Frank Field, writing in the Mail, reminisces about his meetings with Margaret Thatcher while she was PM. It contained this interesting point, which rather seems to support my pet theory that it is the civil service which is the real enemy:
There wasn’t much in her record as Education Secretary in Edward Heath’s Government to suggest she would be a great Prime Minister.
But when she entered No10 she understood she had to get control of the Whitehall machine – and not be bypassed by it, as had occurred with so many of her predecessors.
There's no doubt that both Blair and Brown have been unable to introduce any meaningful reform of Leviathan. They have been ignored by the mandarins and have proved powerless to do anthing about it. The country is therefore left with the slender hope that David Cameron can do any better.
Oh dear.
Perhaps our best hope for salvation lies in a sudden collapse of government finances, sweeping aside the whole state edifice overnight. Painful, perhaps, but quick and decisive.