7th June 2022
Dominic Raab, the Lord High Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister, was on the media this morning after yesterday’s calamitous confidence vote.
A vote which – politically – was the worst possible political outcome for the current Prime Minister, though the possible constitutional (as distinct from political) crisis of which I warned was averted.
Raab was asked about whether the party rules could be changed so as to allow a further such vote within the next year.
His reply, with a straight face, was:
On changing 1922 rules to allow another vote of confidence on the PM within a year @DominicRaab tells @BBCBreakfast "fiddling with the rules when you don't like the result is a bad look"
— David Bond (@DJBond6873) June 7, 2022
This lack of political self-awareness is priceless.
For changing – or seeking to change – the rules because of unwanted outcomes is what this government does again and again.
And again.
Indeed, looking from the outside, it is the nearest this government has got to an organising principle.
If there is such a thing as ‘Johnsonism’ it is a description of this ongoing push to remove the checks and balances, and to change or neuter the rules and processes, that stop this government from doing whatever it likes.
In Raab’s own department – the Ministry of Justice – there is a constant move towards changing judicial review rules and human rights law because of a (perceived) dislike of what judges are deciding.
Indeed, this is the very point of Raab’s rather pathetic proposal for a so-called “Bill of Rights”.
There are other examples from this government:
https://twitter.com/MarinaPurkiss/status/1534070376359251968
https://twitter.com/LLocock/status/1534089725027426304
And, of course, there is Brexit itself.
The politics of the Northern Irish Protocol is, at bottom, about how the current government wishes to resile from the agreement that it had negotiated and signed.
The current prime minister Boris Johnson and his ministers do not want to be held to the rules that came from lengthy negotiation and compromises.
To echo Raab, they do not like the result.
And so they want to fiddle around with those rules – an Internal Market Bill here, a threat to trigger Article 16 there, an Attorney General’s advice in the middle.
Constant fiddling – and just because they do not like the result.
Once you realise that this is what this government does – not least because it cannot think of doing anything more substantial – you see this in almost every area of policy.
But there is one thing that the Lord High Chancellor is correct about.
It is not a good look.
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You have given the Lord High as much credit as Gilbert and Sullivan ever could!
“Behold the Lord High Executioner
A personage of noble rank and title —
A dignified and potent officer
Whose functions are particularly vital!
Defer, defer
To the Lord High Executioner!
Defer, defer
To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord
To the Lord High Executioner!”
A government led by a damaged narcissist. You have nailed them. When he gets the boot he’ll wait three months or less for appearances sake and then resign his seat.
May is still an MP, Brown and Major served on the backbenches for another full term, Callaghan for two terms, and Thatcher until the end of the term when she resigned.
Cameron stuck around for just few months before leaving his Commons seat, and Blair left office and his seat on the same day. Likewise I expect Johnson will be off to resume his career outside parliament without delay – certainly before his constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip ask him to lie in front of an bulldozer at Heathrow.
The thought of BoJo lying down in front of a JCB, Arthur Dent style, is priceless- thank you!
You are welcome – but he conjoured that image for himself, when he was selected for his present constituency in 2015 – https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/boris-johnson-prepared-lie-down-front-bulldozers-stop-construction-third-runway-heathrow-1501004
Like many of the things he has said before and since, it suited him to say it at that moment, whether it is or was true or not.
By way of contrast, another minister – Greg Hands – had resigned to oppose the government policy, but Johnson avoided the debate and vote in parliament to approve it in 2018 – then foreign secretary, he was away in Afghanistan at the time of the vote.
In September 2019 he also said, ‘I’d rather be dead in a ditch than ask for Brexit delay”. Feel free!
Priceless!! Commentary and humour all in one blog post. Thank you.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
David wrote, commenting on Dominic Raab’s breathtaking hypocrisy,
“This lack of political self-awareness is priceless.”
I’m feeling contrary today, so I shall (respectfully) disagree.
I think Raab has reached a conclusion concerning the mechanics of political discourse that eludes many fellow MPs, most if not all of the politics commentators in the Main Stream Media, as well as many political activists and party members:
By and large, the average voter doesn’t give a hoot about Johnson’s hypocrisy or shambolic leadership. I had to drive between locations during my lunch break today and as I did so I was listening to a charity leader explain to a radio 4 broadcaster that one in six people are now using a food bank – and that one in five people have admitted to missing meals in order to cut down their food bills.
Come on! If you don’t know where the money for your next shopping trip is going to come from, do you really care how many glasses of Chateau LyingShoot the PM quaffed whilst demonstrating his “leadership” skills?
