O tempora o mores

There once was a time when government ministers took responsibility for the actions of their departments, regardless of whether they were involved in the actual decision-making.  Not nowadays.  The BBC reports on the fallout from the Windrush affair:

When a home secretary describes her own department's treatment of people as "appalling" and criticises it for "losing sight of the individual", it's clear something has gone very wrong.

Amber Rudd's admission in the House of Commons that she could not say whether any of the Windrush immigrants had been wrongly deported only made things worse.

More than one MP harked back to the department's previous leadership under Theresa May. Her intention to create a "hostile environment" for illegal immigrants had led to what David Lammy called a "day of shame" for the government.

A steady stream of stories about mishandling of cases, a minister appearing unsure about deportations and an apparent U-turn from Number 10 on a meeting with Caribbean leaders have all fuelled criticism of the government.:

 In 1954, in the light of an apparently trivial case of land transactions in Dorset, Sir Thomas Dugdale, the Minister for Agriculture, resigned even though he was not directly involved in the matter.  The case was known as the Crichel Down Affair and was for long regarded as an important precedent in terms of ministerial responsibility.

As Sir Thomas said:

 “I, as minister, must accept full responsibility for any mistakes and inefficiency of officials in my department, just as, when my officials bring off any successes on my behalf, I take full credit for them.”

Impossible to imagine any minister in the current government saying such a thing.