18th July 2022
Today will be the hottest day, we are told, since records began.
It is strange to be living on such a historical day.
One would expect the “most [x] day ever” was some other time, with historical footage or monochrome photographs.
But no, it is today.
And on this hottest day since records began, we have current and very recent members of the government tearing into the government’s record in general and each others’ records as ministers in particular.
Confidential and private ministerial exchanges – easily outside the reach of even the most determined Freedom of Information request – are being casually and freely disclosed on national television.
And these disclosures are not being made because they pass some (supposedly) objective public interest test, but because such disclosures are to the personal and political advantage or disadvantage of particular candidates.
It is quite a spectacle.
If you were watching this – but were unaware of the doctrine of collective cabinet and ministerial responsibility – you would never guess such a doctrine existed.
Of course, this is a leadership election – and so perhaps one could contend that such a doctrine is suspended for the duration of the contest.
Just like the doctrine was suspended for the referendum campaign.
But.
It could also be contended that this spectacle is not an exception but indicative of a new (if temporary) norm.
When Prime Ministerial authority collapses, a cabinet full of ambitious politicians loses its only real source of discipline.
And until and unless there is another authoritative Prime Minister – and the signals from the current leadership debates are not encouraging – such public rows and confrontations may reoccur.
But there is perhaps a deeper problem.
Another explanation for the lack of collective cabinet and ministerial responsibility is a lack of seriousness about policy.
Instead of politicians being in office to implement policy, policy positions exist to promote the careers of politicians.
In this way, policies like words are the counters of the wise, but policy positions are the money of fools.
And it seems many current ministers do not care for many overall government policies to do with such issues as the economy, fiscal policy, and – notably on this hot day – climate change.
(They do, however, support – or say they support – the performative cruelty of the Rwanda deportations.)
This lack of overall commitment to government policy is especially significant given that this government is between parliaments.
As the fine columnist Zoe Williams observed about the most recent televised debate:
“Two points of unity in the hour: none of them would have Boris Johnson in their cabinet, should he ask to serve; none of them wanted an early general election.
“This is the crucible of their problem: they want to keep the mandate, while wholeheartedly disowning the mandated, and on what grounds, they have no clue.”
Williams is correct to highlight this tension, if not contradiction.
Even before Boris Johnson announced his departure as Prime Minister, this government was running out of ideas.
The most recent Queen’s Speech was an unimpressive affair, on any sensible view.
Brexit is still not “done”, and “levelling-up” is a slogan without substance.
And now, with Johnson gone, it becomes even less obvious what the governing party should do with the majority it obtained from the 2019 general election.
At least with Johnson in place, the purpose of that majority was to keep Johnson in place.
And now he has gone, even that personal and selfish purpose disappears.
Any new programme by the incoming Prime Minister will not have a general election mandate.
And if elements of that programme are controversial, then – given we are now at least over halfway through this parliamentary term – there may not be enough time to push contentious legislation through the House of Lords.
We may therefore end up with a lame duck government, unable to promote new policies and unwilling to face a general election.
This will also be in a period of weakened Prime Ministerial authority and a decline in collective ministerial responsibility.
And all this in the context of a cost of living crisis, war in Europe and ongoing climate emergency.
The general lack of seriousness about policy risks changing from being an irksome bug in our government to its characteristic feature, at a time where we most need seriousness about policy.
This is not looking good.
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“And if elements of that programme are controversial, then – given we are now at least over halfway through this parliamentary term – there may not be enough time to push contentious legislation through the House of Lords.”
If recent reports are to be believed, that may depend on how many sycophants De Pfeffel elevates to the lords in his last act of constitutional vandalism.
May I suggest that ‘Brexit’ cannot be done because there is an inherent contradiction in every solution that does not have a border between the two trade zones: Europe and Britain.
There are three possible locations for a regulatory border: i) between Ireland and mainland Britain (a busy route); ii) between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic; and iii) between Ireland and Mainland Europe.
If no one likes the first two, how about the third?
They’re an EU country, are you suggesting they leave?
