It seems we’ve missed Dalrymple’s last few articles at the Spectator. (The mere fact that he still writes occasionally for the Spectator, where he began his career as a writer and where he made a name for himself, in the most literal sense of that phrase, is cheering news to some of us.) His most recent piece is from May and bemoans the professionalization of the management of British public services:
So long as we have a public service — and I leave aside the contentious question of how far health care and other services should be publicly or privately funded — what we need is amateur, not professional, management. The highest echelons of any public institution must be composed of volunteers. At most they should be rewarded by the refund of their bus fares to and from meetings, and perhaps a CBE or two; under no circumstances should they be rewarded financially.