A Home Office investigation has found one of its most senior officials harassed and behaved inappropriately towards a female colleague, before being able to leave the civil service with an unblemished record after a “shambolic” disciplinary process.
And I, for one, am not all surprised by this Guardian report. There's something about a hierarchic organisation that brings out the worse in people. Individuals realise that asking awkward questions is not the way to get on, and the persistence of the organisation and its good reputation trump any other considerations.
A couple of quotations to support my view. First, John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath:
If a bank or finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank – or the Company – needs – wants – insists – must have – as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them.
And second, here's Edward, Lord Thurlow, who was Lord Chancellor from 1778 to 1783:
Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like.
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