So, have recently read two books – Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe (I wish I’d read this when I was protesting about Newbury in 1996!) and The Last of the Country House Murders by Emma Tennant (very weird, in a good way. Kind of a cross over between The Year of the Sex Olympics (TV Play by Nigel Kneale) and Julian Barnes’ England, England (which came later).
Anyhoos, three quotes about the Civil Service (the nation’s saving grace).
The first is from “Blott on the Landscape” and it’s as good a representation of the Peter Principle/”promoted out of harm’s way” as you’ll ever need.
His schemes sounded good and year by year Dundridge had been promoted, carried upward by an ineluctable wave of inefficiency and the need to save the public the practical consequences of his latest idea until he had reached that rarefied zone of administration where, thanks to the inertia of his subordinates, his projects could never be implemented.
Sharpe, 1975, p.45-6.
A few pages later, he is being given his marching orders by his superior, who explains the basic facts of life…
“….. You will see to it that Leakham decided on the Cleene Gorge route.”
“Surely it’s up to him to decide,” said Dundridge.
Mr Joynson sighed. “My dear Dundridge, when you have been in public service as long as I have you will know that Enquiries, Royal Commissions and Boards of Arbitration are only set up to make recommendations that concur with the decisions already taken by the experts. Your job is to see that Lord Leakham arrives at the correct decision.”
Sharpe, 1975, p.49
Spoilers (look away now) – Dundridge comes to a suitably sticky end
and then, in Tennant’s book, there are many lovely quotes. For now, this –
… but, as Cedric knew, once bureaucrats got into power they lost the faculty of eyesight.
(Tennant, 1974, p.126
marchudson.net 
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