The politicised foreign office
Two things thing we have learnt from the Foreign Office Pope memo fiasco are:
- There is now a very low standard of personnel employed in the foreign office ( and perhaps in the rest of the civil service ). Anyone with half a functioning brain cell could have figured out the damage that memo could cause - let alone someone employed in the Foreign Office. This must be seen a as direct result of Labour's changes in civil service recruiting.
- Politicisation of the civil service runs deep and wide. The aggressive anti-Catholic nature of the memo shows that this sort of anti-Christian, anti-Religious group think is probably widespread in the FO. It may mean major changes are needed if there is an incoming Conservative administration.
7 comments:
The memo was obviously meant for private circulation and not for publication.
The memo wasn't anti catholic. It was a satirical comment on topics where the Catholic Church is seen by some to be out of step with popular beliefs.
I found it fairly amusing and I'd like to think that were I a Catholic I'd not be in the least offended by it.
The title of your blog, 'Man in a Shed', suggests you have a sense of humour and can laugh at yourself. May I suggest you allow Catholics the same priviledge. They have certainly got minds of their own if one extrapolates from the birth rates in Catholic countries such as France and Italy.
@Anon - my point is not about humour, but professionalism and inbuilt left wing mindset.
In this world it is insane for any professional organisation to draft a memo with the content that would look better on "The Now Show".
So the diagnosis stands - low quality civil servants exposing their inbuilt bias against a world Christian leader - which also chimes closely with Labour's anti-Christian viewpoints.
The FCO has always been a hotbed of traitors, ready to do down the UK at a moment's notice. Their behaviour representing the UK abroad has never reached even basic standards of competence or loyalty. They are now revealed today as being unprincipled fools into the bargain.
Historic it may be, but is it not time to close the whole department down and start again?
You get what you pay for - any Tory knows that! Quite a dilemma for you really.
@Anon - but we've been paying more to get less with Gordon Brown and Labour.
Remember Lord Digby Jones ( ex-Labour Govt Minister ) said his department could achieve twice as much with half the number of people. ( see here ).
Oh come on - politicisation indeed!I was a middle ranking civil servant for 35 years, mostly in Whitehall and can tell you that civil servants' attitude towards politicians of all stripes is public deference and private loathing. Anon is right - this was obviously a private joke memo that some idiot has allowed to escape. There are idiots in every large organisation. Why do you expect the Foreign Office to be different?
@Moonraker - I'm just as anti idiot as I am anti left wing bias - its just the two groups largely coincide in my experience.
Of the civil servants I know I can think of only one who is not left wing. As with the BBC their is an institutional bias to a left wing world view and group think.
Imagine that memo had said something racist or that went against the Lab govt's views on certain sexual activity - those concerned would have been fired by now.
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