I have a friend who works in the civil service. He's a devout socialist.

His bosses boss, who runs a huge department gathered all his staff into a room and said "You can't be fired" to the staff.

My friend has said it's almost impossible to motivate people because there's zero repercussions. They're supposed to come into the office a few times a month, some of them never do and nothing can be done about it.

My friend has targets to meet and he won't be able to because of his reports not caring. He's getting anxious and even me saying "they did say you can't be fired" doesn't help.

Oh and they're spending nearly £1m with a supplier who the boss knows to build a component you can buy off the shelf for around £7500, and the supplier hasn't even built anything for nearly £1m in 18 months. It will probably be mothballed.

My friend is massively disappointed that the bureaucracy is failing at-risk members of society.

Cummings is right. He may not be a nice person, but he's right.