The Guardian's Perspective on Boris Johnson and Whitehall: Stop the War | Editorial | Opinion

Every prime minister at one point was frustrated with the government apparatus. They believe that it is not intended to deliver their manifests or, in more paranoid moments, that government officials engage in sabotage. But the current intensity of hostility from Downing Streets to Whitehall is abnormal. Boris Johnson does not address public attacks on senior mandarins, but his parliamentary assistants and crooks speak of the public service as an enemy. This view stems from not always mistaken belief; generally exaggerated that most officials thought Brexit was a mistake and approached it in terms of damage limitation. Mr Johnson wants the company of people who see only glorious opportunities in the UK's separation from the EU. This prejudice breeds impatience with the evidence and contempt for people who depend on it. It is a recipe for bad government.

Mr. Johnson has already lost a chancellor by demanding that the Treasury renounce all independence from No. 10. Sajid Javid has resigned rather than tolerating an institutional debilitation. It remains to be seen whether his successor, Rishi Sunak, will support him. There could be political efficiency gains from a subdued Treasury, but there are costs to downgrading a central economic policy experiment. Whitehall's suspicions also stem from the defense of Downing Streets against Interior Minister Priti Patel over allegations of intimidation. It is normal for the Prime Minister to take an allied side when there are rival accounts of what happened, but the anonymous conservative sources who put pressure on the Mrs Patels case go a lot further. They accuse officials of the Interior Ministry of campaigning against their boss because of his political positions. The ugly conclusion is that public servants who say they have been bullied are lying and their motive is meekness about immigration and crime.

There is often a compromise in ministerial appointments between competence, loyalty and ideology. Premiers like cabinets that agree with them, but also need departments to be well managed. Mr. Johnson does not seem interested in balancing this equation. What matters is the belief in a project that sometimes seems to exist only to remake Britain as a regulatory autarky away from Europe. There is no room on board for people aware of the risks. Since this is a function traditionally performed by the public service, the Brexit revolution must work its way through established government structures. This is the ambition of Dominic Cummings, chief adviser to Mr. Johnsons, whose belief in archaism and the inadequacy of a permanent public service is well documented. He thinks he lacks agility and imagination, which is often true. It is not true that a better system can be achieved by waging total war on the system in place.

The challenge of dealing with the coronavirus is instructive on this point. Epidemic management policy demonstrates the value of expertise (in science and medicine) as well as the need for professional bureaucracy (to administer emergency measures). The Johnson-Cummings doctrine denigrates these qualities, but relies on them in a crisis. Politics still contain tensions between the politicians' demand for rapid change and the institutional prudence of the public service. Ministerial memoirs abound in battles on this front. Almost always, accommodations have been found and changes have occurred. But Mr. Johnsons' team is playing a more dangerous game. They don't just see the public service as ineffective in achieving their goals. They see the breakdown of the government apparatus as an objective in itself and its impartial staff as enemies to be crushed to complete a revolution. It would be a dangerous undertaking even in the hands of serious and evidence-based politicians. But Mr. Johnson doesn't like having them around, perhaps because he isn't himself.