For decades we have suffered ministers who get elected to advance their own careers but not to deliver good government, in which they have no belief. Government that's rotted from the top down is the consequence of that.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Why does nothing work anymore?
People say that things don't work. There's plenty of evidence that they don't. The NHS is, for example, clearly not working in the way that people want.
Nor is social care.
People aren't getting the pensions they desire. And so much else appears not to be working within the UK state.
So why is that? What is it that has gone wrong, because if people are complaining now, and they weren't in the same way in the past, something must be wrong; be different? And I think there is something that is different and that something is right at the very top of the UK political pile.
You have a choice when you're a manager, and that is what politicians are once they get to the rank of the Cabinet, or ministerial posts, or whatever else it might be that they've been appointed to by a Prime Minister. Once they get to that position of power, they've got a choice about how they are going to manage the department for which they are responsible. They can either believe in what it is doing and, therefore, throw themselves wholeheartedly into the activity of that department, promoting it, trying to make it work to best effect, supporting the people within it, being its champion, demanding the resources that it requires from the Treasury and on. Or they can not bother. And I think we've had far too many ministers who've just not bothered for too long.
And the reason why is very straightforward. Since the post-war era, brought in the period of big government, there has also been a narrative about small government. This small government narrative was first put forward by the economists Frederick Hayek and Milton Friedman. And from the late 1940s onwards, they promoted the ideas that became neoliberalism.
And the whole concept of neoliberalism is about having small government, based upon the presumption that people know how to spend their money better than government does, and that government should, therefore, basically leave people alone to get on with things as they would wish, using the resources that they've got available to them, in other words, their own income and savings.
There are, of course, fundamental problems with that. That would mean that we wouldn't have had mass state education for everyone to the age of 18, and overall, we've benefited from that.
We would not have had universal health care, and a lot of people would have died a lot younger as a result.
We would not have provided a social safety net, which means that a load of people would have lived in poverty and probably died of the consequence.
And we would not have provided things like social housing, which for decades did improve the quality of life in the UK, even if it's very much harder to prove that now because so much of it has been sold.
We would also not have had the developments in so many industrial areas because the underpinnings would not have been provided.
But let's just presume for a minute that there is a counter-argument that neoliberalism might be right, that we could have small government. There are, after all, people who have got to high office in the UK who believe that. Most notably, of course, there was Liz Truss. She came into office believing that every single person in government was basically a communist set up to oppose everything she wanted to do. And why were they a communist? Because they believed that the state could deliver and, therefore, they were inherently bad in Liz Truss's view.
She was rotten at the very top of government. It's unsurprising her government failed. You can't run something when you don't believe in what it does. And that was the problem that she personified more than anybody else.
But there are ample people who appear to have that lack of faith in government even now when we have a Labour government.
It's not clear that West Streeting actually believes that the NHS is a good thing. He keeps on talking about what the private sector could do instead of the NHS.
It's not clear we have education ministers who really believe in the power of the state to deliver transformative education because they're all too happy to outsource it to educational trusts, which are pretty weird organizations when you think about it, and universities, which are structured as, well, businesses more than anything else. To be blunt, they are not really organisations that are focused upon meeting the needs of young people who want dedicated further education, so that they might understand better a particular subject so that they can help society at large when they've left that university and moved on into their careers.
This is not what we're seeing government ministers believe in. No, what we're seeing is government ministers who believe that the private sector is better than the private sector. And we hear it time and time again.
Every time an answer is wanted to a question, it's “How can we bring in BlackRock?”
“How can we bring in foreign direct investment?”
“How can we partner with the private sector?”
And yet, that isn't the foundation on which this country's economy or any other major country's economy was built on. In fact, the economy of the UK was very largely built on the basis of the state providing protection to business to help it to prosper, but within a safety net that the government provided to business itself. There were in fact tariffs around UK business to make sure that it developed and prospered for a very long time. And there have been state subsidies, and state support, and state assistance with regard to training, and so many other things for decades. But if you don't believe in any of that, if you think it's up to the private sector to provide the solution, that they have all the answers and you have not, you create what is called a rottenness at the very head of government.
