A crooked man recruits a band of equally crooked nonentities and tells them that they are going to go into politics, because in politics there are no rules against corrupt practices (instead there are traditions,  which have no teeth whatsoever). What’s more, if you get caught doing naughty things or simply being thoroughly incompetent, there is no law that you have to resign – just a tradition; no law that you have to be sacked – just another tradition. And the crooked man assures his nonentities that, so long as they read from his song sheet, they have a job for life and will become very wealthy indeed. It’s free for all, darlings, let’s get stuck in!

So they win an election by virtue of a pack of lies and the crooked man becomes prime minister, and the nonentities take command of all the top offices of government. There, each in his separate kingdom, they practice dishonesty and spin and incompetence and various other naughty practices – and they survive! This introduces corruption as a viable way of life to the top civil servants in each department. They are constantly being asked to cooperate with the nefarious wishes of their new bosses – and by and large they get away with it as well. This appeals to the pacifist which lurks inside many a senior civil servant, so they begin to introduce the next level of the public services to spinning, lieing, cheating, abdicating responsibility, idleness, and the revaluation of integrity as an optional extra.

The trickle effect of this process over ten years results is a situation where the Home Office  loses count of immigrants, teachers cheat on behalf of their pupil to improve their exam results, the National Health service becomes a disgrace and the army is sent into battle with inadequate equipment. In a nutshell, public servants are encouraged to look upon public service as a shabby way of looking after themselves, rather than an admirable way of looking after other people.