Boris Johnson has survived another weekend, even if the pressure on him continues to mount. During this one he claimed to have reorganised the top management of Number 10. I have to admit to being unimpressed. That, however, has nothing to do with the process involved, or the people appointed. It does, instead, come down to his motivation.
In days gone by, when I spent most of my time as a practising chartered accountant, there was one type of client I never wanted on my books. Those were the ones who said that their main goal in life was to make a lot of money. There was three fundamental reasons for this.
First of all, these were the people who were by far the most likely to fail in business because they had no idea what they were really doing. They had no interest in the product, the customer, or their staff. They just wanted cash flow, and it took very little time for anyone to work out that they had little to offer in exchange. What was apparent was that they ran bad businesses.
Second, these were the clients most likely to argue about the bill, and to take the longest to pay. The hassle that they created was not worth the effort of working with them.
But the third reason was the real explanation for why I didn't like working with these people. They simply weren't very nice, and I too might of been at work and I too might have eventually been wanting a profit from doing so, but there was always much more to the process than that. I did not leave my humanity at the door when I walked into the office, and nor did profit become the only thing that I was interested in. The quality of the human relationships developed during the course of work was pretty fundamental to the pleasure I got from being an accountant, and the people who prioritised profit over everything else usually had very little to offer in this regard. The firm of which I was senior partner was very willing to turn down work, whether at the enquiry stage or if it turned out that the client did not fit into our portfolio after a period of time. That was because we knew what we were about. We ran a better firm because of it.
There is a relevance to this experience when I look at what Boris Johnson is doing. It is abundantly clear that like the person who puts profit at the centre of their priority, Johnson is indifferent to other people. Whether it is power or profit that he really wants makes little difference: everything about his management of the government is all about him. Hence his comment this weekend that it will take a brigade of tanks to get him out of Downing Street.
Following on from this, it is very apparent that he is not running a good government, precisely because he does not believe in government. He wanted power to undermine the very thing he wanted to manage. This is the paradox that underpins the entire Tory philosophy. How can you run a good government when your entire purpose is to restrict what the government can do, meaning that you are always going to be alienated yourself from everyone who works for you, who has chosen to undertake the work that they do because they believe in the power of government to transform lives, which makes their own work worthwhile? I doubt this dilemma can ever be resolved: Tories will always govern badly because that is what they set out to do.
And then, there is, of course the obsession with money. By framing government as an agent of taxpayers, which it is not, and by then suggesting that everything government spends is taxpayers' money, which it is not, and by suggesting that government has no resources of its own, when it very clearly has, the Tories suggest that it is their task in government to limit the amount of spending that takes place to reduce the demand on those taxpayers whose interest they seek to serve, who come from the wealthiest parts of society. They are not, in that case, interested in what government can do. They are, instead, profit maximising for a limited part of society who are already the best off but either do not realise this or are so callous that they wish to improve their own lot irrespective of the consequence for others.
Nothing Johnson has done this weekend will change these characteristics that define his approach to government. As a consequence, his government is bound to continue to fail. It has no potential saving graces.
This, however, is not a trait now confined to Johnson. Given that the entire notion of one nation Toryism has entirely disappeared, at least from the Parliamentary party, whoever succeeds Johnson might be a better, or at least more focused, administrator than him, but they will still bring the same characteristics to the job that he does and so will, therefore, be as likely to fail.
The simple fact is that you cannot govern well if you think that your job is to undermine government, and that logic is at the very heart of modern Tory party belief. This is precisely why this party should not be trusted with governing again. They are a bunch of losers when it comes to the task of governing.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Tories are ideologically committed to not solving any problems.
When trying to make some sense of this … Government? I have found more than a passing resemblance to the screenplay for A Game of Thrones. Immoral, avaricious, dishonest, feudal, delighting in excess. Is there a prima facie case for a charge of plagiarism?
On the downside it was a long series, great as entertainment but it is less attractive in the real world.
Large parts of the general public like Johnson. I believe he is the one keeping the Tories in power. Why ? I just don’t know. He is more centrist than a lot of the right wing tory candidates who would likely take his place and the public love a game show host type of character. Typical Tory ideology as far as I can make out. Small Government, Low (ish tax) and a Free uncontrolled market.
I don’t think Johnson IS more centrist. I think he is a chameleon who responds to whatever the current audience wants. A ploy that works while the listeners are so happy to get what they want that they never query the impossible inconsistencies in what he says to different audiences.
Keep up the good work.
What you have stated is a simple truth of the modern Tory party.
To manage the area between the two contradictory notions as liberalism (the individual) and the State (the collective) requires skill, intelligence and judgement shorn of ideology.
The Tories have too little skill, intelligence and judgement and too much ideology.
And woe be to us.
Another characteristic I have learned to avoid is pathological meaness. The Sonia Purnell insight into his time in Brussels showed him spending hours in pubs but never ever buying drinks, demonstrates quite clearly that Boris is all about having, and never sharing.
