Sir Christopher Meyer says in his book that he briefed a former Prime Minister in his underpants. Well I have briefed a Cabinet Minister in his bath. But unlike Meyer, I do not propose to tell you anything about it. In part I want to protect you from having the image etched in your mind in the way it is in mine – I can assure you that you do not want to go there. But mainly I shall keep quiet because I believe that it is in the interest of good government for civil servants to protect the confidences of the Governments they serve.

The publication of the Meyer memoirs has reopened questions about the proper relationship between the civil service and the government. This is an important question with possible implications for the style and form of government we have.

Below the fold, I set out to demolish five common fallacies about the role of the civil service.

• Fallacy one: Civil servants should be able to tell their side of the story.
• Fallacy two: The civil service has been politicized; there are too many Special Advisers with too much power.
• Fallacy three: Civil servants owe a separate duty to Parliament, the public or the press.
• Fallacy four: Civil servants should enforce the Ministerial code.
• Fallacy five: Civil servants should have a monopoly on providing advice to the Government.

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Supposedly, we’re in a golden age of TV comedy. Like all golden ages, though, it doesn’t seem much like one when you’re living through it.
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Britain has slipped ignominiously out of the top 50 nations for women’s political representation, strengthening calls for all-woman shortlisting (AWS).

All political parties have had the option to use AWS following the the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, but only Labour has taken this up. Consequently, 77 per cent of female MPs are from the Labour party.

High levels of female and other descriptive elected representation are associated with reduced corruption, reduced bureaucracy, and spending priorities reflective of the community being represented. So why have Davids Cameron and Davis refused to consider AWS when outlining their visions of the future of the Conservative party?
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Eagle-eyed regular readers will have noted the day (Thursday) the time (nearly lunch already) and will be wondering what’s happened to our Thursday rant this week. For everyone who hates it: I’m sorry, we haven’t decided to kill it (yet). But it is having a week off, mostly because I was going to have a crack today and I’m too busy. On stuff that feeds my two-year-old, not my ego, that is.

However, we are looking for more Ranters. The rules, remember, go like this:

1. Open to anyone, blogger, commenter, whatever. Even journalists.
2. 350 words maximum.
3. Any subject at all, as long as you have an opinion. Not that there’s a shortage of those here usually… We won’t censor it, beyond the usual caveats.
4. Links or short quotes are fine, as long as they’re just to illustrate your point, not to make it for you.

We give you the floor and a chance to promote your blog or opinions here. Of those we’ve run already, I’ve especially enjoyed this and this. But feel free to rant about whatever you like — they have all attracted lots of readers and even occasionally sparked off decent debate in the comment boxes. The next couple of weeks are spoken for already, but after that we have openings. Leave a comment below or email me at fairvote AT gmail DOT com to book your place in the sun.

The US military has raided an Iraqi Interior Ministry building and found evidence of torture and maltreatment of prisoners:
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On Friday, Chris Dillow asked: are suicide bombers rational? It’s a fine question, which he partly answers with reference to this new paper by Eli Berman and David Laitin (pdf):

Suicide terrorism, they [Berman and Laitin] say, is rational if you believe terrorism will be rewarded in the hereafter, or if you are altruisitic and believe your death will benefit you family and compatriots.

But there are (at least) two questions of rationality here. Who exactly are we asking if suicide terrorism is rational for? Read More

TV eats itself on a regular basis. Not just through the regular diet of talking head clip shows, but through the process of every good idea being repeated ad infinitum across every channel until its been flogged to death and then thrown out for twenty years until someone re-invents the wheel and the whole process begins again.
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After two weeks of rioting in France, the country’s attitude to minorities has come in for some criticism. France has never officially recognised cultural or religious minorities. The French government does not keep data on the ethnicity or religion of its citizens. It is illegal for organisations to hold such information on their employees. By contrast, in the US, companies over a certain size are legally obliged to monitor the ethnic makeup of their workforces. In the UK, while not compulsory, ethnic monitoring is considered good practice and can count in an employer’s favour when fighting claims of racial discrimination

In France, though, if you are French, you are French, that’s it. Ethnic minorities have no official status. There is no French equivalent of “African-American”, when you become a French citizen, you are expected to leave your old identity behind. Uniquely among the major western countries, the French government has no idea how many of its citizens are from ethnic minorities. This means that there can be no affirmative action programmes, no government grants for cultural activities and no community leaders filing into government buildings to be consulted on policy. Read More

Regular readers of The Sharpener will remember that back in the spring I dedicated numerous column inches to the arcane issue of the West Lothian question: How can it be justified that Scottish MPs have the right to vote on English issues that do not concern their constituents, while English MPs do not have the same right to vote on Scottish issues?

In my previous posting I argued that, personally, I did not think that the West Lothian question was so big an issue that it required further constitutional change. Very many disagreed with me. Some pointed to an English parliament as a workable (if, in my view, hugely expensive, complex and disruptive) option tied to UK-wide federalism.

A totally unworkable solution, one betraying a deep ignorance of and contempt for the British constitution, was the one chosen by the Tory party at the last general election. This is how I described it then: Read More

Nick Barlow writes:

Given that The Sun today includes William Hague in its not-at-all-ridiculously-hyperbolic list of ‘traitor MPs’ who dared to vote against the Blessed Tony desire to keep the streets safe and free from people who look a bit shifty, I assume that means he’ll be sacked from his News Of The World weekly column?

After all, surely no one at News International would be willing to employ a traitor, would they? I mean, one could imagine a lesser company – one run by, say, someone who’d abandon his nationality and take another one just to own a television station – taking part in a such heinous of employment, but not News International.

Hague is not a traitor, he is an MP who is doing the job he was elected to do, by protecting his constituents’ liberties.

But, if News International think he is a traitor, and they are nevertheless willing to continue employing him, then clearly News International is a nest of treason. And in these days when terrorists are on the loose, we can’t be too careful. Consequently, senior figures in News International, including Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Wade (editor of The Sun) and Andy Coulson (editor of News of the World) should immediately be arrested, held for 90 days without charge (of course), then be charged with treason and if found guilty, imprisonsed for life.

And life should mean life.