Carole Cadwalladr, licking her wounds after two of her conspiracy cases being thrown out by the Metropolitan Police last week, has taken to very publicly, very slowly, learning how government works. Last night in a peculiar thread, Twitter’s conspiracist-in-chief was outraged at the appointments of Bernard Hogan-Howe, Henry De Zoete, Gisela Stuart, and Simone Finn to become non-executive directors at the Cabinet Office. Howls from Carole because some of them are, shock horror, self-confessed Brexiteers…

Government NEDs have of course existed for decades, being first publicly codified by Blair in 2005 and operating somewhat less formally for many years before that. They sit on departmental boards bringing in outside expertise for boards to provide strategic leadership to their departments, mirroring company structures. This reality did not stop Carole referring to new ‘non-executive directors’ in inverted commas as if they are an alien made up concept to her (curious for a political journalist), or decrying the fact that ministers were making political appointments…

“Cabinet Office which last time I checked was part of the Civil Service now has political appointees. Is anyone keeping track of this stuff?”

Carole is only just learning that governments are political. Wait until she learns that Special Advisors are technically part of the civil service too. Ministers are political. They make appointments. That’s democracy…

If Carole is so worried about the former chair of Vote Leave being a NED, Guido can’t wait until she finds out who actually chairs the Cabinet Office board… The other chair of Vote Leave, Michael Gove!