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I understand but am not sure I agree. looking at which offices were "cleaned out" makes me suspicious. I have no experience with the British system but Blair does not strike me as a person who ducks, he appears (Yea I know) to be one to take the punch and keep on keeping on. Here in the good old US of A. I agree with Murphys rules of government.

In government work, if you have to ask,
you're not entitled to know

Any memorandum is written not to inform the reader,
but to protect the writer

Any bureaucracy will multiply itself faster
in time of grave public concern

It's impossible to distinguish a bureaucrat sitting on his hands from one trying to cover his ass

In all government work, nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Nothing ever gets done on schedule or within budget

When in doubt, suggest that a break-thru team be appointed

Bureaucrats who demand huge expenditures to alleviate problems always get promoted

To get action out of management, it's necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted upon

Accomplishment is inversely proportional to the volume of paper used

Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task will say more resources are needed

At all levels of government, for every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism

The first myth of government management is that it exists

The second myth of government management is that success equals skill

If a problem causes many meetings, the meetings eventually become more important than the problem

All government workers consider "The Real World" to be a special case

The opulence of the office decor varies inversely with the productivity of the agency

No amount of genius can overcome the professional bureaucrat's preoccupation with detail

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not fact -- it is opinion

Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way

Any agency expands to fit all space available... So that more space is always required

Purchases of equipment and supplies always increase to match the funds available, so these funds are never adequate

Bureaucrats are like football coaches; they have to be smart to understand the game, yet dumb enough to think it's important

The longer an employee's title, the less important the job

Every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum number of names that can be placed on it

Secret or unnamed sources are always more credible

The effort expended by the bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of the error

All bad policies are more likely to be supplemented than repealed

Bureaucrats who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement

In government, the solution to a problem changes the problem

Some workers understand what they don't manage, and others manage what they do not understand