THE GUARDIAN: PM's spokesman defends 'honest, decent people who work hard'
The former trade minister Lord Jones brought fresh embarrassment on the government today when he claimed that half the civil service should be sacked.
Jones told MPs that Whitehall could be run with "half as many" civil servants and that he had been amazed during his time in government by how many staff "deserved the sack".
The ex-Confederation of British Industry chief also described being a junior minister as "one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences" anyone could have.
"The whole system is designed to take the personality, the drive and the initiative out of a junior minister," he said.
Jones stepped down as a government minister in October after just 15 months in the job.
Civil service union chiefs branded the peer "narrow-minded, naive and insulting", forcing Gordon Brown to step in to quell the row. >>> Deborah Summers | Thursday, January 15, 2009
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