Flu Hysteria Powers Whitehall Spin Machine

vivatifosi

They need swine flu to power the spin machine to take the headlines away from their own former ministers saying they weren't up to their jobs:

Iain Dale interview with Jacqui Smith for Total Politics...

Do you think it's a weakness of our political system that there is no kind of career path planning at all and that people are plonked into jobs, sometimes for absolutely no reason?

Yes, if I ever describe the process of becoming a minister - moving from one ministerial job to another - to somebody in almost any other job outside they think it is, frankly, pretty dysfunctional in the way that it works. That's not just this government... To be fair, Gordon had talked to me about whether or not I wanted to do a different job but you have to get to a pretty senior position in government - and you have to be pretty powerful as hell - before you can even express a view, let alone expect to influence where you go. I think we should have been better trained. I think there should be more induction. There's more now than when I started as a minister but it's still not enough. I think there should be more emphasis given to supporting ministers more generally in terms of developing the skills needed to lead big departments, for example. When I became Home Secretary, I'd never run a major organisation. I hope I did a good job but if I did it was more by luck than by any kind of development of those skills.


Fair play to her for being honest though. Echoes of Estelle Morris.


Here's a link to the full interview, which has been quoted in part in a few other papers today:


http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=493