Boris’s top aide wants to recruit ‘weirdos’
BORIS Johnson’s chief aide wants to fill Whitehall with “super-talented weirdos” instead of Oxbridge graduates to revolutionise the civil service.
Dominic Cummings is planning a major overhaul of the way the Government is run to drive through the changes promised by the Prime Minister during the election campaign.
The PM’s top adviser said he wants to recruit “very clever” people, but not “confident public school bluffers”.
In a blog setting out his radical vision, Mr Cummings said he is also looking for a personal assistant, a role that will “involve a mix of very interesting work and lots of uninteresting trivia that makes my life easier, which you won’t enjoy”.
He added: “It will be exhausting but interesting and, if you cut it, you will be involved in things at the age of 21 that most people never see.
“I don’t want confident public school bluffers. I want people who are much brighter than me who can work in an extreme environment. If you play office politics, you will be discovered and immediately binned.”
Oxford educated Mr Cummings said he wanted “super-talented weirdos” to join the civil service and “true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole”.
He added: “What SW1 needs is not more drivel about identity and diversity from Oxbridge humanities graduates, but more genuine cognitive diversity.”
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union for civil servants, said he wanted to see a “much clearer plan” on how reforms would work.