Government patronage over public appointments is deeply corrupting
July 28th, 2010Yesterday an innocuous little announcement was dribbled out of Whitehall with little or no pick-up in the media. It said that the Government had decided to wind up the Appointments Commission. Since this Commission was set up as an independent body precisely to stop political interference in public appointments, particularly in the health service under the Thatcher Government, it starts to ring alarm bells when this notice of abolition has been issued by the Department of Health whose Minister, Lansley, has just announced ‘reforms’ which will effectively eviscerate the NHS. It strongly suggests the Tories are set on packing the NHS with compliant placemen/women to ram through highly contentious changes to privatise large chunks of the health service. Nor is that the only area where patronage is now being used corruptly for highly partisan political ends. (more…)
