Westminster and Whitehall have a laissez-faire approach, not to the economy but to the polity.

31st July 2021

Another Saturday.

Today’s Financial Times revealed how some are paying for access to ministers and policy-makers.

Tomorrow’s Sunday newspapers will reveal more problems in respect of the government – and more about those paying for access to ministers and policy-makers.

(This, of course, follows the extraordinary and extravagant decisions by ministers and officials in respect of procurements, including in respect of the pandemic.)

And as this thread on Twitter shows, the supreme court – which will be followed by other courts – appears to be making it more difficult for policy to be subject to judicial review.

All this in the context of what this blog avers is an ‘accountability gap’ in Westminster and Whitehall in respect of the formulation and administration of policy.

It is almost like watching a landscape painting being done in reverse, with an ever greater empty space in the middle of a canvass.

The space where accountability should be.

We have an increasingly unregulated State – a laissezfaire approach, not to the economy but to the polity.

Anything goes – whatever minister and officials in each department can get away with.

Anything goes – with only the lightest supervision by the judiciary and the legislature, and with many supervisory bodies rendered impotent.

And when anything goes, all sorts of things will go on.

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8 thoughts on “Westminster and Whitehall have a laissez-faire approach, not to the economy but to the polity.”

  1. Laissez-faire pretty much describes the work ethic of our promiscuous leader who’s only real concern seems to be to get to the end of his tenure with all earning powers intact.

  2. No surprise then that they propose to restrict journalism and whistle-blowing so the public doesn’t get to know what is going on in Government. This is the most corrupt administration I can remember, which is back to the days of Alec Douglas-Home.

    Laissez-faire for them and their friends, limitations for the rest of us.

  3. And all at a time when the Government are setting up hurdles ahead of the next election, hurdles that only they can jump.

    “M’lud, can I intervene ….”

    Answer: “No”

  4. Well with Mr Johnson in charge of the ministerial Code
    what could possible go wrong
    Brace Brace indeed

  5. Supreme Court withdrawing from questions of policy leaves the field open for an extreme of a different hue? – no way to govern, but something that come back to bite?

  6. Lord Sales et al might just possibly have in mind longer-term risks from the Supreme Court using judge-made law to fill an ‘accountability gap’. Even those who’d guess that Juvenal plays for Barcelona have votes.

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