameroons are dying like bees. Andy Coulson is long gone. The Wade-Brookses have also been swept away by Hackgate. Other parts of the Chipping Norton set are in retreat. Steve Hilton is fleeing to California.

Heywood remains.....