So, Doge was called in to Kent County Council on Monday to make efficiencies.

As luck would have it, by Thursday it had arguably made two big ones when the main men running the team sensationally quit.

Whatever you think of what happened there and the internal strife inside Reform, I personally think the whole Doge concept is a smart move in the short term for two reasons.

Firstly, they get credit if they do find efficiencies, and secondly, anyone who criticises their efforts appears to support inefficiency.

Ultimately, I think Doge won’t be a barnstorming success - but from a certain angle, I don’t think it was meant to be.

It’s designed to grab headlines, make Reform out to be the common-sense party, and play into a belief that the public sector is bloated, inefficient, and filled with work-shy, incompetent jobsworths.

I can already sense you’re pulling away, so let me rip the plaster off now - I don’t believe ‘The Blob’ is real. I think it’s a creation of politicians to excuse their own failings, but I’ll come back to that later.

If you try to suggest a member of the civil service is anything other than a dullard who couldn’t make it “in a real job”, a good chunk of the public will see you as gullible.

But does this really make sense? Do you really think the kind of person who works in the public sector is a different breed from the general population?

Or are there just as many useless people clockwatching in the civil service as there are in any industry? And, just the same, are there as many people who go above and beyond?

There are jobsworths in all areas of life - and yes, there are probably a proportionate amount in the civil service.

It plays into a belief that the public sector is bloated, inefficient, and filled with work-shy, incompetent jobsworths…

It’s unsurprising this view of the public sector is so widespread though, since politicians have been using it as a scapegoat for decades.

The number of times we hear how politicians would love to fix things but they can’t get it done because of The Blob, or red tape, or “civil service orthodoxy”.

It’s a load of tripe.

It’s an easy excuse for politicians who either lack the ability or the willpower to follow through on their bold promises.

I recently wrote a story on S106 funding which is sitting in council coffers unspent.

The most frustrating thing was the fact that if councillors just persistently chased down money allocated for their wards, they could get it spent. But they don’t…

I’m not saying it would be easy, I’m not saying there wouldn’t be hoops to jump through, but they could do it.

But instead, as with many issues across local and national government, that’s not what politicians are doing. Instead, they want quick wins with big headlines and a lot of praise.

Even if we accept the premise, which politicians are so keen for us to believe, that civil servants only gum up the works, I always think it’s a giant own goal.

If we accept civil servants are a bunch of lazy boxtickers who couldn’t find an original idea if it fell into their cornflakes and shouted “I’m an original idea!” what does that say about the wits of our politicians?

It prompts me to ask: “What’s the point in voting for you?”

If you can’t work your way through them, by sheer determination, force of will, or by hook or by crook, I’ll vote for someone who can.

That’s what Reform is playing into. Other politicians say The Blob stops them and promise to find ways to cut it down - but when they use the same excuse six months later, it looks like they’ve done nothing.

Reform says, in a loud and brash way, ‘we’re stamping on The Blob. We’re not just going to complain, we’re going to do something about it’.

Reform is more successful at it because, as is so often the case, they are untested. They do not have years in government when they could have done something.

They still have the ‘vote us in and we’ll actually do something’ promise on their side.

But the problem is the facts aren’t on their side.

I think they’ll find it very difficult to slash through waste because there won’t be very much waste to find.

Instead, they’ll find a staff of people who have already made the obvious cuts to save as much as possible while providing the best service they can.

But, strangely, I don’t expect that to be among the findings of Doge.

I anticipate another reheated serving of ‘Isn’t The Blob awful’ which many will gobble down unquestioningly.

It’s a performance, a gesture to get a reaction from the crowd, but it’s not a very efficient way to run a country.

There are plenty of ways to stay in the know when it comes to politics in Kent and Medway.

You can also listen to our Kent Politics Podcast. This week’s episode welcomes crime commissioner Matthew Scott.

You can listen to the podcast at IM Listening, or download it from Apple Podcasts, Spotify and TuneIn – just search for Kent Politics Podcast. New episodes are available every Friday.

And you can watch the KMTV Kent Politics Show every Friday at 5pm on Freeview channel 7 and Virgin Media channel 159.