First against the wall

Sometimes I could just strangle our Ministers. Well, one of them at least.

I shall not mention her name here, but it's quite easy to find out if you do a quick search of our website. She is regarded among the Labour Party apparatchiks as an 'up-and-coming comrade.'

God help us if she progresses much further up the ranks.

We get a regular supply of correspondence to Ministers from baffled MPs and local councillors misinterpreting the way the housing subsidy system works (not surprising, really, since it gives the terms intricate and arcane a bad reputation). Over the years we have received so many similar queries that we have a carefully constructed standard response that explains the subsidy system in simple, no-nonsense words. Not quite single syllable, but close.

Except that the current (very junior) Minister claims not to understand the explanation (despite having signed off a few similar responses previously).

Well, fair enough. If you don't understand, you don't understand.

But to hold on to the draft reply three weeks after deadline and then send it back for a redraft is the sort of thing that brings out mutinous behaviour; especially as the now late response will appear not in her performance statistics, thank you very much, but in ours.

I tell you, come the revolution...

First against the wall

Sometimes I could just strangle our Ministers. Well, one of them at least.

I shall not mention her name here, but it's quite easy to find out if you do a quick search of our website. She is regarded among the Labour Party apparatchiks as an 'up-and-coming comrade.'

God help us if she progresses much further up the ranks.

We get a regular supply of correspondence to Ministers from baffled MPs and local councillors misinterpreting the way the housing subsidy system works (not surprising, really, since it gives the terms intricate and arcane a bad reputation). Over the years we have received so many similar queries that we have a carefully constructed standard response that explains the subsidy system in simple, no-nonsense words. Not quite single syllable, but close.

Except that the current (very junior) Minister claims not to understand the explanation (despite having signed off a few similar responses previously).

Well, fair enough. If you don't understand, you don't understand.

But to hold on to the draft reply three weeks after deadline and then send it back for a redraft is the sort of thing that brings out mutinous behaviour; especially as the now late response will appear not in her performance statistics, thank you very much, but in ours.

I tell you, come the revolution...

Hack, Kaff, splutter

Dear reader I have come home early from the office before I complete my transformation into a snot-monster.

Some things just have to be done in private.

Though it's not yet 5.30 I am going to climb under the duvet for an hour provided I can breathe lying down. This is my first cold for over two years.

I'd forgotten how miserable they are.

Hack, Kaff, splutter

Dear reader I have come home early from the office before I complete my transformation into a snot-monster.

Some things just have to be done in private.

Though it's not yet 5.30 I am going to climb under the duvet for an hour provided I can breathe lying down. This is my first cold for over two years.

I'd forgotten how miserable they are.