I did send a more serious reply/question on the same columns comment section (I know Substack notifications can be hit and miss, especially on double up comments or replies to replies so you may have missed it)
Eliot, as somewhat of an insider, at the very least someone with Whitehall and Westminster contacts, could you please explain the Chris Grayling thing to me please
Here is a guy who seems to be universally accepted as totally incompetent, this isn't even an ideological thing from what I can tell, his incompetence seems to be accepted by people of all stripes politically, in fact the more you read about him the less possible it seems to avoid using crude words like 'stupid' to describe him, you certainly get the impression that he would not survive anywhere near a senior role in the Private Sector unless he was a cousin of the CFO or something, yet here he was for the best part of a decade, through a succession of Prime Ministers and even more reshuffles swanning around in top jobs in Govt, either at or immediately below the Cabinet table for all those years. How was this allowed to happen? Who owed who what favour and why did they choose to use that favour on protecting Chris Grayling of all people? It just makes no sense from the outside and I was wondering if you could explain seriously how this was allowed to happen without resorting to cliches like 'thats politics'. Because I really don't think 'thats politics' explain it in his case as best I can tell he didn't seem to have any coattails that he dragged others up with or a ideological cohort that he was the leader of, from what I have been able to see he just seems to have been a rather stupid, certainly incompetent and incapable manager handed senior and important jobs by a succession of different leaders. Is there any way you can explain this to me?
It’s insane, like during those years literally the only thing people knew about his was that he was at the centre of repeated fiascos but he seemingly was unsackable so he kept getting promoted instead
Only you Eliot could take a full paragraph just to lay out what a 'week' is :)
No stone unturned.
😀
I did send a more serious reply/question on the same columns comment section (I know Substack notifications can be hit and miss, especially on double up comments or replies to replies so you may have missed it)
Eliot, as somewhat of an insider, at the very least someone with Whitehall and Westminster contacts, could you please explain the Chris Grayling thing to me please
Here is a guy who seems to be universally accepted as totally incompetent, this isn't even an ideological thing from what I can tell, his incompetence seems to be accepted by people of all stripes politically, in fact the more you read about him the less possible it seems to avoid using crude words like 'stupid' to describe him, you certainly get the impression that he would not survive anywhere near a senior role in the Private Sector unless he was a cousin of the CFO or something, yet here he was for the best part of a decade, through a succession of Prime Ministers and even more reshuffles swanning around in top jobs in Govt, either at or immediately below the Cabinet table for all those years. How was this allowed to happen? Who owed who what favour and why did they choose to use that favour on protecting Chris Grayling of all people? It just makes no sense from the outside and I was wondering if you could explain seriously how this was allowed to happen without resorting to cliches like 'thats politics'. Because I really don't think 'thats politics' explain it in his case as best I can tell he didn't seem to have any coattails that he dragged others up with or a ideological cohort that he was the leader of, from what I have been able to see he just seems to have been a rather stupid, certainly incompetent and incapable manager handed senior and important jobs by a succession of different leaders. Is there any way you can explain this to me?
Thankyou
I would certainly like to know how he not only survived but seemingly prospered, failing (apparently) effortlessly upward!
It’s insane, like during those years literally the only thing people knew about his was that he was at the centre of repeated fiascos but he seemingly was unsackable so he kept getting promoted instead
It was bizarre