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by Paul Goodman and Mark Fox
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If David Cameron struts centre-stage as this Government's drama continues, Francis Maude is the man perched behind the scenery with the cable cutter, sprocket remover and box end wrench. His job is to make sure that while the show carries on the lights don't go out. As Paymaster-General, his Cabinet Office responsibilities include quangoes (culling them), strikes (stopping them), the Big Society (making it happen), and Whitehall costs (keeping them down). And here he is, in a rather ungrand office with a very grand view of Horseguards Parade. There is a transient feel to the set-up: no family photos, papers strewn over a large desk - it fills perhaps a quarter of the room - a laptop set on a corner table.
We begin by asking him how his talks with the unions went the previous morning. His eyes chill to the colour of an ice floe beneath an Arctic sky: "How did you know about them?" he probes, perhaps suspecting a conspiracy between ConservativeHome and the Public and Commercial Services Union. We point out that they were reported in the papers. Maude relaxes very slightly, before going on to explaining that "We don’t particularly draw attention to the discussions with the unions that have taken place, in a very constructive spirit, and we’re hoping to make progress". This is clearly the moment at which to remind the Minister that Boris Johnson has described the Government's stance on the unions as "lily-livered".
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