On the wider scale, there is an analogy with McClaren here. In both cases, there is a sizeable demand to sack the manager (the biggest target we can find). Once that’s done, our appetite for decisionmaking is pretty well sated.

But it isn’t enough, is it?

Steve McClaren’s appointment is one of dozens of factors that have chucked England out of 2008. How many of those won’t be addressed not the tabloids have had their histrionic campaign for a scapegoat satisfied?

Similarly, the entire civil service in this country has been in a mess for a very long time. Yes Minister was made in the early 1980s, after all, and was based upon experiences in the mid-70s.

It is a gentleman-amateur body that has been largely infiltrated by private Management Consultants. It is constantly re-organised by initiativitis-obsessed politicians who are in turn terrified of not being seen to be providing ‘leadership’.

It is having to meet the demands of an increasingly dynamic population who have increasingly complex demands, and it has to face comparison with other entities that are much better at fundraising.

It’s employees are largely demotivated and enervated by constant change and idiotic management, by a workplace audit-culture, and by the fact that personal commitment and hard work goes unrecognised.

And none of that will change as long as we always look for a single celebrity scapegoat – particularly one who has almost no levers to pull that can change the way it works.

Now if we were to have a politicised civil service where ministers could make all of the major appointments, that would be a different matter.

But we don’t, do we?

Agreed, but I’m not as confident as you.

Darling had 10-days or so to find out what had gone wrong, not to mention the time prior to him being told, so they knew someone higher was in the loop (if not, then they should tell us the Civil Service hid it from Darling).

So why try and blame a 23-yr old, if it’s not to mitigate the political impact?

There is no doubt that Darling is not operationally at fault (even if the systems are bobbins – this would be Brown’s fault, surely), and maybe I’m being hasty thinking he should go, but if the government have used this guy as media fodder, then someone high deserves to tumble…

As it happens, I agree with Paul Linford that Darling will not be a particularly good Chancellor, although I suspect anyone Brown appoints to the Treasury is going to have a difficult time because the Treasury officials are likely to be still taking their lead from No. 10.

I understand a senior member of the HMRC was CCd on an email relating to the issue. I doubt the Tories are daft enough to make it up – even if they’ve drawn extravagant conclusions. And I understand is was several weeks before the public was told anyway – which is public record.

The government have handled this, and the NR situation, horribly.

So how does the roundball winter game equate with a particularly ugly data screw-up which in private industry would make the PCI or BPSL blacklist the organisation involved?

Tony, I’m loving this comment! I admit I’m suffering from a bad case of journalese here – inappropriate sporting metaphors are a media staple.

Bob has a point – its much more likely that Darling has been Sir Humphrey’d here.

I felt for Darling initially. It was clearly something that happened without his involvement. But the reason I want him out is that some 23-yo junior is holed up in a hotel somewhere (chaperoned by a media minder), who is taking the flack, when it appeared that more senior – although not, it seems, Darling – knew and and were involved in the incident. This was kept from the public, while the junior became a byword for “muppet”.

This is what gets up my nose, and why I think Darling should go. When a government misleads the public deliberately, and is caught using a scapegoat, something is rotten.

[shameless] Further Football/Politics analogies here [/shameless]

Darling: yes