THE CIVIL SERVICE ARE A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES, CLAIMS FORMER MINISTER

A former minister has said he is not surprised the civil service has welcomed a Labour government.

Sir Jake Berry claimed the civil service acted like a law unto themselves regardless of what ministers asked of them and refused to go into work unless it was to strike.

Speaking to GB News, Sir Jake Berry said:

“I think the only days [civil servants] actually came into the offices was when they were going out on strike, so they could stand out waving their placards.

“I remember when I walked down Whitehall, I was amazed. There were civil servants everywhere, all over the street, holding placards, not in the office doing their work.

“I was a minister for several years. I had the privilege of working with some brilliant and bright civil servants, particularly in private office, as a minister; they really work for you, and they’re part of the team.

“But we can’t be surprised that they’re delighted that Keir Starmer has come in. He’s been a career civil servant his whole life. His chief of staff is a career civil servant. They are just all part of the same problem.

“ And what politicians should do is come in and provide leadership. They should come and say, ‘Look, we have a plan. The British public have sent us here to deliver this plan.’ And the civil service should implement that plan, not just be a sort of law unto themselves, which I think is what we see over the last few years.

“What we’ve got to remember, though, about the rainbow lanyards, the diversity, the hair celebration, whatever: It is taxpayers in this country, we are paying for all this nonsense and that’s what I think is absolutely outrageous.

“They are there to do a job. They need to get back to bloody work, and we need to stop paying for this.

“People working in factories up and down the United Kingdom, they can’t continue to work from home. People working in supermarkets stacking shelves, they haven’t got the choice of continuing to work from home.

“Why, because these people are taxpayer funded, should we have an invisible forcefield around their office that stops them going to work?

“I don’t frankly care who they vote for because they’re all individuals, they can make their own decisions.

“There are lots of people working in job centres in towns and cities across this country, awesome people going into the office helping people every day.

“The Civil Service in Whitehall, I’m sorry, has a sort of a hive mind, a unified consciousness and it’s about being in London, going to the Royal Opera House, having these highly paid civil service jobs.

“And they cannot properly represent or help people outside the M25 and that’s what people rail against.

“Why did Priti Patel get accused of bullying civil servants? She came into the department and said, tell me everything I can do without passing legislation with my executive power as Home Secretary.

“What can I do to stop the boats? What can I do to sort violent crime out on the streets?

“And the civil service said no, we won’t give you that information. And she said, ‘this is an absolute disgrace, I’m the Home Secretary’ and she was hauled up for bullying, for saying ‘what can I do?’