[toyg]

Because otherwise the effort will end up in the quagmire of civil service politics, the sort of stuff you see on "Yes Minister" (greatly exaggerated, of course, in the same way "Silicon Valley" exaggerates Californian startup culture).

With a direct line to the PM, every time a mandarin tried to block things (likely in order to favour his golf buddies from this or that vendor), GDS could go "ok, shall we take it up with the PM then?" and that would be the end of it.

It's effectively the nuclear option, in terms of civil-service management, but sometimes it's the only way to get stuff done.

[djhn]

> greatly exaggerated, of course, in the same way "Silicon Valley" exaggerates Californian startup culture

Which is another way of saying it conveys the reality more realistically than a documentary could ever get away with.

[blitzar]

> every time a mandarin tried to block things (likely in order to favour his golf buddies from this or that vendor)

There seems to be a much longer history of MPs and PMs being corrupt than the mandarins.