So if we do bring it up to the present, and this is the theme of this conversation, that these highly political figures are now more visible. So it's not that they're more political, but they're more visible. But there are two types of critiques that come with that. We'll use Brexit and Trump as our example, because this is where the politics is. So there is a complaint now that civil servants are being kind of wheeled out in front of the public to make a case, that the civil service has been politicised. So you heard that before the Brexit referendum, that civil servants or at least the documents that they produce were being used to make a particular case. So there's an argument that they've been politicised by the government. There's another argument which is when these people appear in public, they're pushing their own political views. So after the referendum, you then get the kind of Ollie Robbins or whatever critique, that it's not that they've been politicised, but they are themselves pushing a political view which goes against. I mean I do kind of feel in the Brexit case, you can't have it both ways, it can't be that it's both that the civil service has been politicised by the government and then is steering the government in a particular direction. So your case would be the underlying reality hasn't changed, but the perception, because it's so much more visible, is that we're seeing it now. Definitely the perception angle is a big shift, but I think it is the tip of three

sort of big shifts that are happening. So number one, I would summarise as changing from governing in private to governing in public. You know there are all sorts of forces from the 24-7 media to social media to appearing in front of select committees that are pushing and pulling civil servants more into the public domain. That doesn't mean that they're suddenly beyond say, and you recognise them in the supermarket and say, oh my goodness I've just seen Ollie Robbins in the supermarket, but it does mean that their actions are open to a type of public scrutiny that they weren't before. That shift has then run into this hyper-partisan modern environment. Part of the hyper-partisan modern environment is also the insertion of more special advisors into the system and less forgiving styles of interaction between ministers and civil servants. How is it forgiving before? Who is forgiving who? If the theoretical system worked well, then ministers are accountable for the mistakes that happen in their departments or not, and whilst you might suggest in a very nuanced way it's not all your fault, that's very different to hauling your civil servants into the public spotlight essentially to excoriate them yourself, which occasionally is now creeping in to sort of shift the blame as part of the blame game that comes with hyper-partisan modern politics. That's the world then of Brexit and Trump that the civil servants have then walked into, and you're quite right that there are two sides to this. So one side is that civil servants become politicised by being too close to the government of the day and are seen as just another political messenger. So there's a Canadian academic, the late Peter O. Coyne, he coined a phrase promiscuous partisanship, which is this idea that really you are acting as part of the government of the day and then you'll do the same thing for the next government, even if it's a different party. So you're out there pushing the message, pushing the line. And the other side of that then is well, what do you do if the government of the day is holding you responsible for something, is pushing you out and saying it's your fault, do you stick to civil service tradition and quietly sit in the background, carry the blame as it were? Or do you start to push back a little? And with the dangers that that brings of politicising your position, but I would argue you can still do that without becoming a partisan. There's a distinction to be made between partisanship and engagement with the policy environment of the day.