If you patronise Priti Patel, you patronise the people, too
If Sir Philip Rutnam thought he would deliver a fatal blow to Priti Patel by producing his drizzly resignation statement in public, then he must inhabit some weird ivory tower far removed from the concerns and opinions of normal people. The Home Office, perhaps.
What a peculiarly unimpressive figure this senior civil servant cut as he laid into the woman it clearly pained him to call boss.
“I have encouraged her to change her behaviours,” he said. The use of the plural there, with its exquisite, archdeaconry condescension, was hugely revealing, and not in a way Sir Philip intended.
As the broadcaster and psychotherapist Phillip Hodson pointed out after watching the statement: “Rutnam regards himself as Patel’s superior, not servant. He has high self-regard.”
Indeed he does – but why? It was hard to believe that this seemingly lacklustre individual, wet of lip, damp of discourse, entirely devoid of charisma, had ever been in charge of 35,000 staff, let alone that he had ascended the heights of Whitehall over a 33-year career, culminating in a knighthood and the title of permanent secretary.
No stranger to failure, he complained that Patel’s conduct featured “shouting and swearing, belittling people, making unreasonable and repeated demands”.
And why would that be, Sir Philip? If there is any grain of truth in those allegations, might it have something to do with the fact that the Home Office has ignored the public’s views on crime, punishment and immigration, and that the new Home Secretary, unlike her subservient predecessors, believes it is her duty to turn those views into policy?
I mean, the nerve of the woman, coming in here and making demands!
Opponents of the Government are revelling in its discomfiture as the Prime Minister announces an inquiry to “establish the facts” about the bullying allegations. They are hoping that Patel’s tough line on immigration is as doomed as she is.
I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that it is Patel who is for the chop. Sir Philip went public with his allegations in order to bring down his boss.
But, in the battle between an obstructive mandarin class and a reforming Home Secretary who wants what the people want, there can be little doubt which side the public would like to see triumph: Priti, please.