Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Former PM Sir John Major will be in front of the today to give his thoughts on the currently fashionable practice of taking experts from outside Parliament into government, as advisors, "tsars" and even ministers via a swiftly presented peerage.

Gordon Brown has used this method ennobling such luminaries as Digby Jones, the former CBI Boss, Lord Darzi (who continued to practice as a surgeon, while serving as a Health minister) and Admiral Lord West, who is still serving as Security Minister in the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Office.

Right for the job

But why ask Sir John about all this? Well, back in July he and his former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd wrote an article arguing for the appointment of ministers who do not sit in either House of Parliament.

"No-one has been speaking up for change to improve the quality of government as a whole," they wrote. "No one asks the critical question: who is best for this particular job? It is as if the actual daily work of ministers - the analysis of advice and taking of decisions - is peripheral, whereas it should be the point of their existence."

Several witnesses to this inquiry have argued that prime ministers should be able to call upon a wider "gene pool". Tony Blair's former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, told the committee that incoming governments tended to have a "very thin layer of talent" to choose from in consequence of having been in opposition for a long period.

But I wonder who Sir John's fantasy cabinet appointment would have been, if he had started the vogue for teleporting non-parliamentarians into government, back in the 1990s?

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