General Chat

The new, £190,000 a year, Chief Executive of the Civil Service will be allowed to keep a £100,000-a-year position on the board of the drinks company behind brands such as Grolsch and Bulmers.

John Manzoni, who starts his new role on Monday, has been given approval by the Cabinet Office to carry on working as a director for SABMiller, a brewing group that opposed the introduction of minimum alcohol pricing.

Apart from politicising the Civil Service, I wonder what he will organise in the Whitehall Brewery ;-) whatever he does, no doubt he will be guaranteed a nice gold-plated pension and a knighthood ;-)

Gives new meaning to the phrase "drunk with power"

I'd like him to 'prove' himself by organising a p*ss up in the Brewery.

It's tragic really - yet more 'jobs for the boys'.
His track record with regards to health & safety is suspect - I'd hate to be a front line worker on any of his projects!

'While at BP, Manzoni was second-in-command to Lord Browne at the time of the Texas City refinery accident, one of the worst industrial accidents in US history. Regulators levied a then-record fine of $21m (£13m) on the company for breaching safety rules.
He then took up a new role at Talisman Energy, a company heavily engaged in fracking in the US.'

'Francis Maude, a cabinet office minister, said Manzoni had "an impressive record of leading global operations and delivering complex, challenging briefs".

Well, if my CV was similar (but on a smaller scale), I think I'd find it hard to get a job!!!
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Francis Maude the Minister for the Cabinet Office, always likes to give the impression that the government is friendly, compassionate, is on the side of hard working families, and that it can do no wrong.

Prior to being appointed, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, after the 2010 general election, it is alleged that on his CV, that amongst the many positions he has held, were a non-executive chairmanship of an investment trust which owned about a fifth of the shares of a pornographic adult digital video business, also a directorship of a company, that was involved in the dodgy sub-prime mortgage market - that compamy went bust in 2009 as a result of the financial crisis.

He most certainly does not believe in the indepence of the Civil Service, he thinks that all civil servants, from the lowest to the highest, should be nothing more than puppets whose job is to jump when a minister pulls the strings - and that they should never question any decisions made by a government minister.

If he could get away with it, he would would probably privatise the whole of the Civil Service instead of just parts of it, that might not be the best solution for reform of the Civil Service - but at least it would guarantee him a few cushy board eoom chairs when he retires from being an MP ;-)