I doubt it.
I think that Raab – and some others – have taken a leaf from the Donald Trump playbook. They know that they can lie outrageously in “this” interview today, because by the time they are invited back for “that” interview, the news cycle will have moved on and nobody will care. They won’t have time to ask about past lies because they will have a new cause-de-Jure to ask about.
The Washington Post reckons that Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements in 4 years – including, wait for it, that he won the last Presidential Election – and yet the Republican faithful still follow him blindly.
Dominic Drab might lack Trump’s chutzpah and his bare-faced gall, but he was shrewd enough to get elected, so he’s certainly capable of lying out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.
Faced with such deliberate, intentional malfeasance from ministers, the only reliable course of action would be to tighten the legislation about malpractice public office and hold their feet to the fire.
The “serving” leader of our country has the support of only 1 in 3 of our elected representatives because he is proven to be a dishonest criminal.
We deserve contempt.
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
Joseph de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821), Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher.
I’ve always wondered which idiot came up with that aphorism. Thank you.
Quite Lawrence.
I shared a flat in Kuala Lumpur with a lovely chap who masterminded one of the worlds first social media driven political system shocks back in 2013. He told me a story about meeting our ambassador and asking him to explain how multi ethnic Malaysia ‘deserved’ to have the political hegemony of the United Malays National Organisation foisted on it by an “international” team of Oxbridge educated lawyers following colonial withdrawal. His excellency sniffed in his G&T and, due to the lateness of the hour, offered the shorter of the two things he could think of to say on the subject;
“It’s not really our problem anymore, is it Praba?”
I can’t help myself – sorry:-
“Programming today is a race between software engineers who are striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe, which is trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
Rich Cook (1944-Jan 13, 2022) US fantasy author and the originator of some truly bad computer jokes.
Yes, yes, I’ll see myself out.
The quote comes from 1811, when De Maistre was criticising the liberal reforms of Alexander I.
De Maistre was a conservative, who thought monarchy was divinely sanctioned, and hence the only stable form of government. He was very much against any form of rational human-made written constitution, which he though was bound to fail, whereas the authoritarian “ancien régime”, which had evolved over time in a particular place, must be ideally suited to the specific circumstances of that nation.
See http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2010/01/every-nation-has-government-it-deserves.html
Here it is the original in context “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” : https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m73G4d49wh0C&pg=PA59
And here is an early translation, “Every nation has the government which it is fit for” : https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZXk0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA616
Perhaps Lawrence wasn’t quite derisory enough then.
Thanks for this excellent piece of context Andrew.
Lovely. Just lovely.
I now have an image of Johnsonism being the Government of Fiddles!
Yet l have read that this Government of Fiddles is now, apparently, going to try to Fiddle with the Northern Irish Protocol by declaring it as illegal and not binding. I apologise if l have misinterpreted this new challenge by the Government of Fiddles in it’s attempt get rid of the NI Protocol by trying to apply the Law for once.
Never a dull moment is there! Yet l long for the days of boring Politics. I wish this Government would go away. Far away.
Oh dear, fiddling the rules and Brexit. I don’t think you can get more fiddling of the rules than the numerous Remainer/Establishment attempts to overturn the Brexit referendum result over the past 6 years.
Ha! What really sticks in the craw for those of us who voted to remain is the constant fiddling to try and change the “oven ready” deal the ultra brexiters wanted and voted for. They won, yes but at least have the grace to accept the dreadful deal they forced through.
And it would be nice if they had the good grace to appreciate that the win was hardly triumphant and revealed a divided nation, with roughly half of us, with the same human rights, deeply miserable.
The hypocrisy of this government knows no bounds – but it is all they have.
We should be grateful that they have no idea how to govern – imagine what previous administrations could have done with a 80 seat majority and yet all they have achieved is a country completely divided and in chaos. A blockbuster scenario!!
Have been thinking about the “rules of the 1922” in this context. I think the only formal role the 1922 has in relation to party leaders is to put forward leadership candidates to be voted on by the party membership. It has no formal role in the removal of a leader. A vote of no confidence does not result in the “sacking” of the leader – it is just information about the feelings of the Parliamentary Party about the leader. It may/should provoke a resignation but can be resisted, I suspect. The 12 month wait rule is, I suspect, merely one of convenience: a VNC is very unsettling and unsettling events should not happen too frequently. If 180 Tory MPs wrote to the 1922 expressing a lack of confidence in the leader then, it seems to me, the Chair would be honour bound to pass on that information whether or not there had been a formal vote. What the leader did with that information would be up to him/her of course.