Tom Scholar’s sacking yesterday afternoon, first confirmed by Guido, naturally fell under the radar given the news from Balmoral that followed minutes later. The removal of the Treasury’s longstanding Permanent Secretary, however, could prove as influential on the next two years’ economic policy as Liz Truss’s £100+ billion splurge on energy price controls. Tom Scholar’s career was accidentally given an extra year when he was re-appointed as the Treasury’s Sir Humphrey in January 2021, just after Dominic Cummings’ departure. Tom had been a prominent member of Cummings’ civil service “sh*t list”…

Two years prior to Scholar’s sacking, to the day, Guido reported that six of Cummings’ list had been shown the door, many due to “Remainer” tendencies as one government source said. They included Jonathan Jones (Legal Department), Mark Sedwill (Cabinet Secretary), Simon McDonald (Foreign Office), Philip Rutnam (Home Office), Richard Heaton (Justice) and Jonathan Slater (Education). Two years later, Cummings’ mission is finally complete…

Naturally plenty of establishment, pro-blob sympathisers are outraged. David Gauke, Gus O’Donnell, Nick Macpherson and the FT’s Chris Giles all came out strongly against the move yesterday afternoon:

As far as reactions go, Liz and Kwasi couldn’t have hoped for better. As Liz says, the economy’s been failing for decades; we haven’t seen proper wage growth in 20 years. Steady hands, genteel lifetime service in the Civil Service and a history degree from Cambridge clearly hasn’t been working. Despite a 70-seat Tory majority, the establishment is still working against the elected mandate of the government to preserve their centrist way of governing. A shake-up is long overdue, and all the right people hate it…