I suspect what is really going on here, as with all the other times skilled and qualified officials have been fired because they supposedly weren’t Brexit enough, is that those skilled and qualified officials told the truth. Our leaders clearly prefer fantasy. https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1277359640582504448

If this is what they do, then all those high-faluting sentiments in Gove’s lecture this weekend about government needing diversity of views, economic literacy, dispassionate data evaluation, the ability to change course if need be, etc: total bollocks. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/06/privilege-public-service-michael-gove-s-ditchley-lecture-full-text

Civil service reform may not feel as urgent as some of the other awful things happening in the world right now. But having researched quite a bit on how political appointees have fared versus professional civil servants in one field (US diplomacy) I fear they are a total disaster

Robert Saunders sets out the problems with great clarity in this excellent thread: https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1277513712539238404?s=21 https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1277513712539238404