Hello, Coffee House Shoppers listeners. My name is Freddie Gray and I edit the Spectators' US edition.

I know you're all huge Westminster enthusiasts, but Brexit is over and the big story of 2020 is going to be the American election.

So I would like to urge you all to listen to my Americano podcast, where we discuss everything that's going on in Trump world and Democrat world.

If you go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Americano, you can listen to it all.

Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Cindy Yu, and I'm joined by Katie Balls and Fraser Nelson.

So is the government declaring war on the civil service?

Over the weekend, the Sunday Telegraph reported that the government was looking to sack three top civil servants from their respective

roles as permanent secretaries. Katie, what is the story here? So this is part, I think,

of a wider picture, which is ultimately tensions between the government number 10 specifically

and the civil service, how Whitehall works.

Now, the story at the weekend, which I think has been leading the news bulletins to a degree,

is this idea of relation to free permanent secretaries who, and there's a sense that there's

a hit list, that's one way of calling it, there's also a word, there's, I could swear

to describe the list, but I'm not going to, even though James isn't here.

And ultimately, on this list are permanent secretaries, there is a sense that they are not in tune with the government to the point that they are actually a blocker in those departments.

Now, the permanent secretaries involved, you have the Home Office, the Treasury and the Foreign Office. They all have slightly individual reasons. I think the treasury, if you rewind a few years,

Boris Johnson once said that the treasury was the heart of remain in government. And I think

there's a sense that that permanent secretary is not fully on board with the government's

Brexit plans and there is suspicion, I think in part because

of how the Treasury was under Philip Hammond, that when things potentially get tough in the months

to come, potentially there's no FTA free trade deal on the table, you could come into problems

...