The Irish govt will not agree, nor will the EU. The days of diktat from London to the majority in NI are over, and certainly the chances of imposing with impunity on the population of the island as a whole are long over. A map may help.
https://twitter.com/castlvillageman/status/1357048106748174338?s=09
The honourable solution is abide by agreements entered into and to negotiate changes bilaterally.
100% agree.
This is not Ireland’s problem – it is a UK problem. Ireland spent something like 400yrs subjugated by England and was pillaged, even during the famine (wheat being exported from Ireland while people died in the streets). Since independence and joining the EU, Ireland has prospered. Why on earth do you think they have any interest in doing anything to alleviate the mess the UK has made in voting for Brexit.
No one likes the first two? The majority, at least in NI, seem to be reasonably accepting of the first.
If only one might look to the Opposition for some evidence of serious policy formulation taking place.
One of the intriguing aspects of Rachel Reeves’s interview in the Sunday Times was the lack of policy detail therein.
It was mostly still headlines.
The one policy that Rachel Reeves said the Tories had nicked from her, a windfall tax on energy companies was I gather originally proposed by the Liberal Democrats.
Immigration only came up in the context of Rwanda.
We did learn, as some have suspected for a while now, that Rachel Reeves is her own economic adviser.
She has no Balls.
We also discovered that Labour appears to be two years into a five year mission, sorry, project to make our party ready for a General Election.
That may explain the seemingly relaxed approach to coming up with definite policies.
Alas, the next General Election will be in 2024 or perhaps Labour sees the project ending a year or so into the next Parliament?
“Patience is the Labour answer to this demand (for policy details). Stick to the five-year plan. “Trust the process,” as Mikel Arteta — the manager of Starmer’s beloved Arsenal — likes to tell his doubters. Announcing too many big policies at this stage is a trap because the government will steal the good ones. Win some rounds on points for now, wait until the election to deliver the knockout blow. At least that’s the strategy.”
And to think we once sniggered when UKIP unveiled an election manifesto the Friday after the Thursday poll for which it had been drawn up.
It does, however, make sense for the Opposition parties not to waste their ammunition during the Tory leadership election and wait until its end to unveil weighty ideas to contrast with the two months of nonsense from the winning candidate.
There is a street fight going on between rival gang members.
Whilst it is going on, best to stand off to one side with a big piece of two by four.
By all means, push someone reeling out of the fight back into it, but no more.
Save your energy for whacking the winner as they woozily stagger to their feet!
Alas, Sir Keir Starmer QC clearly had a detailed summer campaign plan laid out which he surely should have torn up the weekend before last, but instead, he has decided to persevere with it, come what may.
An inability to roll with “Events, dear boy, events” is hardly evidence of being suitable to become Prime Minister.
One hopes he has prepared well for the most important speech to date of his Parliamentary career, following Boris Johnson in this afternoon’s confidence debate.
For me sadly this government (and perhaps the politics of today) is largely concerned about itself & the motivations of individual MP’s, rather than the people they purport to represent.
I may be too cynical, but vested interests & hidden agendas are the main driver for policies, as demonstrated by the awarding of contacts via the VIP route during the early part of the pandemic.
I have a lifelong interest in politics and the wider world around me. I would have liked to be a politician, but my father warned me that it was riddled with corruption. As time passes, and with it the naivety of youth, I see just how right he was.
I’ve spent so much of my life angry at the behaviour and decisions of various governments. But with Johnson as PM, and the current fiasco being played out before us, I moved on from my anger and am trying to find a more peaceful way forward.
When I decided to stop eating meat at the age of 12, marched against vivisection, mink farming for fur, and sat in the road, in an attempt to awaken the world to the threat of acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, and what has now become known as global warming/climate change, I was scorned as a ‘Pinko’ Vegetarian by my peers and chose carefully when to air my views.
I suspect there are many like minded people equally frustrated by the way the U.K. (and the world) is being run right now. But we have no voice, our views are chocked off before we can even express them.
In my mind we do not live in an equal society. Capitalism/neoliberalism call it what you will, put pay to that. Any dreams of achievements for the wider good of humanity has been sacrificed on the alter of blind faith in the market as the equitable distributor of wealth and other assets. Our society, and our world as a whole, has never seen such a void between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.
