Therese Coffey’s Oxford comma memo is hostile, and a waste of time

Policy comes before silly rules, says Sean O’Grady

Deputy prime minister Therese Coffey has warned her officials about punctuation (PA)

If nothing else, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II after such a long reign reminds us that governments come in all flavours, and that she, like the rest of the nation, lived through good ones and bad.

With hindsight, we can see administrations that were bold and brave, took tough decisions, were compassionate or callous, competent or hopeless, loved or loathed – and sometimes all of those things at the same time.

But the present Conservative administration, dating back to Boris Johnson’s appointment in July 2019 and on into the Truss era, has a strong claim to be the most patronising in modern history.

Nothing illustrates this more vividly than the “style guide” issued by the new health secretary and deputy prime minister, Therese Coffey. You might think Dr Coffey, as she likes to be known, would have more urgent tasks confronting her, but somehow in the maelstrom she has spared the time to issue rules of grammar and usage to her officials. Officials who have, let’s remember, just emerged from a pandemic, and are struggling with dual crises in health and social care. Kwasi Kwarteng is about to reverse the 1.25 per cent social care levy that was designed by Johnson and Rishi Sunak to deal with the ageing population and post-Covid backlogs; now there is no longer earmarked funding, and no suggestion as to where the resources will be found. Another crisis.

So, lots to do, but instead of dealing with the grotesque waiting times for an ambulance, for example, Coffey seems more agitated by the Oxford comma, which – useful, irritating, elegant or not – is hardly relevant to the task of saving lives. Indeed, rather more irritating for civil servants than this oddity of punctuation is being told by their minister that, in effect, they can’t draft documents properly. Even if Coffey has a point, it’s no way to introduce yourself to those with the power to make your time in office a success. It is better than sacking the permanent secretary, which is what the arrogant Kwarteng did, but hostile nonetheless.

Coffey is not the first minister to issue such unimportant rules. When the self-consciously fogeyish Jacob Rees-Mogg was appointed leader of the House of Commons three years ago, he promulgated rules reviving archaic terms such as “Esq”. He did, to be fair, ban the phrase “not fit for purpose”, which had gone beyond a cliche, but the initiative suggested a lack of respect for officials; it seemed to hint that, as they’d not enjoyed an education at Eton and Oxford, they were barely literate. Rather like his later drive against working from home, complete with insulting cards left on empty desks, it’s not the way to draw the best from a workforce.

Indeed, these departmental style guides create hassle. Some officials, preparing a memo for the new deputy PM (Coffey) and the new business secretary (Rees-Mogg), won’t know where to turn. Rees-Mogg may like “Esq”, but what if Coffey thinks it fuddy-duddy? Outranking Rees-Mogg, what if Coffey doesn’t want her papers peppered with double spaces after full stops? What if she thinks the Rees-Mogg rules are indeed “not fit for purpose”?

None of this makes for good or efficient governance. A minute spent on making spaces consistent is a minute not spent fixing NHS dentistry. Policy comes before silly rules. In that context, it’s also disturbing that the prime minister draws an emoji and writes TL:DR on briefings that are longer than her attention span can contend with.

It is a matter of priorities, and of common courtesy. There is important work to be done, requiring the machinery of government to give its best. It is not a good moment for the government to suggest that it regards the civil service as lazy, disloyal, and illiterate.