A wild move for job cuts in civil service (John Moloney's column)
The announcement that the government plans to cut 91,000 civil service jobs is overtly political. Senior managers in the civil service weren’t even aware of it until the Cabinet decided on it. It’s part of an agitation by right-wing politicians who think that cutting the civil service staffing budget will free up funds for tax cuts, and, more widely, it’s part of an ideological drive by people who want to physically reduce the size of the state. On its own terms, it is an irrational decision that will massively backfire. You can’t get rid of one-fifth of an organisation with any meaningful...