The prisons are bursting and the judges are threatening revolt but the weighty matter of morris dancing has been on the mind of Justice Ministry officials and their boss, the Lord Chancellor.

To the hilarity and astonishment of other Whitehall departments, among the submissions for Lord Falconer of Thoroton to mull over is whether a team of morris dancers from his department could name themselves the Lord Chancellor’s Men.

Making sure that the issue received the attention it deserved from Lord Falconer, one of his private secretaries sent a two-page “submission” to his boss. The submission, seen by The Times, is worthy of Whitehall officialdom at its best as it outlines the issue, recommendation, background, and consideration and handling of such a delicate matter of state.

Nick Goodwin, an official in Lord Falconer’s private office, explained the issue simply: “Whether to allow a morris side to name itself after your office”. The side is made up mainly of officials in the newly formed Ministry of Justice, with Mr Goodwin among the morris dancers, Tim Stamp, the head of statistics, on the violin, and Eirian Walsh-Atkins, of the information rights division, on the squeezebox.

With the newly formed morris side making their debut at Hackney church fête in East London on July 7, Mr Goodwin made the recommendation for Lord Falconer: “That you agree to the side using the name the Lord Chancellor’s Men,” the submission sent on June 7 said.

It added that given the side’s connection with this department, “they would like to name themselves after your office”.

He tells Lord Falconer that the morris side dance in the Cotswolds tradition and in the Bampton style, which involves “the use of handkerchiefs and sticks”. Clearly, Mr Goodwin had done some homework, as the submission went on: “As far as we can tell, no such request has been received by a previous Lord Chancellor. There do not appear to be any legal/ statutory constraints on you in granting this request. The decision is therefore one for your personal judgment.”

He then outlines the pros of morris dancing to help Lord Falconer as he wrestled with the submission. It added: “Morris dancing is currently one of the Icons of England on the Department of Culture Media and Sport site, alongside a cup of tea, a stiff upper lip and a bowler hat.”

How long Lord Falconer took to reach a decision is not known but he has delighted Mr Goodwin by agreeing that the morris side can call itself The Lord Chancellor’s Men.The submission has made the new ministry a laughing stock in other parts of Whitehall.

As the department dealt with prison overcrowding by announcing the early release of 25,000 prisoners a year, one official said: “Morris dancing while Rome burns.” Others could not believe that the submission was real, while one said that officials in the new department were clearly overworked.

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