As the Mandelson vetting affair rumbles on, the pod takes a look at how damaging the sacking of Olly Robbins and the briefing wars that have followed it are for relations between government and Whitehall.
Labour came into power saying they would repair the destruction caused by the Tories to how the civil service operates, but Keir Starmer’s comments about mandarins being too comfortable in the ‘tepid bath of managed decline', along with the sacking of two Cabinet Secretaries, have left that seriously in doubt even before the past week’s problems.
To discuss all that host Alain Tolhurst is joined by Lord Robin Butler, a former head of the civil service having served as Cabinet Secretary for a decade, as well as being private secretary to five Prime Ministers.
Alongside him are Hannah Keenan, associate director at the Institute for Government, and a former civil servant in the Cabinet Office, as well as Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the trade union for senior civil servants, and Suzannah Brecknell, co-editor of PolHome's sister title and Whitehall bible, Civil Service World.
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