Prime ministers should always avoid taking on the military in a war of words. It is the duty of public servants – civil and military – to speak ‘truth unto power’
David Cameron’s remark that he sometimes felt like saying to our military chiefs ‘you do the fighting and I’ll do the talking’ has raised some interesting issues.
Least interesting is the prime minister’s lack of political nous – picking a fight with the military brass, especially over issues where public sympathy is clearly with them, not him, is not sensible. Nor is doing it in a way that opens him up to all sorts of ridicule – a man who retreats at the first whiff of grapeshot from the Daily Mail is hardly one to lecture others about doing the fighting.
No, the really interesting thing is what it reveals about the attitudes of British politicians to public servants – civil or military. The idea that ‘ministers decide’ and public servants are there just to implement their wishes has a long and unfortunate history.
The most well-known codification of this was set out by the first academic to make it to be American President, Woodrow Wilson, over 100 years ago. He stated the famous doctrine about the separation of politics and administration that has become embedded in our own system. Unfortunately, Wilson has been proved wrong time and again, both in practice and in theory.
In practice there has never been a firm line between politicians and administrators. Public servants at all levels – including ‘street-level bureaucrats’ – in practice play policy-making roles, whilst politicians often get involved in ‘managerial’ decisions. And in theory most would now accept that public ‘servants’ have an obligation to ‘speak truth unto power’, even if elected politicians do have the final say.
A good democratic political leader would recognise these realities and welcome, not complain, about public officials acting as leaders and not just servants. In many democracies they do just that, treating the voices of ‘expert’ public managers as valuable sources of advice and not irritating disobedient servants.
Cameron cannot be entirely blamed for misunderstanding this relationship – we have adopted hook, line and sinker Wilson’s doctrine. According to the former head of the civil service, Lord Armstrong, our civil service has ‘no constitutional personality separate and apart from that of the government of the day’.
The prime minister clearly thinks this applies to military servants too. He’s wrong and so was Lord Armstrong, in principle and in practice.
This post first appeared on Whitehall Watch
