Dominic Raab has resigned as Deputy PM and Justice Secretary after a report by an employment lawyer found that at least some complaints of bullying against him were well founded. As TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak noted Raab’s resignation letter to Sunak was of the ‘sorry, not sorry’ genre.
Raab later underlined the point by attacking ‘over unionised’ and ‘activist’ civil servants. What this mainly tells us is that Raab is both a bully and very right-wing.
Civil servants joined a union for collective protection and representation and when they met a boss like Raab they will have been glad they did.
There is a wider issue.Tony Benn and others in the 1970s and 1980s used to criticise civil servants for frustrating their sometimes radical plans in Government and the sitcomYes Minister rather echoed the point. Of course civil servants, professionals, were concerned about whether what was being put forward would actually work.
Tony Blair, impatient for change after 1997, faced the same issue. Civil Servants knew how complex and time consuming the practice of change could be, whatever the headline issue. New Labour perhaps rightly found that frustrating.
In more recent times we can be glad that civil servants who are experts at their jobs were able to grapple with the off the wall policies of Johnson and Truss.We should be grateful to them that they managed to both annoy Raab and ultimately rumble his dictatorial style
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