The former cabinet secretary has attacked the Tories' appointment of General Richard Dannatt as a “major error of judgment”.

Lord Turnbull, Sir Gus O’Donnell’s immediate predecessor as head of the home civil service, was giving evidence this morning to a Commons public administration committee hearing on ministerial appointments.

He said Dannatt's decision to accept the invitation from Conservative leader David Cameron to work for him would call into question the political impartiality of other military chiefs, some of whom were furious about the announcement.

"You talk to the admirals and they are incandescent about this," he said.
Turnbull added that if the recently departed head of the Army were to accept a ministerial position in a prospective Tory government, the overall head of the military, the chief of the defence staff – currently Sir Jock Stirrup – could find it extremely uncomfortable. "It subverts the chain of command. One day the chief of defence staff has this guy as his deputy, a few months later he is issuing instructions to him,” he told MPs.

"Where does it leave the chief of the general staff [Dannatt's former position] if his predecessor is in the ministerial team?"

The strategic defence review expected in coming years could also be compromised if Dannatt took up ministerial office, Turnbull warned.

"The different services are going to have to give up their toys. What objectivity does the former chief of the general staff have as part of the ministerial team deciding this?"

But he said the "most important" issue was that it "casts a shadow" over the political impartiality of his successors.

"I think that this appointment calls that into question. They will be thinking 'Now which way is he going? Is he one of those New Labour people, is he a Conservative?"

Turnbull also complained about the trend towards having younger, less experienced cabinet ministers who lacked the expertise to manage big, complex government departments.

“I think there is a growing gulf between the requirements of managing a huge department with big issues of money and large numbers of people, huge technological issues, issues of science – in which the House of Commons has almost zero capability – and the growing trend for people to come into politics more or less straight from university,” Turnbull said.

“By the time they are in their mid-thirties they are cabinet ministers, barely touching the sides of real life.”