As the Lib Dem leadership race trundles along, Ed Davey and Layla Moran are tabling a huge quantity of pretty dull Parliamentary Questions. They must be as bored with the race as Guido is…

It looks like Sir Ed was hoping to make a pointed attack on civil service departures under this Government when questioning “how many (a) Permanent Secretaries and (b) Cabinet Secretaries have left their posts in each of the last 15 years.”

Ed will surely have been disappointed to learn that the highest number of departures was in 2005 when twelve secretaries left – half the 2020 figure. In fact, the six who have left this year puts 2020 comfortably in the lower half of departures per year. At one point in the last decade, two Energy Department permanent secretaries (Phil Wynn Owen and Moira Wallace) left the civil service in one 12 month period. Who was Secretary of State at the time? Ed Davey…