And when we look at a fish, there is a story that goes around which is that the rot starts at its head. And it always does, by the way. That's where things begin to degrade. And that's where this phrase about rottenness at the top comes from. Because that's what's going on. When you have ministers who don't believe in what they're doing, you don't get good outcomes.
For fourteen years, the Tories did not believe in what they were doing, and the results were so glaringly obvious, almost everywhere. We were not prepared for Covid. They did not put in place the protections that were required to manage a pandemic, even though they knew one was likely. And look at the Post Office, reporting directly to the government, and yet, very clearly rotten in so much of what it did. And we can look elsewhere and find similar examples.
The problem with government is that it cannot function well unless there are ministers in office who actually believe in what government does, who believe that it is the job of the state to collect tax, who believe it is the job of the Bank of England to create the money that is required to fund our government services, who believe that it is the job of government to meet need, to facilitate opportunity, to protect people from fear. If you don't do that, if you don't have that belief, you won't deliver those outcomes. And that's why I think we have rotten government.
Because when it comes down to it, it doesn't work because ministers don't believe in it. And what we need are politicians who actually believe in the jobs that they all appear to be so desperate to do to pursue their own personal advantage, but which we want them to do to pursue advantage for the whole country.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Great post – we have had a long line of politicians who do not believe in what they are doing.
Imagine if at a job interview, you interviewed someone who was essentially going to break your firm up, give away all your power and revenue streams to a competitor if you employed them as well as exploit the people in your care?
You’d stop the interview, show him/her the door and interview someone else – surely?
Yet it seems to me that that is what we have been doing every time I’ve had the opportunity to vote.
Dealing with the political funding issue might help but this lack of belief in the pubic sector is central to the problem as you point out.
There was an article in the Guardian recently about how society had become more unequal and the impacts including ‘elite overproduction’ By contrast in the last year or so there was also a story about how in later life Harold Wilson was broke.
I’m not sure that by the time he died MacMilland finances were that robust either at least by the standards of his class.
Might I suggest a link?
Wilson and others of his era entered politics, amongst other things as a vocation so if you upset a few people on the way then so be it. Todays Politicians seem to see it more as a career move, Gordon Brown being perhaps an honourable exception, so they dont want to upset anyone as it might mean no lucrative directorships or sinecures at the end of their political career.
I wonder if we need to go back and look again at the Roman Cursus Honorum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_honorum
And demand that our aspirant politicians should have achieved recognition first in a career outside politics?
Clearly if the candidates offered up for election were Headteachers, Engineers, Senior Academics, HGV Drivers, Merchant Navy Officers, Trade Union Officials etc they would all have had experience of life outside politics and been required to demonstrate their competence.
In the same way a 50 year old aspiring MP would have less time left to either make money post politics or inclination.
That with perhaps a slightly more generous settlement arrangements for former MP’s on condition they stayed away from certain forms of employment that might be deemed to prejudice their judgement when in office
Thanks
And a lot to agree with
I think the jury might possibly still be out on Gordon Brown.
As chancellor he lived a Jekyll and Hyde existence wherein we find such things as giving independence to the Bank of England, overseeing the dilution of bank regulation, and then delivering that ridiculous paean of praise of the financial sector at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet just before the financial crash.
Contrast that with the “stealthy” approach to the good he did with funding of social programmes, etc and other things that improved the lives of the less-well-off, about which he said not as much.
Finally, allowing himself to be out manoeuvred over a general election by political clowns Cameron and Osborne ( who were helped by the Lib Dems) was not a good thing at all!
I have my doubts about Brown these days.
I think he was just another British politician who was over-enamoured with the U.S. with bad results for the U.K.
He was too supine over the public sector borrowing requirement imposed by the Tories that ended up funneling his government towards PFI.
Morally sound perhaps, but not as technically brilliant as some portray him as.
