Yes Minister, but of what kind?

Carl Linnaeus classified plants and animals. Cabinet secretary T V Somanathan has gone one step up the evolutionary ladder to classify bureaucrats. His taxonomy of 12 varieties of government secretaries includes file-throwers, file-sitters, latecomers, and those who summon colleagues on weekends while arriving late themselves. This is admin zoology at its finest. Humphrey Appleby - permanent secretary in the (fictional) department of administrative affairs in the 80s sitcom, Yes Minister, who went on to become cabinet secretary - would have approved.

But why stop at secretaries? Surely, ministers, too, deserve mounting and pinning? There is Ministerus inauguratus, who inaugurates everything. Ministerus announcicus announces policies whose implementation will be inconvenient. Ministerus creditus claims credit for achievements of other ministries. Ministerus blameus attributes every mishap to previous governments, preferably in the Nehruvian era. Particularly fascinating is Ministerus statisticus who regards inconvenient data as an opposition conspiracy. Such classification could revolutionise governance - if the government was suitably revolutionary. Naturally, as Sir Humphrey might explain to minister - and later PM - Jim Hacker, the object of ministerial classification must never be to identify incompetence. That would risk identifying ministers.