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Dominic Cummings, House of Lords Constitution Committee – full video. @Dominic2306 Fascinating look at where power really lies in Whitehall: the “subterranean system” connecting its power centres, the evolution and dysfunctions of the Cabinet Office, and the hollowing out of ministerial responsibility. A few of my highlights… “What’s one of the few remaining centres of excellence left in Britain? Britain’s Special Forces. Who’s their biggest enemy today? China? Russia? Iran? No. Cabinet Office and MoD lawyers.” “All constitutional authority is being funnelled into No.10 because only the Prime Minister can get something done … Nobody apart from the Prime Minister now can break certain kinds of gridlock.” “Cabinet has become an irrelevance.” “‘You didn’t keep this terrorist under surveillance? Is that because there’s Cabinet Office legal advice that says that because of ECHR rights to privacy, you’re not allowed to keep even convicted terrorists under surveillance?’ ‘Yes, Dominic.’ That happens routinely. The majority of terrorist offences you see, there is an ECHR, human rights angle. Close to 0% are ever explained publicly.” “You cannot deal with the small boats problem unless you make primary law changes to the Human Rights Act and change how the courts give effect to the ECHR. That is a fact. It’s uncomfortable to all political sides to face this fact. But it is a fact. Everyone internally knows this is the case.” “There’s a concept in the private sector: Directly Responsible Individual. That is how every complicated project that works, works. That concept has been rendered something close to unlawful inside the current system. Every aspect of how the current system works is to obfuscate actual responsibility. If you say in a meeting in Whitehall, ‘Which specific person is responsible for doing X by date Y?’ everyone throws their hands up in horror.” “The principles of how things work well are eternal. You see the same principles in 500 BC or 1800 with Pitt, or today in SpaceX.” “The idea that you make everything more complicated, and you have Sir Humphrey in charge of everything, and then that gets rid of corruption, is total nonsense.” “We’re now just sitting here, year after year after year, watching this most stupid war in modern history unfold, completely unable to adapt to it.” “The more that the system says that the Civil Service has to defend the constitution, the more you are driving yourselves into crisis … It’s Parliament that has to safeguard the constitution. Thinking this can be devolved to a bunch of officials in the Cabinet Office is what’s got us into this nightmare in the first place.” “It can only change if there’s a Prime Minister who wants the government to control the government, and is himself or herself determined on change.”