MANY folk may not have felt the earthquake that occurred when Sir Philip Rutnam, the erstwhile permanent secretary of the Home Office, faced the cameras on Saturday and read a statement saying he intended to sue the Government for constructive dismissal. Take my word for it, though, the political plates have shifted.

I know something of what goes on in the Home Office after a spell in the department’s press office between 2009 and 2011, where I worked under three home secretaries - Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson and Theresa May - a litany of mostly scary, over-confident and/or inept special advisors (so-called Spads) and bands of long-suffering civil servants.

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My job, which often added up to little more than defending indefensible policies on immigration and policing, was monumentally grim, and since the Marsham Street headquarters in London was a miserable place to work, I didn’t stay long.

I certainly recognised the “shouting and swearing, belittling people, making unreasonable and repeated demands” that Sir Philip referred to in his statement from the days of Mrs May’s notorious enforcers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. But things must have become much, much worse under the current administration for the department’s most senior mandarin to make such personal allegations of bullying against current Home Secretary Priti Patel (which she denies) and enter into a legal battle with the Government.

The “viscous and orchestrated” personal campaign Sir Philip alleges Ms Patel waged against him clearly contributed to his decision to go public. But even that doesn’t fully explain his unprecedented actions.

Obviously, it’s not unusual for there to be clashes between ministers and senior civil servants, sometimes even complete relationship breakdowns that damage the work of the department. But when really serious spats occur at the heart of government, usually the senior civil servant accepts they will either be moved to another job or handed a generous retirement package. Sir Philip was reportedly offered the latter and could already be quietly sipping malt whisky - albeit with a grimace on his face - in a private members club in St James'.

That’s why it’s all the more extraordinary that Sir Philip, who embodies the stable, rather dull, play-the-game career civil servant, is choosing to wash his dirty linen in public. It suggests he feels it necessary to bring Ms Patel down; if he wins his case, she will almost certainly have to resign. Just as unexpected is his wish for a very public forum in which to do it.

I suspect this goes far beyond the personal, however. Sir Philip suggested as much when he referred to a “wider pattern” of government behaviour. Indeed, I also suspect he may wish to reveal an increasingly widespread and dangerous culture of politicisation in the civil service, a deliberate blurring of the lines that persuades or forces supposedly impartial civil servants to do the sort of ideological work they are supposed to steer clear of.

The balance has always been hard to strike, especially in a department like the Home Office, which deals with the most controversial policy areas in government, and is known to be a poisoned chalice for just about every politician that takes it on (though not Theresa May, interestingly).

I was party to constant arguments over neutrality when I worked at the Home Office. Under Mrs May’s tenure, the barriers of civil service impartiality were under attack. I believe this is one of the prime reasons the Windrush scandal - the illegal harassment and deportation of Afro-Caribbean people who had spent their lives in the UK and had every right to be here - was able to happen. It’s just as scandalous that this most disgraceful episode in British public policy - a human tragedy for so many - has still not been fully investigated.

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Following the right-wing government takeover of Boris Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings, I fear an American-style, fully politicised civil service is on the cards. They won’t call it this, of course. No, Cummings will talk of shaking things up, of challenging establishment thinking. He will send in ideologue attack dogs like Priti Patel to do his dirty work.

If we allow these Trumpian bully tactics to succeed then it won’t just be the relationship between the civil service and government that will change. Democracy will suffer, too. It is already suffering.

Sir Philip Rutnam has decided to stand up and be counted. Good on him. His employment tribunal, should it go ahead, will give us the measure of Priti Patel. Even more importantly, however, it could tell us about the wider intentions of the Johnson/Cummings project.