Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Controversial blog is axed

Britain:

"A civil servant who wrote an anonymous blog about the inner workings of government has taken down the site after it attracted widespread publicity. The blog, Civil Serf, which was mentioned in newspapers and used by Tory politicians to criticise the Government, made frequent references to welfare policy and to Peter Hain, the former Work and Pensions Secretary. The Department of Work and Pensions declined to confirm whether the blogger had been identified. Her profile states that she is a 33-year-old fast-stream civil servant.

Source

It seems to have been a great blog but they have done a very thorough job of taking it down. There is nothing in the Google cache and the Wayback Machine has nothing either. There are a few excerpts here and here and here and here. If anybody can find more of it, let me know and I will see about getting it posted somewhere. Below are some pretty good bits:
"- [Former minister] Peter Hain 'can't answer a question without looking confused (if you asked him for his name he'd have to really think about it)'

- 'Ministers only take decisions at the weekend [probably because they have their spouse and/or political adviser do it for them]'

- 'The civil service loves bright young graduates with poncy backgrounds and floppy, golden hair'

In case not everyone gets British slang, "poncy" translates as "pretentious"