Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Prime Minister David Cameron has turned to The Guardian and hired the paper’s former chief leader writer Julian Glover, a Conservative, to be his chief speechwriter. The move is a better, and more predictable, fit than it might seem to some. Some – such as Ian Aitken elsewhere in this week’s issue even ask what took so long? Mr Glover, a liberal Tory who supports David Cameron’s attempts to “modernise” his party, has been with The Guardian since 2001, during which time he hired the then MEP Nick Clegg as a columnist for the newspaper’s website. The continuation of his friendship with the Liberal Democrat leader was thought to have been detected by some in the paper’s stance during last year’s general election. Although Mr Glover ceased to be chief leader writer in 2009 to become an opinion columnist the newspaper infamously urged its readers, in a leader article, not to vote Labour but to vote for the Lib Dems. Before becoming a journalist, he is credited with editing the manuscript of John Major’s memoirs and with cutting out the former premier’s admission of an extra-marital affair – during his days as a party whip – with colleague Edwina Currie because he thought it wasn’t relevant or important. When Ms Currie saw that she was not mentioned in the book, she took it as a slight, when none was intended, and went public, generating far greater publicity – and embarrassment for the Majors – than might otherwise have been the case. Since 2006, Mr Glover has been the civil partner of Times essayist and Radio 4 presenter Matthew Parris, a former Tory MP who once served as Margaret Thatcher’s PPS. Mr Glover once worked for Parris as a researcher. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: “Julian Glover is a lovely writer and a clear analyst. It’s a loss for The Guardian, but we can quite understand the Prime Minister wanting to poach such a sharp thinker.”

In the film Iron Man 2, billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr) – in a deliberately tongue-in-cheek line – hails the fact that American big business has finally “privatised peace keeping”. As so often, the truth outstrips the fiction. The Ministry of Defence is expected to announce imminently which outsourcing provider it has chosen to take over British Army recruitment, concluding a tendering process started by the last Labour Government in 2008. The contract – to recruit 9,000 new soldiers a year – is widely expected to go to either Capita or the Serco-led Prospector Group, one of whom will be fully in place by November of next year. The successful bidder will be responsible not just for recruiting but also for training those recruits as the MoD makes plans to shed 10,000 jobs between now and the end of this Parliament, eventually bringing overall numbers down to 82,000 by 2020 to save £250 million. Serco already services the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, RAF Lyneham, and the combined forces in Iraq while private contractors already earn billions providing back-office services to the MoD and believe there is scope for an even greater share. In the US Serco, a major Department of Defence contractor, has built a prominent business placing service veterans into civilian jobs, an area in which the Ministry of Defence in this country has, to be fair, yet to distinguish itself.

How do you choose a suitably grandiose title when your nickname is already “GOD”? Or so some people will ask following the news that the country’s most powerful – and dedicated – public servant, the Cabinet Secretary and Head of Civil Service Sir Gus O’Donnell is to retire and be installed in the House of Lords. Still a youthful 58, the future Lord O’Donnell will end a 32-year civil service career – much of it at the Treasury – and which included being then Prime Minister John Major’s official spokesman at Number 10. For the past six years he has been Head of the Civil Service, during which time he reportedly advised the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be more civil to his civil servants – Sarah Brown blamed him for reports of “bullying” and hurled Nokias – before successfully guiding last year’s coalition negotiations. It may be no small pleasure to him that he will be succeeded by no fewer than three mandarins, perhaps posing a minor presentational difficulty for the Government’s claims it is cutting Whitehall posts. Sir Gus, who earns £240,000 a year, is not just the Cabinet Secretary, but also the Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office – a department of 2,000 civil servants. He will be replaced by Sir Jeremy Heywood, current perm sec to Number 10, as Cabinet Secretary and principal policy advisor to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Ian Watmore, the head of the efficiency and reform group at the Cabinet Office will become Cabinet Office perm sec, replacing Sir Jeremy. The job of Head of the Civil Service will be an open competition between Whitehall’s permanent secretaries. Meanwhile Sir Gus – who rescued Norman Lamont during the Black Wednesday debacle over the Exchange Rate Mechanism and who could, arguably, at any stage in the past two decades have parlayed his experience and contacts into a hugely profitable City career – will not feel the pinch too badly as his pension pot is valued at £2.3 million and he can immediately draw down £315,000 and make do with at least £105,000 a year for the rest of his life. But before he goes, Sir Gus will have the last word on the conduct of Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy wants the Cabinet (23 out of 29 them are millionaires) to do their Christmas shopping in his constituency to help boost trade after the riots. He shouldn’t pin too many hopes on any of them playing Santa. l