‘Britain Is In Unsafe Hands’ | Civil Servants ‘Faking’ Attendance | ‘We’re Screwed'

Ajouté : 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]I have you two stories, which basically goes to show, I think, the rot in the heart of Whitehall when it comes to their work ethic, cuz there are a lot who are just coasting. The first is the other day I was chatting to a civil servant, and we've got recess in Parliament now, which basically means that not much is really going on, right?

[00:00:13]You know, you can't do much political.

[00:00:15]And I said to the civil servant, "Oh, you know, you take any time off over recess?" And they laughed at me and said, "No, why would I take time off in recess? That's our quietest moment. I take time off when it's busy in Parliament and Whitehall, cuz that's what I can have a proper break, whereas recess is basically like a second break in itself, which I'm being paid for. No one takes time off in recess, because actually it means that we don't have much going on anyways, we can put our feet up and get paid for it." And that is like the That is a lot of the mentality. Last year, or maybe 2 years ago, I was asked to come into a a certain government department to give a talk about like dealing with the press and sort of what what journalists do and how they can sort of like help with us.

[00:00:57]And uh I came into I was I was told I was going to be addressing the entire press office and taking some questions from them.

[00:01:04]And uh I came in through the department, which was like a ghost ship, hardly anyone at their desks. This was a Wednesday.

[00:01:10]Uh I then got into the room where the press office was, and there were four people in there, and I thought, "Yeah, civil servant efficiencies done so well, there's only four people in this streamlined press office now." And then a big TV flickered into life.

[00:01:24]There's about 50 people beaming in from home. And this is the thing that just goes to show the problem, and you know, there's flexi working in the civil service now. So, they think they're meant to do three out of five days a week, but it does strike me that it's really not um it's not really good cutting the mustard at the moment.

[00:01:38]>> I I'm I'm sort of with you, and there's a great debate this morning, and this is absolutely flown, Jack, for obvious reasons. You know, you'll have people saying, "Look, I'm self-employed." We had a guy on saying, "My wife's on flexi-time, and she He said she has a 3-hour lunch break. I I run my own business, it's completely different. I'm not giving you my name, cuz she'd probably divorce me." But there is a massive difference between the private sector and the public sector in this argument. There is absolutely no doubt that if you work in a huge organization like, for example, the civil service where perhaps your target I mean, we had one woman on this morning from HMRC. She got told she was too efficient. She answered the phone too quickly. We had somebody else on this morning who got a Did you read that Did you hear the bloke who was going out with a girl a year ago? She worked at the child maintenance service center where 60% of them didn't answer the phone [laughter] calls cuz they gave them anxiety. For God's sake, I'm convinced that if you run your own business after this morning I I I feel this very strongly. If you run your own business, you work in the private sector, I'm not saying that we don't have to have life balance and work balance, right? I can sit here and argue that I want to be in the office because of seeing people and banter and all that. I like being at home as well, but I'm not sure that we're as productive in the public sector as we have to be in the private sector. I could be wrong though. But that But that But that Yeah, but that's because civil servants are virtually unsackable. But you know who hates lazy civil servants more than almost anyone, including you and me?

[00:02:59]That is hard-working civil servants. You know, the people that give civil servants a bad name are just They just infuriate people that actually get on and do their jobs and work long hours.

[00:03:08]You know, the other day I was taken down into the Foreign Office crisis room where lots of the civil servants there are working to repatriate people from the Middle East because of the Iran war.

[00:03:17]They're people who are working, you know, sort of 12-13 hour shifts, you know, putting in like a lot of effort.

[00:03:23]Those are the people the ones that just hate the pen-pushers who clock-watch, you know, they sort of get in you know, 9:00 and at quarter to five they're they're out the door and the lights are off and the cleaners are coming in.

[00:03:33]>> know what? I'm I'm I'm thinking back I'm thinking back now to like my first couple of jobs. Just sitting here That's the way I do this show. It's not prepared. You could obviously tell that it's that bad. Nobody would prepare this and actually put it out.

[00:03:44]>> [snorts] >> I remember when flexitime came in, Christian, right? And I remember This is the different mentality. I remember thinking I can actually work extra hours under that to make more money rather than I'll do it all at the beginning of the week and store it up and have Friday off. I wanted to do it all at the beginning of the week and Friday cuz it meant I was earning a bit more dosh.

[00:04:03]That's what I'm talking about. I'm not sure that mentality exists anymore.

[00:04:08]Yeah, and I think there definitely is a sort of something for nothing culture that has really been uh you know, it's really been allowed to fester in society over the past few years or so. You know, we sort of talk about we all talk about the benefits this culture here, but also there are people who are actually in work, which clearly is a good thing, but not being as productive as they want, you know, in the public sector especially as you mentioned, you just hear constant stories about people, you know, who aren't pulling their weight or people who are resistant to change and people who don't want to drive efficiencies, you know, especially this is taxpayers' money, right? So, you think that every penny should be looked after with proper diligent care.

[00:04:46]>> That's the point.

[00:04:48]And you know, let let the private sector make their own mistakes, but the problem is is that in terms of the productivity side of things, the reason why the private sector often is more productive is because there is no safety net, you know, if you don't if you don't work hard, your company will go bust or you might not get your bonus or you might not get paid or you might not get your commission.

[00:05:06]>> Lo and behold being in the environment Lo and behold being in the company or in environment which you would find in the public sector and you said it just said the civil service are almost incapable of being fired. Imagine being called in like we were and being told that you were rubbish at your job. You were either being demoted or you were being fired or that you were very good at your job and you were being promoted and given more money. That can't happen nowadays cuz presumably people will be traumatized if they're told they're not good at their jobs. I mean, I've I've I've experienced that in the last 10 years. Could you when we were doing the the old show in America, I remember saying distinctly that that producer is not great and they went, "Well, you can't say that cuz they'll sue us." But they're not good at their job. Yeah, but you can't do that, Jess, cuz that that don't happen here. Yeah, there'll be a court case and it'll go on. Well, how are we going to get people to do the job efficiently? It's not like that anymore.

[00:05:50]The world's gone mad, Jake. Absolutely mad. Um before you go, um just a couple of um in our different show today cuz it's it can't possibly be the way it usually is.

[00:06:00]Blackheath in South London. Mhm. Been a huge debate this morning.

[00:06:05]Why do you think it's called Blackheath?

[00:06:09]Um I I genuinely have no idea. I mean, there's a nice heath down there.

[00:06:14]>> the Black Plague, and the people that died were buried there. That's what we were told growing up. Oh, no, not now.

[00:06:20]The younger generation have been on the phone this morning. Apparently, that's an urban myth and it's the color of the soil.

[00:06:26]Is that true? I've no idea what's true anymore doing this show.

[00:06:29]>> is this is really not my expertise, I'll have to say. I I don't I don't I don't know about Blackheath. I've only been there a couple of times to play cricket with Harry Cole. Uh we went we went to the pub afterwards. It was very nice. Um but we didn't chat about soil or um or or the Black Death. Uh if you spend the day with Harry Cole, you certainly wouldn't do anything other than drink.

[00:06:46]Uh you're a top man. We very much appreciate it. You got a busy few days coming up. Jack Elsom from the brilliant Sun, the political editor. Uh as I just mentioned and I'll do it all morning because I've always tried to do this in an honest way.