Kingfisher

Redundancies

Ainsworth traveled to Richmond House that morning on the London Underground; he had been in Skipton House for an early meeting at 7.00 a.m. and the fifteen minutes the journey would take by Tube made the chthonic railway a slightly faster option than waiting for a government driver to crawl across central London at that time of morning. Besides, the Underground appealed to his mentality. Commuters and their conflicting desires were messy and complex yet the prescriptions of the "Underground System" imposed reason and order on the chaos:

The next station is Waterloo. Change here for Jubilee, Northern and Waterloo & City lines, and National Rail services.

Jubilee line

Westbound platform 5

And of course the simplicity of the route diagram, where Westminster always followed Waterloo and Charing Cross always followed Westminster and the line continued to its terminus, repeated at regular intervals throughout each carriage and combined with advertising—a logical, free-market way to fund a public service.

Though he normally felt himself above mingling with the masses without the tinted window of a Janguar XF between him and the plebeians, he had to confess that he found the London Underground irresistibly alluring.

Within minutes of leaving the meeting Ainsworth was in his office with several A3 sheets laid on the table. His aides were there with him. If the minister had the authority to fire you, it had been expected since the merger that you arrived in the office at 7.00 in the morning and left no sooner than 11.00 at night. Behind his desk and around the office were facsimiles of the government posters that he wanted displayed around the country: "TREATS KILL"; "MAKE RESPONSIBLE CHOICES—PROTECT THE NHS"; and, most prominently and most frequently, "FOOD IS FUEL".

'I think we should move the N.H.S. operational centre to Skipton House,' opined Charles, pointing at one of the sheets of paper. 'There's no reason for its formal headquarters to be halfway across London from where we're putting the administrators.'

'Can we not accquire separate premises for the N.H.S. operational centre?' replied another of Ainsworth's party hacks, Lucia Oakes. 'House its top executives here with the leaders of the Food Standards Agency, Care Quality Commission, Medical Research Authority and so on. Um, Oliver?'

The Minister seemed to be deep in focus. He shook his head. 'I agree with Charles. Treating the National Health Service itself like just another non-departmental body would not be pragmatic. We can have strict chains of command without playing stupid games.'

'Your hospital model?' Charles nodded on Ainsworth's behalf. 'The civil service are still being incredibly resistant to that. Someone leaked your planned organisational charts to the Cabinet Office and they sent back tens of objections. Apparently,' she said, tapping hastily at her phone to bring something up; 'the analogies between the hospital setting and the management of a government department are "imperfect" and the "cavalier application of medical lines of authority to the administrative and policy-making spheres is reminiscent of attempts in the 1950s to run the fire brigade like the army"; the plans to introduce "quality-assurance officers" at each level who report directly to a committee headed by a minister is a "serious risk to civil service neutrality"—Lord Jacobs off the record apparently called it an "Orwellian perversion"—then David Eastcote says that–'

Ainsworth held up a hand. 'I am well aware of the civil service's opinions on the matter,' he said massively. 'They do not concern me.'

'The fact remains, minister,' she replied, getting a little flustered, 'with respect—it's up to them. As David points out, the PM has to approve all machinery of government changes—which with Jonathan basically means it'll be up to the Cabinet Office. And I don't see–'