The "safe pair of hands" characterisation comes from The Guardian (2003) via Wikipedia.

In the case at hand, she's a "safe pair of hand" in that she'll do nothing of her own initiative, and that's exactly what Blair watns in the Foreign Office.

In the long run, we're all misquoted — not Keynes

Thanks for the link on Beckett's work at Defra. Since I was once a mountain shepherd and sheep farmer, it makes me shudder. (As do many of the comments). So Beckett sounds like another out-and-out mindless New Labourite. "We will not tolerate that you say you cannot deliver". Gah that word "deliver"!!!