Reflecting on the case, Mr Ovenden told Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’d be having long meetings on the priorities of the government and they would be railroaded by any other business into discussions about this gentleman.
“Most of us on the political side of government weren’t that aware of it, weren’t that tuned into it because it didn’t impact us on a day-to-day basis.
“It actually became a kind of running joke within government that people would always find a way to bring it back to this conversation.”
He said the case “became sort of totemic of the distraction of issues that it felt like a different part of government were fascinated by”.
Asked why politicians could not ignore these subjects, Mr Ovenden said they had “effectively handed away power”.
“What they’re really trying to do is hand away risk but they’ve handed away power to arm’s length bodies, to quangos, to activists, to lawyers, to regulatory framework, to well-networked organisations… who are able to basically stop the machinery of government doing things.”
He said examples of subjects he considered to be distractions included paying colonial reparations or banning vaping in pub gardens.
He added that it was “no surprise the public are fed up with politicians’ ability to get things done” but that he believed that “we can change this and change quite quickly”.
He argued that the government should start by scaling back some of the government’s legal obligations such as environmental obligations for building and the right to launch legal challenges against government policies through judicial reviews.