The Cabinet Secretary in the twentieth century. Walking down Whitehall, from Trafalgar Square down to the House of Parliament, an outside visitor might be forgiven for thinking that the central offices of the domestic UK state are adjuncts of the Cabinet Office. In fact, the Office, which is responsible to the Prime Minister as Minister for the Civil Service, has been since 1963 the base of the Cabinet Secretary, an extraordinarily powerful position within the civil service. Between 1916 and 2002, for instance, four of the six men who were Cabinet Secretary bar two (Sir Burke Trend and Sir John Hunt between 1963 and 1979) were Heads of the Home Civil Service. Several were also Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, one was Clerk to the Privy Council, and all were co-ordinators of the Intelligence services. Officially anonymous, objective, independent, and non-partisan, the Cabinet Secretary of the day advised each of the twenty prime ministers of the twentieth c...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.