Reorganising Whitehall, the sign that a government is fresh out of ideas

Boris Johnson’s decision to create a superdepartment is more out of hope than experience, writes Sean O'Grady

PM says his merger has ‘megawattage’ to energise British interests (Reuters TV)

In Whitehall, with a weary contempt you can almost sense, they call it a “MOG” – when a government fresh out of ideas (pathetically) decides to try to invigorate itself by reorganising the “machinery of government”. Nothing of substance usually attaches to such rearrangements of the bureaucratic furnishings, and none is expected by the officials closest to the changes of brass nameplates and notepaper. They just get on with it.

Many think that of the decision to fold the Department for International Development (Dfid) to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Much trailed, the departments already share ministers of state, and the aim of better promoting the British national interest is well known. Will the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), led by Dominic Raab, break the pattern of pointlessness?

The only memorable MOG in recent decades was when Gordon Brown became prime minister and wanted to create a new Department for Productivity, Enterprise, Innovation and Skills, which would have been known under the snappy and virile acronym PEnIS. It was dropped, but whether it was called the Department for Trade and Enterprise, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or indeed the PEnIS, it has made little difference to the trend rate of UK growth.