Ministers must end ‘barking mad’ restraints on civil service pay, union leader warns
Ministers must end “barking mad” restraints on civil service pay or risk being unable to recruit the technical and digital specialists it needs to keep pace, a union leader has warned,Mike Clancy, the Prospect general secretary, said the government should end the “rightwing trope” that restrained the pay of highly skilled civil servants and left government unable to compete with the private sector,He said it should be realistic for senior specialists in competitive fields to be paid more than the prime minister,His intervention comes after the prime minister’s chief secretary, Darren Jones, said he wanted more risk-takers and delivery experts to create a civil service that “moves fast and fixes things”, saying hiring criteria would be changed to “promote the doers, not just the talkers”,Clancy said the civil service had significant issues retaining technical experts because of the low pay and lack of progression.
In an interview with the Guardian, Clancy also told the government to take more care with its approach to deregulation, and said it could risk falling foul of its own Employment Rights Act,The union – which represents workers at a number of regulators – said resourcing was by far the biggest cause of delay, rather than the regulations themselves,It said Natural England was unable to meet target response times for 1,316 planning applications as a result of low resources such as staff absence or lack of specialist expertise, accounting for 58% of missed deadlines,For the Environment Agency, lack of resources was the reason for 75% of missed deadlines,“The government has not done enough and has not been as energetic on setting a clear pay and reward agenda for deliverers,” Clancy said.
“If it’s keen on actively recruiting and retaining them, and them being the driver of the civil service mission, you can’t divorce it from pay.This is a deep inhibitor upon the government’s plans.”He said the government should reject “some of the daft stuff that used to be around civil service pay [at very senior levels] being at the same level as the prime minister.“It’s all barking mad, playing to a rightwing trope of the civil service, and actually very careless about what the nature of civil servants are – in the MoD, in the Hydrographic Office, in the Met Office.They’ve got to sort this out and the clock is really ticking on this.
”Clancy said the government should not “make stump speeches” about deregulation when often the issues about delays in building infrastructure, housing or nuclear were about resources.“We think regulation is a key to productivity and good business growth, not an inhibitor.Regulators are builders, not blockers,” he said.“I think this government really should stay away from that.I think they have been vulnerable to the pressure they’ve been put under by business about regulation personally.
“If there’s anything which is plainly difficult to justify, gather the evidence, have the conversation, make the change,But don’t make stump speeches, ‘we’re going to just deregulate’ because you sound like the other lot [the Conservatives],”Clancy was the TUC’s lead on the Employment Rights Act, and said he was concerned about how angrily business groups were still lobbying against the changes,He said the government should come out more forcefully to demonstrate that there had been a fundamental shift back towards workers in the labour market,But he said there was “every risk” of diluting the zero-hours contracts measures in the implementation phase of the act – with some other protections not due to come until the end of next year.
Another manifesto promise, to end bogus self-employment and create a single status of worker, was “well on the back burner”, he said.“The Employment Rights Act is changing labour market orthodoxy,” he said.“It’s saying that employee voice matters, individual rights matter and that we want to pursue growth, not on the basis of precarity.“Now that’s a massive change for employers from what they’ve been used to – relatively untrammelled authority for a decade and a half.“I think they should be more confident in saying to employers, ‘we’re going to listen to you but yes, we have shifted’.
And we mean to be determined to do that – because we think that’s a fairer and better labour market and a productive one.”
Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton among those to condemn Berlinale’s ‘silence’ on Gaza
More than 80 current and former participants of the Berlinale, including Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Adam McKay have signed an open letter condemning the festival’s “silence” on Gaza.It comes after the film festival was swept up in what it called a “media storm” over the alleged sidelining of political discourse at the event.The row was triggered by a remark from the jury president, Wim Wenders, in the opening press conference that film-makers “should stay out of politics” in response to questions related to the Israel-Gaza conflict and the German government’s support for Israel.A backlash, including the withdrawal of Indian author Arundhati Roy from the event, led to festival director, Tricia Tuttle, issuing a statement defending film-makers and actors who were increasingly being pressed on political and societal issues during press conferences.“Artists are free to exercise their right of free speech in whatever way they choose,” Tuttle said
Colbert on Kristi Noem: ‘Everyone can’t wait to tell a reporter how awful you are’
With Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel off air for the Presidents’ Day holiday, Stephen Colbert focused his monologue on a Kristi Noem scandal and Maha’s new suggested way to enjoy vegetables.On Monday night’s Late Show, Colbert returned after a week off the air to focus on the Wall Street Journal’s recent exposé of Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary. The host described the piece as “the kind of article that gets published only if everyone who works for you can’t wait to tell a reporter just how awful you are”.The Journal exposé claims that Noem is jealous of the border czar, Tom Homan, and monitors her media appearances to make sure that she is on TV more than he is. The article also reports that Noem’s relationship with the Trump aide Corey Lewandowski is more than professional, and the pair are in a romantic relationship despite both being married with children
Barbican arts director to leave, months after revealing creative vision for centre
Devyani Saltzman is leaving the Barbican as the arts institution undergoes another significant leadership change just a few weeks after its new CEO joined.The shock departure of Saltzman, who became director of arts and participation at the Barbican in February 2024, comes months after she unveiled a five-year creative vision for the venue.Saltzman was named recently as one of the 40 most influential women working in the arts in the UK, and was described as the “driving force behind the organisation”.The Barbican refused to confirm the exit, with a spokesperson telling the Guardian it would be “unable to comment on individual staffing matters”.It is unclear when Saltzman will leave the organisation and there are no plans to replace her
British Museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from some displays
The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral.Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”.Concerns were recently raised by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLIF), a voluntary group of solicitors, about references to “Palestine” in displays covering the ancient Levant and Egypt, which risked “obscuring the history of Israel and the Jewish people”.In a letter to the museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, the group wrote: “Applying a single name – Palestine – retrospectively to the entire region, across thousands of years, erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.“It also has the compounding effect of erasing the kingdoms of Israel and of Judea, which emerged from around 1,000BC, and of reframing the origins of the Israelites and Jewish people as erroneously stemming from Palestine
My cultural awakening: ‘Thirteen influenced my hedonistic youth, until a psychotic episode ended it’
My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing downAt 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest
The Guide #230: From Oasis to Bowie, your stories of seeing pre-stardom acts
From the Beatles slogging through mammoth sets for jeering sailors in Hamburg basement bars, to Ed Sheeran playing just about every open mic night in the south of England, even the biggest acts had to start small. So when we asked Guide readers to share their memories of seeing now-massive bands and artists before they were famous, it was inevitable we’d get some great tales. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to devote the main chunk of this week’s Guide to your pre-fame gig recollections. We’ve also asked Guardian music writers – seasoned veterans of seeking out the next big thing – to share a few of their memories. Read on for tales of Kurt Cobain in Yorkshire, Playboi Carti’s set in an east London snooker club and an ill-advised David Bowie mime performance …PulpIn 1991, I was a young music writer starting out when I came across a pre-fame Pulp (pictured above) at a short-lived event called Piece Hall Live in Halifax
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