The real ‘blob’ that wrecked Britain is the Johnson and Truss right wing blob

Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings were on to something when they coined the term, writes Sean O’Grady. But they had it backwards – the real destructive force is much closer to home

But for almost a decade and a half, this particular ‘blob’ has terrified Britain (Photo Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images)

Emerging at last from the shadow of his patron Boris Johnson, we find Simon Case, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, actually doing the job that he should have been doing since Johnson hand-picked him for the post back in September 2020.

He has, belatedly, plucked up the courage to defend the hard-working and conscientious team of people he leads, who’ve been vilified and blamed for all the Conservatives’ policy disasters since at least the Brexit referendum. The “blob”, if you will, has fought back.

Though long overdue. Case’s defence of the ethos and performance of the civil service was forceful, and laced with a certain resentment, as if liberated at last to speak his mind a year after the fall of Johnson.