Did Christine Not Get the Memo?
While TB waits for the DEFRA press office to call back he thought he would share this:
ImpartialityIt's a riveting read.
You must:
carry out your responsibilities in a way that is fair, just and equitable and reflects the Civil Service commitment to equality and diversity.
You must not:
act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests.
Political Impartiality
You must:
serve the Government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability in a way which maintains political impartiality and is in line with the requirements of this Code, no matter what your own political beliefs are;
act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government; and
comply with any restrictions that have been laid down on your political activities.
You must not:
act in a way that is determined by party political considerations, or use official resources for party political purposes; or allow your personal political views to determine any advice you give or your actions.
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27 comments:
From the 'about me' section on her blog -
Christine is 23, originally from Dublin, now based in London. She's Campaigns Officer for London Young Labour, works for a charity in East London, studies European Public Policy part-time and goes to a lot of gigs. Sometimes she sleeps.
No mention of Defra, or is Defra a charity??
Isn't it a little vindictive to be chasing up someone's employer to essentially try and get them fired just because they are from a political party that opposes your own?
Also, the highlighted phrase says any political restrictions that may have been imposed, for all we know, she may not have had any imposed.
Morning Christine,
No it's not vindictive. Civil Servants must remain neutral.
End of.
Well yes, in their professional life they do, but outside of it not neccesarily.
For claritys sake the phrase you highlight says;
"comply with any restrictions that have been laid down on your political activities" what if no restrictions (in terms of what she does on her personal life) have been laid down on her role? This is not unusual if she's in a fairly junior post.
Anyway, as Campaigns officer she would be equally as in violation, so not sure why you're starting this now.
I'm very much not Christine, just someone who also has to seperate work/politics and wouldn't like to have someone try and hound me at work purely because i'm a different colour from them.
go read the anti tory sentiments on her blog and figure out how they fit in with the ability to work with any government.
She only came onto my radar when she won hence this course of action.
If I had known that a Labourlist contributor was a civil servant I would have taken this up earlier.
"Like all servants of the Crown, civil servants are legally barred from standing for election as Members of Parliament or any other political office.[16] Also, under regulations first adopted in 1954 and revised in 1984, members of the Senior Civil Service (the top management grades) are barred from holding office in a political party or publicly expressing controversial political viewpoints, while less senior civil servants at an intermediate (managerial) level must generally seek permission to participate in political activities.
The most junior civil servants are permitted to participate in political activities, but must be politically neutral in the exercise of their duties"
No Idea who she is, but I'm sure she's not a manderian
The question that really needs to be asked is who told you about her employment status now?
Hardly coincidence that the election was resolved on a coin toss. Someone from her own party leaked that information to do her down.
Nasty but impressive.
P.s. mean't political colour. Absoltuely not taking this into racial areas!
Indeed Anonymous, there are loads of people in the lower grades who do political activity. I have a very good friend who is a low-ranking civil servant and is out canvassing (for the Tories) most nights.
It's obscene to suggest that millions of people should have their rights to put forward their views and seek to advance them in their spare time. It's the sort of idiocy that meant a teacher had to resign as a Brent Councillor because his supply agency got some work from the Council.
People who have real decision-making power or who work directly with Ministers, fine, but a bar on political activity because you do DEFRA's photocopying? Crazy.
As TB understands it she did ask permission to be political and was flatly denied.
She was refused permission to go to Labour Conference due to the sensitivity of her role.
Intresting her Twitter feed has just gone protected.
Was open last night...
Seems the Defra machine is in motion.
and how on earth would you know that her boss 'flatly denied' her permission to do anything?!?
Unless (as suggested) this was leaked by someone close to her (i.e. same party) and this is in fact, what I originally said, actually about a personal vindictive attack.
TB always protects his sources :P
TB is spot on here. How can somebody with such anti Tory sentiments (see her blog) be impartial as all civil servants are required to be in their job.
It's about time somebody started shouting about this kind of thing.
Labour have got their stooges everywhere - stop the rot.
You can't watch any news programme or have dealings with any of the big quango's without a leading figure either being Labour or the spouse of.
They politicise EVERYTHING. The whole lot needs a thorough cleansing.
