Will Liz Have A Tenth Of Her Courage?

I fear the answer's 'No'...

'The truth is some battles have to be fought and won,' Mrs Badenoch wrote in The Sunday Times. On becoming equalities minister in 2020, she wanted to meet campaigners on both sides of the debate. But officials said it would be 'inappropriate' to speak to Miss Bell, who was given puberty-blocking drugs at 16.

And did Kemi meekly bow to their superior wisdom? Reader, thankfully, she did not: 

Mrs Badenoch overruled the advice to hear 'harrowing' testimony from the ex-patient. On her piece for the Sunday Times, Mrs Badenoch wrote: 'The Whitehall machine often becomes the voice of interest groups in government rather than government's voice to interest groups,' the former Tory leadership contender wrote in the Sunday Times.

'Often'..? Try 'All the time'... 

'This stems from a sincere, yet naive, belief that you can appease special interests with platitudes. The truth is some battles have to be fought and won.

'This requires strengthening a civil service that is terrified of controversy and recalibrating it towards policy and away from posturing on issues it believes as too 'contentious'.'

It's a Herculean task, but Kemi appears to have the steel to make it happen. Sadly, I can't say the same for Liz Truss. 

She insisted that not all civil servants are 'hostile' but went on: 'A small minority of activist officials are the tail wagging the dog, often to the dismay of their colleagues and the hand-wringing of far more senior officials.' She accused some mandarins of being 'too scared to challenge their own staff'.

Not 'too scared' at all, I suspect. Too much in agreement.