Long waiting lists, court delays and educational attendance: the virus highlighted the state's many problems. I spoke to Paul Johnson about the challenges facing the Treasury, Rosa Hodgkin on Whitehall's response and Gideon Skinner assessing how Covid-19 worsened trust. (2/2)

You’ll hear “the disability benefits bill is soaring” a lot today but remember. Public spending on pensioner entitlements has risen from 5.3% of GDP to 6% over the last 20 years, whilst the working-age benefits bill has remained static. Consider why one of these is controversial.

As I told Nick Gutteridge The Telegraph, the idea that cuts of this scale can be delivered by cutting HR and comms teams is for the birds. This plan will require ministers to be honest with the public and their civil servants about the impact this will have on public services.

Christ. Here we go again with the arbitrary numbers. theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

First as farce, then as tragedy. No one doubts that AI and better use of tech will transform gov. But Reeves' remarks about cutting 'back office functions' is a throwback to the 90s. We need a 10 or 20 year plan here - not the back of a fag packet. theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/m…

Truth.

Yet another sneering, stupid and woefully anachronistic portrait of the civil service from the The Telegraph. Pretty poor, William Sitwell, even for you. telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/0…

Civil servants 'are hungry for reform': Dave Penman urges ministers to set clear plan civilserviceworld.com/professions/ar…

Anyone else getting enraged by the ubiquitous use of the word 'deal' to describe just about every single international agreement or negotiation?

If we'd never joined the EU SM/CU, joining as soon as humanly possible would be an obvious central pillar of gov policy as a way of quickly jacking up growth. Fear of a) cognitive dissonance and b) Reform are the main obstacles. theguardian.com/business/2025/… theguardian.com/business/2025/…

Starmer: 'Peace through Strength'. Wonder what Orwell would make of this. theguardian.com/politics/live/…

An additional £15bn on nuclear weapons. Never seriously discussed in the public square. Why? theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

After more than 25 years of working for the government, I can tell you that when you hear a government minister mention 'difficult decisions', all they mean is: "You're going to fucking hate this".

Happy Brexit referendum anniversary day. It weakened the economy. Reduced investment. Tanked the pound. Damaged the City. Increased red tape. Increased immigration. Decreased the rights of the young. Staffed billions wasted. But hey - Johnson has PM on his CV and his partner in

Welcome to 2025. theguardian.com/society/2025/j…

We need more tears in public office. Bring your whole self to your work, Chancellor.

Jesus Christ. Here we go again.

These are also the people who tell us that disloyalty and lack of faith and optimism is destroying the country. Off you pop, lads, you want be missed nearly as much as you think.

This. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…