Defend blogging

I'm sorry to see that the Cutty Sark is on fire, and even sorrier to see that the Mail on Sunday's offices are not.
All good people have already rightly been appalled by its moronic smearing of Owen Barder. I fear, however, that they are understating just how vile is the mindset behind it. It's even worse than an attack upon free speech.
Think about the things that the MoS is promoting here:
Secrecy - civil servants shouldn't express ideas in public.
Hierarchy -  civil servants should only do as ministers tell them, and should not speak to the public as equals in a dialogue. 
Unoriginality - Owen shouldn't express ideas of his own.
Priggish uniformity - rather than reveal himself as a proper, decent human being with unique (and endearing)  foibles, Owen should pretend that he is a mere automaton, obeying the will of the powerful.
In short, the MoS is attacking every component of an open society.   And here we see an important fact. It used to be thought - following crude readings of Popper - that the enemies of the open society were mainly on the "left." They are not.

Comments

[john b]

You missed "Prudery - no-one should ever discuss bodily functions or sexual organs in any context". Otherwise, spot on...

[SEAN MORRIS]

I think it would be a much better idea for us to adopt the American and French systems of where the ruling party appoint the top positions in government, and those positions are dependent on the survival of the said government.

Then we will all know where we stand and be able to stop this pretense of impartiality.

[jameshigham]

No argument here, Chris.

[Luis Enrique]

I'm not sure what your point is Sean. As director of aid effectiveness, I imagine Owen has his view on er ... how to make aid effective. He wouldn't be a very effective effectiveness director if he didn't. Outside of that, I can't see how whatever other views he may happen to hold impinge on his job. Where's the 'pretence of impartiality'? And, if you read any of the links, you'll see his views, not those wrongly attributed to him, are along the lines of 'extraordinary rendition' being a bad thing. What a dangerous radical view for an aid professional!

OK, in other civil service jobs, somebody's politics may inevitably sway their behaviour - but are you sure awarding every senior civil service appointment to a sort of non-eleccted party politician, just to make a clean breast of it, is really preferable?

Perhaps that's one of the things to admire about the Bush administration?

[Phil]

Can I just say I honestly never thought I'd ever agree with Luis about anything. Nice one, Daily Mail.

[Luis Enrique]

?? bang goes my self image as mild mannered and unobjectionably centrist. I'm off to take a long hard look in the mirror.

[SEAN MORRIS]

>>>but are you sure awarding every senior civil service appointment to a sort of non-elected party politician<

No we can force the parties to make sure the said person has a 2/3 support of the house or a given house committee.

Anyway is not the point of politics to have some politics involved, or as managerialism reached such heights we now have to take the politics out of politics.

The idea that we have an impartial civil service is such tosh, all i am saying is lets get it out in the open and let the voters decide, and change their minds if they so choose.

The nanny state starts and ends with the politicos and elites of this country treating the rest of us like children.

[agentmancuso]

"It used to be thought - following crude readings of Popper - that the enemies of the open society were mainly on the "left." They are not."

This got me thinking - please see reply here.

[dearieme]

'the enemies of the open society were mainly on the "left"': since the demise of General Franco, being an enemy of the Open Society has almost been a definition of The Left.