With the pressures of Brexit and a new immigration system to design, the Home Office could do without a bust-up
is doing an outstanding job,” according to Boris Johnson, defending Priti Patel during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons on March 4th, as she sat beside him. Sir Philip Rutnam, who on February 29th resigned as permanent secretary to the Home Office after a 33-year career, begs to differ. He claims Ms Patel bullies her staff and was involved in a vicious briefing campaign against him. He is suing the department for constructive dismissal.
The Home Office is not the only department in which colleagues have had problems with her. Complaints of rough treatment were made at her former ministries of welfare and international development. “Anybody who has gone into a department as a minister where Priti has been is greeted with open arms, because she is a such a high-tempered person,” says an ex-colleague. An acquaintance from her days as a lobbyist says she refused to take no for an answer and often left underlings in tears.
That points to the second factor—ideology. New cabinet ministers and their permanent secretaries often start out on a frosty footing, but the current level of mistrust is unusual. Many of Mr Johnson’s ministers regard the civil service as idle, know-it-all and hostile to Brexit. Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s top aide, thinks bureaucrats use legal advice to bamboozle ministers, and argues that the likes of Sir Philip should be replaced by political appointees.
Ms Patel is said to have been particularly incensed by a judge’s decision on February 10th to halt the deportation of criminals to Jamaica, on the grounds that their legal rights had been denied. Laws that bind ministers’ hands on security and immigration make the department particularly unsuited to an assault on the liberal “blob”.
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