Hang on a minute, this is a rather dangerous invention isn’t it?

Des Browne must resign from the Cabinet unless he can convince MPs that
he still commands the support of the Armed Forces after the Iran
captives fiasco, David Cameron said yesterday.

That’s stating that a Cabinet Minister is the representative of the departmental interest group to the Cabinet. Precisely and exactly the wrong way around. A Cabinet Minister is the representative of the Government to that department. The question is not whether Browne is acceptable to the Armed Forces, but whether he is acceptable to the Cabinet.

Yes, a slightly extreme example, but insisting that the Defense Minister (or as  it was then called, War Minister) be acceptable to the Forces was exactly what gave the military such power in 1930s Japan.

We do bandy about the word "fascist" with gay abandon I know but this idea of Cameron’s, that Ministers are the representatives, the lobbyists, for a Department or interest group, rather than controllers of them, is objectively a fascist idea. It all comes down to who rules again. Elected representatives in the form of Ministers? Or do they serve at the sufferance of the unelected special interest groups?

I’m no fan of politicians at the best of times but this idea is far worse, that the General have a veto of the Defense Minister, the doctors on the Health, the teachers on the Education, the CBI on the DTI, no, that really is corporatism, the fascist method of running a country.