“This government has been in a hurry, driven by a political timetable, to make deeply damaging cuts to the civil service and to undermine the unions that oppose them, most recently trying to cut off the funding we get from our members,” said the PCS union in response to the news that axeman Francis Maude will not contest Horsham seat in May.

They then came out with this absolute gem: “Scandalously, ministers are being all too willingly assisted by senior civil servants in some departments.”

Unelected civil servants following orders from elected politicians? What an outrage!