A few things...
1. I'd not read Rupert Lowe's tirade before seeing it mentioned on this thread a few minutes ago.
2. I had no idea that Starmer had attacked the civil service in the manner he had. Much of my news consumption comes from 5Live between 6 and 7am when I'm traipsing across the Downs with the dog and a torch. Yout post triggered a memory of one of the Beeb's political correspondents, Zeffman or Mason presumably, recently talking about how unhappy many ministers were about the civil service.
So I went to search for that.
And, instead, I found the article about Starmer's speech.
So, no, I'm not going to give a response on whether they are of the same order - I've not seen Starmer's speech and at this time of night, I'm not going to rectify that now.
However, as part of that same bit of research, I noted that civil service unions were significantly less-than-happy at what Starmer had to say about their members, going so far as calling him "Trumpian". A Labour leader being compared to Donald Trump by a union leader is pretty remarkable, isn't it?
The head of the senior civil servants’ union has written to Keir Starmer urging him to rethink his “frankly insulting” criticism of Whitehall for being comfortable with falling standards.
The general secretary of the FDA, the union for senior civil servants, suggested Starmer had invoked “Trumpian” language by claiming not to want to “drain the swamp” but having gone on to say that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Dave Penman told Starmer he feared it was “far more damaging than you had considered when you chose those words” after years of attacks on the civil service by previous governments had already harmed morale.
The Guardian understands Starmer's speech suggesting civil servants are partly to blame for blocking reform in public services and Whitehall has made even some of his own ministers uncomfortable.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-criticism-civil-servants-whitehall-trumpian
