Mouldy mandarins

ONCE BRITISH IMPERIAL AMBITION coloured the map of the globe pink. Now it must surely be largely green with envy, as there are so many things in Britain for the rest of the world to covet: our judges, our police, our BBC, our NHS, of course, and perhaps most impressively of all, our civil service. While the Westminster model might have fallen into rancid partisanship across the Anglosphere, Whitehall has not yet let us down. Northcote-Trevelyan still rules. Where other public bureaucracies suffer from corruption, inefficiency, politics and patronage, we enjoy all the benefits of loyal, effective, disinterested civil servants, promoted on merit. We know this is so because they tell us. Every living former cabinet secretary wrote to The Times last month with a clever solution to the problem…

You're reading a preview of

The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2021

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.