Skipper

Mark Malloch-Brown was possibly the most distinguished of the'goats' appointed by Brown in June 2007, so his rubbishing of procedures in Number 10 must hurt Gordon more than a bit. Today's piece is summed up by:

Lord Malloch-Brown, who quits his ministerial post this month, told colleagues he had seen better “strategic thinking” in Latin America and southeast Asia than at No 10.

He went on to describe conditions as 'chaos'.

One colleague explained it as:

“Mark had never worked in Whitehall before, and it is fair to say he was shocked at how everything was cobbled together at the last minute and no one took the time to plan ahead. It was not uniquely a problem with Brown, but a feature of the British political culture.”

Accurate assessment of spiteful swipe at a job of which he had tired? More than a dash of both, I'm sure but I tend to think Malloch Brown was judging No 10 just a little too harshly. Most work in Whitehall is done by the departments and, allowing for mistakes and poor judgement, forward planning is a strong characteristic in health, education and defence. Moving on to Numder 10, surely this the place to which all the really urgent and intractable matters get referred. It would seem quite understandable that such matters are fraught and generate 'last minute' panics.

It would be interesting if the departing minister could provide more chapter ad verse and no doubt long term planning could be hugely improved throughout Whitehall. But whatever is put in place in the very nerve centre of government it must frequently be absorbed by the culture of acute time constraints and anxiety about negative outcomes.