Sonia Purnell was interviewed on the Oh God What Now podcast last week:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/oh-god-what-now-formerly-remainiacs/id1245265763?i=1000550026685
The continuing puzzle is how they could have chosen him knowing what is blindingly obvious. And continue to support him. I suspect because most of them are no better.
It’s now all about clinging to power at all costs and I think this is partly driven by the mountain of merde that is going to be exposed when this does all collapse. A lot of reputations are going to be trashed.
I was in a meeting of Parliamentarians this am, one of who is on the Public Accounts Committee. Not someone given to exaggeration, but the fraud and waste they are finding was described as utterly shocking. The Tories (ill deserved) reputation for ‘economic’ competence deserves to be trashed. A good theme for the opposition to focus on.
Robin
I suggest that there is no puzzle as to why Boris was chosen.
He’s the rich person’s candidate – ‘Make him PM and I’ll give you my money.’
He’s the Tory funder’s candidate, that’s who Boris is.
Perhaps I was being ironic or just obtuse when I used the word puzzled.
I too see him as a front-man, someone they saw as prepared to say whatever would get him and the Tories elected, however dishonest or destructive. Lies that would pander to the concerns and prejudices of the ‘Red wall’ voter as well as to more traditional conservatives.
He is the front-man for very wealthy interests, concentrated in the City. It is no coincidence that Tory funding is so dominated by hedge funds, private equity and those sections of finance along with their fellow travellers in law, accounting and property. Along of course with corrupt finance from oligarchs and the like, on whose wealth those sections of the City now depend. Londongrad.
I’m not sure it is about the old class structure any more, but is more about wealth and poverty, more like America where it is wealth that determines ‘class’ and power. Private schools are now dominated entirely by the extremely wealthy, along with a disproportionate number of the children of oligarchs and the like. They grow up together and now doubt those relationships continue. Another argument for the abolition or at least clamping down on private schools.
Johnson may have turned out to be even more dishonest and despicable than many of the Tories anticipated but they are in too deep now. Just look at the tiny number of MPs who have spoken out against Johnson’s slurs about Starmer. It is small consolation that they are on a path to self destruction, as they are doing so much damage to the country in the process.
I watched an interview with Noam Chomsky on Al Jazeera.
He described the American Republican part as a party of denial. That is accurate. They stop laws which help most people and try to pass laws to game the electoral system. They propose little or nothing which helps the ordinary person. The Conservatives have been modelling themselves on them for 20 years. If we want to know where the Tories are going, look at the USA.
I suppose many of us have sort of thought that forever, but I have not seen it spelt out in those terms. The poignancy of just this narrow point is PRECISELY what requires emphasis at every opportunity. Perhaps the other aspect of it is the general dilution of commitment to public service among state employees across the board. Culture of organisations, in the long run, comes from the top. Although the current regime is the worst so far, one must not forget the Cameron era began the most severe long term austerity of post war years and this conscious assault on the welfare state in the backdrop to the final assault now underway. There is continuity here, for which we must not forget the responsibility of Messrs Clegg, Cable and Alexander.
Given he clearly doesn’t respect either tradition or the hypothetical constitution, what happens when the 22 Committee get their 54 letters, choose a new leader, but Boris refuses to leave No. 10??
Good question…..
The cabinet have to quit
What if they don’t want to?
We’ll have to see
Brilliant analysis of the inherent contradiction in Tory “government.” Their only success is in perpetrating such a seemingly impossible contradiction for so long because to understand what they are actually about defies rationality and logic, so people deny reality to enable some semblance of plausibility in what is happening. And it is a version of the US libertarian stance which is so tied into celebrity culture, consumer culture and abject fear of falling through the net. However, unpicking it in order to make it visible in order to destroy it is complex of course.
The recent success of left and leftish administrations in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, Honduras, Chile (plus Portugal …) seems to indicate the waning hold of US influence in South America at least. England is one of the most impregnable bastions of its influence, having poisoned the EU into adopting financialised neo-liberalism and then abandoning them for not going far enough.
Brilliant article Richard , it is upsetting getting up every morning knowing that this is the type of Governance that the people of the UK have to endure or even sadder want ? Although you have labelled them as ” Losers ” and in the context of your piece they are , to their mates the 5% and the wannabes they are the winners . this notion is powerfully represented everywhere we look nowadays , even the Labour Party has purged it’s membership. Your article is our hope and it takes a brave man to put his head above the parapet with this message , i admire you Richard , for trying.
Richard,
As accountants we understand the stewardship role, and the need for control.
But the problem we all have is common to all co-pilots when the pilot is heading the plane into the sea.
Translating the analysis of the situation into action to rip the controls from the pilots hands.
There is no polite way of doing it.
The time for politeness has gone
Here is my depressing prediction: Johnson is going to last until the next election. The Tories are now the British GOP.