68. They say that the prime minister's secretary, a top civil servant, informs his counterparts in the various ministries of important decisions made by Mrs Gandhi ; ministers are in turn told of government policies by their secretaries.
Likened earlier this year by Lord Turnbull, a former cabinet secretary (Britain's topcivilservant), to Macavity the cat, who was never to be found at the scene of the crime, the prime minister will find it hard now to evade his own responsibility for what has gone wrong on Mr Darling's brief watch.
Against the advice of the defence ministry's topcivilservant, ministers sent the scientist to undergo a grilling by a parliamentary inquiry into the affair, at which he claimed not to recognise the reporter's words as having come from his briefing.
The departure of Sir Gus O'Donnell, the country's topcivilservant, was announced this week: part of a Big Bang restructuring, which shows how anxious the prime minister is to expedite policy delivery.