It looks like there is a shadowy group of bureaucrats operating covertly in Britain’s corridors of power who believe that they actually run the country and who resist the changes proposed by “here today, gone tomorrow” politicians, media reports suggested.
Steve Hilton, a onetime director of strategy under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, said in the months ahead of the 2010 general elections that he had been warned by Blair about a “deep state” conspiracy in the country.
Hilton has told Fox News that while preparing for Tony Blair’s successor David Cameron’s first few months in government, he met with his former boss who warned him about the civil service.
“You cannot underestimate how much they believe it’s their job to actually run the country and to resist the changes put forward by people they dismiss as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians,” Blair apparently told Hilton.
“They genuinely see themselves as the true guardians of the national interest, and think that their job is simply to wear you down and wait you out,” he added.
Steve Hilton said when he and David Cameron met with the head of the civil service, Gus O’Donnell, ahead of the election, they said that the new government would come clean about everything it was going to spend taxpayer’s money on.
“Of course you don’t really mean all this government transparency stuff, do you?” an obviously surprised O’Donnell inquired.
When they told him that it was exactly what they wanted, the head of the civil service reportedly replied that “Well, we’ll see about that.”