Vocal Voices

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51687287

Strong stuff - and he's going for an unfair dismissal claim as well. Good for him!!

During the election this government made it clear that it did not trust the senior civil servants after 3 years of interference In May's government. They stated that they would make it easier to sack civil servants. Something which is virtually impossible today unless they can be forced to fall on their sword.

Constructive dismissal allows him to retain a rather large pension...

It will be an interesting test case.

There is no doubt that the civil service needs a good shake up, but to do that in the correct way is to change the rules.

Bullying in the workplace is against the law and very often those found to be doing so lose their jobs. Westminster is a workplace and the rules there should be no different from anywhere else.

If the case is successful I can well imagine many others coming forward.

Priti Patel may or may not be a bully. What strikes me about this particular Sir Humphrey though, is this.
A few says ago Patel and Sir Philip Puttnam released a joint statement saying that they were both concerned about "false allegations" made against Ms Patel.
Now just a few days after doing that, Sir Philip is now accusing her of the very thing he denied was happening!
I am not on his side on this. Objectively his claim should be thrown out given the above. But maybe he is counting on having friends in the judiciary who will see things his way.
I do not believe there is much independence in public life; especially so in the civil service and the courts. They tend to see things the same way.
The idea that somebody was beastly to somebody else? Very probably. John Bercow has been accused multiple times of bullying, for instance.
But politicians and civil servants are as bad as each other imo.
Both brief against people, both leak to the press. Patel has been briefed against by the civil service.
The civil service's job is to advise the government, not to assume that they are the government or to be deliberately obstructive to the government, and imo they are well overdue a good shake up.

This is a really good example of how the civil service routinely give government ministers the runaround, by a former Labour minister, Chris Mullins.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... l-servants