We’ve been keeping an eye on Andrew Lansley because of his combination of arrogance, ignorance and power (see the Department of You Couldn’t Make It Up and Lansley’s winning combination).
This diary of a senior civil servant seems to suggest that Lansley isn’t a one-off; he’s perfectly similar to the rest of his Ministerial colleagues:
I have noted since the election that Conservative ministers seem very relaxed. I, like many others, interpreted this as confidence and competence. After last week, it started to look like naivety and arrogance. The gaffes were piling up and forming an edifice of stupidity. Ministers called to the Commons to apologise; Hillsborough survivors insulted; Jamie Oliver criticised; the Speaker called a stupid sanctimonious dwarf; school building programmes announced and then scrapped. It was a litany of carelessness and sloppiness, a series of avoidable own goals that illustrated a lack of preparation, a lack of seriousness and the failure to appreciate what it is to govern a country.
arbitrary constant 