Author Archives: Daniel Henry

When a Government has been suspected of putting short term politics ahead of proper governance, we’ve often made functions independent. Suspicions that irresponsible monetary policy was being used to provide a short term boost to the economy ahead of an election led to us campaigning for the Bank of England being made independent. George Osborne’s distrust of the Labour Government’s own economic forecasting led him to create the Office of Budgetary Responsibility, to provide economic forecasts that were guaranteed to be free from political interference.

Following Boris Johnson’s assault on our political norms and institutions, and the rest of the Conservative Party’s subsequent descent into post-truth conspiracism, I feel that the Lib Dems need to add a new bullet point to our programme of constitutional reform: Give the entire Civil Service independent communication!

“Why is this even important?”

Civil servants tend to deal with the technical side of Government; establishing what the facts are, what can be done, with what risks and what costs. Our MPs then deal with political side; making and/or evaluating decisions, based on the facts and options provided to them by the civil servants.

It’s a good system, as the two require completely different skillsets. However, it’s muddied by the fact that the public don’t hear the facts from the politically neutral civil service directly. Instead, it’s communicated by Government ministers, politicians, who will often garnish it with political spin. (and even when they don’t, the public find it difficult to trust them, especially if they’re from a different political party).

And this was before Boris Johnson strode onto the scene.

His complete disregard for the truth rode roughshod over a system seemingly designed under the assumption that someone elected Prime Minister simply wouldn’t do that. It showed once and for all that our current system just isn’t built to withstand heavily partisan politics.

“So how would independent communication help?”

Allowing the civil service to directly communicate facts to the public would not only ensure that the public get clear information free from party political spin, it would also make it easier for the public to trust the information being given to them. It’s difficult to trust facts when they’re being delivered by a partisan politician that we deeply distrust.