As I understand it, junior civil servants are usually allowed to engage in local politics but aren't allowed to engage on a national level.
London Young Labour is regional, not national or local, so it would depend.
The Chair of London Young Labour is an internal party position. Junior civil servants are not usually barred from holding internal party positions. I know people who are active within the Labour Party, Tory Party and Lib Dems who are civil servants.
The Tory Tavern landlord recently cancelled his application for a civil servant position on the grounds that his planned blog was going to be just a bit partisan.
Everyone has political views, but when you make them as public as this Christine woman has, you can't realistically expect to hold onto a position that expects complete political neutrality.
Well done Tory Bear.
"act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government"
I think that that is where she will find problems. I can't see her establishing the "same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government" in any way shape or form.
So, it says "You must:
carry out your responsibilities in a way that is fair, just and equitable and reflects the Civil Service commitment to equality and diversity"?
Um. Aren't "commitments to 'equality' and 'diversity'" a left-wing platform themselves? When did we vote that the civil service should be committed to giving special treatment to the ever-lengthening list of groups favoured by the liberal establishment: immigrants, feminists, gays, immigrants (there's more than there were when I started typing so I'd better say them again), moslems, etc etc?
I wonder just how much equality and fairness a BNP member would encounter?
Some facts
Junior civil servants can do what Christine is doing.
Christine has been LYL Campaigns Officer for over a year now and, as far as I can tell, has never hid this from her employer.
A question
What are you trying to do? Get her sacked or have her resign from LYL? Either are petty and pointless.
This is why Tories get labelled the nast party.
"the nast party"
Oooh, offensive. I don't even know what that means.
"James Goldstone
Some facts
Junior civil servants can do what Christine is doing.
Christine has been LYL Campaigns Officer for over a year now and, as far as I can tell, has never hid this from her employer."
She is, now, Chairman, which is a different position, altogether.
There is no way that she will be able to establish the "same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government", if that Govt is Tory - or do you live in the same Wonderland that most Labour MPs seem to inhabit?.
@Roger Pearse
The nationalisation tendancies of the BNP make them a left wing organisation.
To claim that equality is a trademark of the left is equally laughable - womens suffrage under Baldwin in 1928 springs to mind.
Has it occurred to anyone saying things such as;
"How can somebody with such anti Tory sentiments (see her blog) be impartial as all civil servants are required to be in their job."
The way you can do it is simple, it's called professionalism. Do all doctors support sex before marriage? No. However, do they find it within themselves to give out free condoms and give safe sex advice etc to patients who are unmarried? Yes. Because personal and professional attitudes are different.
I regularly encounter people in the world of work who I have simply no desire to associate with, let alone work with. This has been the case (some times especially so) for previous bosses, but in my personal, professional capacity I worked very well with them and gave them whatever support I had to. I'm sure Christine is equally capable of doing this.
The point is whether her personal activities undermine her professional role, and by the civil service's own standards (junior roles can be politically active outside of work, as made clear from other comments) it doesn't.
To suggest because she holds strongly held views (i.e. 'she's so anti Tory') is to have some out of touch unreal view of civil servants as being apathetic unemotional unfeeling robots. They ALL have political views, they just have to ignore them and be neutral whilst at work (note the AT WORK part of that sentence).
Or are some of you seriously suggesting the civil service should only be made up of the politically apathetic and undecided? If so, that'd disqualify an awful lot of Tory supporters too (I'd bet money to say the civil service has contained more Tory supporters than Labour over the years...)
Quigley - sacked in the backfield for a 13 yard loss.
The civil service code doesn't go far enough.
Anyone working for the government should completely and fully remove themselves from politics: no voting, no membership in any group that is engaged politically, no political activity of any kind. Anything else creates a massive agency problem and allows for the capture of politics by swivel servants out to loot the taxpayers.
This is a huge issue around the Western world, where nurses, teachers, and other unions are very political and have successfully cowed politicians of all stripes such that they have immense pensions that are impossible to pay for. They are also untouchable until, or even past, moments of crisis. A return to decent politics practically requires a default and liquidation of the government (i.e. worse than the California budget).
She should be fired and pursued for her salary as of the day she was engaged in politics.