Is it a plot?

The only possible explanation of the UK government's amazing decision to encourage London civil servants to work from home for the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics is that it's a plot to prove there are far too many civil servants and that the coalition can get rid of half of them without affecting efficiency! The fact that the minister principally responsible for this policy is none other than “jerry-can” Francis Maude encourages my belief that it is the hands of people totally removed from reality. The broad aim is that 50 per cent of civil servants should remain at home to relieve pressure on London's transport services which will be stretched by the three million extra journeys expected to be taken by visitors and people directly involved in the Olympics.

Although communications of all kinds have improved greatly since the days when this problem would have solved, as emergencies once were always solved, by camp beds in the canteen, it is surely a figment of a fevered imagination to think that the business of government can be efficiently conducted by dislocating the established channels of consultation and shared responsibility. The reaction from the City and the London business community has been of disbelief and then anger that any government could contemplate an untried scheme of this kind lasting seven weeks. Another No 10 U-turn in the offing?