Comment: Theresa May's masterclass in buck-passing

Wednesday, 9 November 2011 4:29 PM

By Dr Matthew Ashton

US president Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk stating that 'the buck stops here'. It was his way of declaring that responsibility for the government's actions ultimately lay with him.

This week we've seen a masterclass in buck-passing by Theresa May as she blamed Brodie Clark for the actions of the Border Control Agency.

He has disputed her version of events and next week his testimony in front of the Commons home affairs committee will be crucial to her fate. The big question is whether he has the documentation to back up his claims. If he doesn't then it could just turn into a prolonged and undignified game of he said/she said.

Partly this problem stems from the fact that the Conservatives placed so much emphasis on immigration and border control at the last election. Certainly David Cameron accused Labour several times of multiple failings on this issue. This makes the current revelations significantly more embarrassing for them.

Regardless of the rights and the wrongs of this particular case it does raise very important questions about the relationship between ministers and civil servants. Traditionally ministers have usually been held accountable for the failures of those under them, and when in opposition the Conservatives have certainly called for Labour politicians to 'take responsibility' and not attempt to shift blame.

However, in something as large as the civil service you can't expect ministers to take responsibility for every single action of their underlings. No one would dispute the idea that civil servants do need to be accountable for their actions, but equally the last thing we want to see is government ministers evading their responsibilities by blaming others.

I think here Theresa May has caused herself some serious long-term problems with the speed in which she named and shamed the officials in question.

A good working relationship between politicians and their civil servants is essential for any government ministry. In the past ministers who attacked their own civil servants often came unstuck fairly quickly - after all, loyalty is a two-way street.

Anyone with a good memory will recall the fiasco of Michael Howard versus the director of prisons, Derek Lewis, and we all know how that ended: Howard on Newsnight being skewered by Jeremy Paxman repeatedly asking him the same question 12 times in a row.

Already opposition politicians have raised the idea of May resigning, something she has quickly rejected, and Cameron has given her his full backing.

But it's worth bearing in mind here that Liam Fox also had Cameron's full backing, up until the point when he suddenly didn't. This underlines how fluid politics can be; 24 hours can be an eternity, never mind a week.

However I suspect that this time, unless the situation radically changes, Cameron will continue to support her. To lose one frontbench minister could be seen as a misfortune, to lose two in the space of two months would be a disaster. It would make the entire government look distinctly wobbly.

Ironically what might save May is simply the fact that there are a huge number of other things going on in the world. With the turmoil in Italy and the rest of the Eurozone, not to mention the phone-hacking scandal rearing its head again, the press aren't short of headlines. As a result they won't be able to concentrate on this scandal to the exclusion of all else.

The highest praise you can receive as a government minister is that you're ‘a safe pair of hands'. Anyone can survive one mistake but the moment you get a reputation for gaffes then any slip-up, no matter how minor, will be seized upon by the media as further evidence of this trend.

The only exception to this golden rule of politics seems to be Boris Johnson, who as far as I can tell appears to be gaffe-proof. In Theresa May's case she suffered through cat-gate at the Conservative Party conference - and now this.

She can still survive her current troubles, but one more and it could be three strikes and you're out.

Dr Matthew Ashton is a politics lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Visit his blog.

The opinions in politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.

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• home office
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• immigration
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• theresa may