HomeWhat’s in a name? Rather too much for some people, apparently (Sir Humphrey and the Professors).
← What’s in a Name? For some people rather too much, apparently….
Apologies if you felt this was a personal attack, it was meant as a personal defence of Carole and myself. I felt your piece impugned our research, read things into a single phrase that weren’t there in order to score some points and ignored one of the authors. If perhaps you’d said anything substantial or positive about our report I might not have responded so negatively. But again, apologies.
I am sorry if I seemed to impugn your work, that was not at all my intention. My post was not primarily about your report at all, I was using it as an illustration of the use of the Yes, Minister meme and, as you said, there isn’t a strong link between the title and the content. I did read the paper and found it interesting but didn’t feel I had anything particular to say about it, given the wider topic of the post. My comment on it was intended simply to make the point that the survey’s scope was wider than the title could be read as implying. If that came across as being dismissive of the underlying research, I regret that.
I am also sorry not to have given proper attribution to the research: that was careless though I don’t accept that it was sexist (it was the result of coming to the work through the frame of your tweets, and I am pretty sure that I would have equally overlooked a male co-author).
But I stand by the view that using Sir Humphrey as a collective noun for senior civil servants is unhelpful and a bit pejorative. There are many criticisms which can be made both of the civil service and of the partnership between ministers and civil servants, but implying that it all comes down to manipulative permanent secretaries and indecisive ministers obscures more than it illuminates.
The interesting question is how we make the system as a whole work better – and that is the debate I hope we can continue.