At this point I must stop, as I can feel the anger stirring. Apologies that I may not have answered David appropriately, but these are the thoughts his post has provoked in me today.
Who was it who first said: “Even the most perfect battle-plan will not survive first contact with the enemy”?
I love the talk,however real action should be at an entire need.
These are all excellent points. But I fear you have underestimated quite how exposed the country has become.
A striking feature of the debates is that the candidates are talking as if they will be able to deliver the overall fiscal policies that they are announcing and as if they can come in with the near dictatorial authority that Roosevelt was able to exercise in responding to the great depression.
This is an illusion in a cabinet system, even one as decayed as ours has become..
Without competent departmental ministers the system cannot work. Competent departmental ministers are unlikely to accept the role of nodding dog – especially if overall policies are not coherent.
The current cabinet has a serious claim to being the least talented for at least a century. A cabinet stuffed with nodding dogs – either nodding to Rishi or Liz or Kemi – is likely to be even worse.
The best parallel with today is probably Balfour, from 1903 to 1905, when the most able cabinet minister (Joseph Chamberlain) and a number of his supporters were outside the cabinet pursuing an unauthorised programme and important departments (especially the Admiralty, War Office and India Office) were in the hands of individuals who were simply not up to the task.
The generals (in particular Henry Wilson, eventually Field Marshal and remembered for being assassinated by the IRA in 1920) without any cabinet authority sorted out a plan for the British Expeditionary Force to move in alongside the French army. Asquith eventually put Churchill in charge of the Admiralty (when it became clear that there were no plans to move the army into position in France) and the Fleet was safely mobilised in 1914. The India Office was not sorted out and the consequence was a disaster in modern day Iraq in 1916.
The United Kingdom currently faces a number of challenges. Ukraine is in some respects the most serious. There are some serious economic and fiscal questions to be answered. The NHS is consuming huge sums but the problems of delivery are glaring. The court system seems on the verge of collapse. Child poverty is rising. Energy costs are rising alarmingly.
All of this requires a competent government capable of agreeing and implementing consistent policies.
Thank you for this informative and insightful reply
I’d say they’re rats in a sack, but rats are infinitely more prosocial. And clean.
A little off-topic but, as it’s raised in the post, I thought I’d pick up on it:
“Brexit is still not “done””
In what sense is it not “done”? That we have multiple issues in how we relate to the EU? We have border issues, import issues, export issues, employment issues, legal issues, cross border crime issues, internal national issues, etc. etc?
We would have a whole host of issues were we still in the EU.
Different, yes: we would have “being in the EU issues” rather than “being outside the EU issues”.
We have the “being outside the EU issues” because the UK has left the EU.
Brexit has been done.
This is what it’s like.
“Brexit has been done” but not really given the ongoing passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.
If it’s done, why need a bill like this?
It’s needed because it is done.
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill seeks to deal with an issue created by Brexit.
If this issue is dealt with there will be other issues. Other issues that a peculiar to a European country outside of the EU.
We won’t, say, pass the Northern Ireland Protocol Act and then sit back having done Brexit. We will simply move on to further issues.
Brexit has been done.
This is what it’s like.
It’s needed because it is done.
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill seeks to deal with an issue created by Brexit.
If this issue is dealt with there will be other issues. Other issues that are peculiar to a European country outside of the EU.
We won’t, say, pass the Northern Ireland Protocol Act and then sit back having done Brexit. We will simply move on to further issues.
Brexit has been done.
This is what it’s like.
Brace, brace …
Plus it’s highly likely that Johnson who is still popular with many of the rank and file Tory members, and a considerable number of MP’s, will use his backbench position to build a power base by sniping away at the new PM.
Being utterly self absorbed and well known for having a strong streak of revenge taking he won’t be able to stop himself from being a wrecking ball, and as the tissue of lies that is Brexit further collapses paradoxically he will get more popular by portraying himself as the man betrayed by knaves.
Fun times lie ahead.
I find it hard to envisage a Boris Johnson who could bear the humiliation of speaking in the House from any other position than the Government front bench. He must surely by now have lined up a nice little earner or two elewhere with which to pass the time.
I think that the Conservative Party believes it has a strategy to get re-elected; in my view it seems like a pretty weak strategy.
Strategy and policy are not the same thing even though they seem to be used interchangeably – in my eyes, in political terms, the policy sets out your intention and the strategy is what gets you there.
The Conservative Party doesn’t know where it wants to get – but seems to think it can there quickly.
It may not be a popular view, but I don’t think the candidates are stupid – I think they are playing the game with the rules at the moment.
We can’t let ourselves off scot-free – we, the public, are often complicit in this – the lazy stereotypes that the left uses are as unhelpful as the ones the Conservatives use.
And, sadly it feels as if it will have to get worse before it gets better.
After watching last night’s debate it struck me as slightly odd as I thought bloodsports were abolished in this country.
To say the incoming Prime Minister will not have a mandate is surely falling into the trap of thinking our system is presidential. The next incumbent will have the same mandate, that they appear to have no ideas is another problem but Johnson had no ideas but slogans
The Conservative Party still has the mandate that it won at the 2019 general election, and can rely on that mandate when or if it moves ahead with any of the polices set in its 2019 election manifesto.
But any new policies advanced by any prime minister – the current one, or his not-so-imminent replacement – do not have a general election mandate, if they were not set out in that manifesto.
And time is relatively short for a new prime minister to get any new policies off the ground and implemented before the next general election.
So, will the incoming prime minister quickly call an election to seek a new mandate? Or tough things out for a year or two and hope something turns up?
The present government has been rather good at boosterish announcements, and rather less good at delivery (even on Brexit, which in simple terms, is “done”, but the repercussions will ricochet and echo for years to come). Can that change?
None of the candidates would have Boris in their cabinet if he were willing to serve. Perhaps the better question to ask the losers in this election contest is whether they would serve in the cabinet of the eventual winner. Given they have diverse views so expertly exposed in debate, I question whether they can.
With respect to the leadership election in the Conservative Party, I think we may be hoping for too much to expect to see sensible policy discussions taking place.
This is an “echo chamber” conversation, happening among a small but increasingly fearful community – a community that might have had some hope of a reasonable future up until the inflationary spike on energy and fuel and that now fears a “tax-and-spend” Labour Party more than striking a Faustian Pact with the Conservatives.
So a new Conservative Leader will be selected, not on the basis of what is in the best interests of the country but what is in the best interests of fearful and elderly Tory voters.
Then we get to the next GE – give or take – perhaps “there may be trouble ahead” for the new Conservative leader. We can divide the electorate into 3 groups: staunch Conservative Voters, staunch voters for “any other party”; and “un-decided” voters. (Pretty much as always).
Everything boils down to that narrow segment of the nation and a bunch of swing seats.
The problem I see is that the power-sharing with the Conservatives pretty much did for the Liberal Democrats… and to be honest Sir Kier Starmer comes across like a wannabe Tony Blair without the sharp tactical thinking to back it up.
We are in a slow-motion car-crash with the nation strapped in to the passenger seat.
Sigh.
It may be that the missing word in all of this is delivery. It seems that Johnson and most of his ministers neither know nor care about delivery. They claim that when a policy is announced everything is done and dusted. Social care and levelling up, as well as net zero, are good examples. Having been engaged in both policy making and delivery, my belief is that delivery is usually the more difficult of two.
What a shame that delivery is currently the favourite word of Liz Truss. I see little evidence that she understands that the quality of what is delivered is important.
What a relief that many of the policies are so awful that it’s a good thing that they aren’t delivered – Rwanda here we don’t come.
Policy initiatives will be announced between now and the general election, regardless of whether they bear any relation to the conrent of the 2019 manifesto, simply because they can be. They may even reach the stage of being drafted as Bills, in the certain knowledge that they can’t be passed in this Parliament for lack of time. Think of them not so much as Bills as as early shots across the bows of the enemy in the general election campaign; and think of the cost of presenting them as campaign expenses paid out of the public purse and therefore not declarable.
As Captain Mainwaring might have said, damned clever, these Tories. Good job their on our side.