We are told this morning that Bitcoin (the tulip of the 21st century) is valued at $100,000 for the first time and that Trump, who knows a bandwagon when he sees one, is to ensure that the US benefits from its growth.
At the same time the French cannot agree a budget because “there is no money”, a theme now familiar across the world,
I have waited for a financial journalist to connect these two events. A gambling chip that has no value outside of a conventional currency system and a conventional currency system that cannot provide for the needs of the people who make that system possible.
How many financial journalists, politicians, city bigwigs own Bitcoin or its equivalent?
Neoliberalism – if I want to buy a tulip for $100,000 it’s no business of government – but of course it is: because the combined and growing value of millions of tulips represents a call on the financial systems that we all depend upon.
Excellent point
Did you see the recent statement from the GMC:
“While the total number of qualified GPs working in NHS general practice in England rose from 34,474 to 36,492, after taking working hours into account, the full time equivalent (FTE number of qualified GPs fell from 27,948 to 27,321. Factoring in population growth, the average number of GPs fell from 0.53 to 0.45 for every 1000 patients, representing a fall of 15%. ”
And it’s not the figures alone, it’s real people noticing this who are unable to get an appointment at a time that suits or waiting too long in A&E or being told to look after themselves better as it’s their fault the NHS is under pressure.
Do we make a better healthcare system, or get ourselves a new set of politicians who believe in government. Which is the priority for the public?
“The Public”, as a unitary organised interest, doesn’t exist. The supposed organised interest of “The Public” is – the Political Party. In reality, there is only one: the Single Transferable Party; therefore, that doesn’t work.
All other organisations of “The Public”, are all defined by some special interest of people gathered round some shared common interest or problem (business, trade unionists, or yet other myriad groupings brought together and breaking apart over a complex network of interests); all are merely a sub-group of “The Public” as a single interest. There is no usable, tangible “The Public”, and if it can be thought, in substantive, dependable terms it will prove ephemeral and unreliably transient.
If you look at the list of ‘extremisms’ in the government Prevent programme, it specifically talks about “single issue” protestors in a derogatory fashion (as it does very explicitly about socialists). This is how Whitehall views trade unionists, NGOs, community groups, NHS activists etc. Unruly pawns of lesser worth, amongst and unrepresentative of an amorphous ‘Public’ exemplified in the Party and the Great Leader, and in some cases to be targeted by the smear machine.
Richard wrote: “Most notably, of course, there was Liz Truss. She came into office believing that every single person in government was basically a communist set up to oppose everything she wanted to do. And why were they a communist? Because they believed that the state could deliver and, therefore, they were inherently bad in Liz Truss’s view”
Kemi Badenoch takes exactly the same line. The worry is she is more articulate and believeable (at least to some) than Truss, which makes her a danger to us all in the years ahead
It is nonsensical to hear of UK politicians talking about “small government” in an economy running such huge state-funded healthcare and education provision.
As ever with the UK, the issue seems to be more about the inability to free ourselves from binary arguments and the constant issue on quality of delivery.
Having spent much of my life studying, living and working in the state and private sector in Scandinavia (Denmark), I can attest to the complete reverse mentality (vs the UK) of those working in state organizations where the concepts of duty and custodial responsibility and accountability to the public purse are paramount.
It seems to me that the overriding issue is one of delivery. I agree with Richard that this also comes down to leadership. If UK civil servants (and there is plenty of current anecdotal evidence to suggest a crisis of morale – moreover, I would argue that this has been the case for some years now – based in first-hand experience) had an more credible attitude of accountability, we would see far better policy and outcomes.
In Scandinavian terms cost-effectiveness of solutions is a key factor – with income tax and VAT levels far higher and more comprehensive than in the UK. Unlike the UK, public spending is not casually written off as “equivalent to the tax revenues generated by just several thousand taxpayers” – as UK civil servants are prone to. Whilst this might seem a sensible gauge to apply – you start to wonder when the likes of ex-PM Sunak hand over £500m contracts to the likes of Tata Steel for them to fire 3,000 UK employees with no evident quid pro quo than the vague promise of UK tax receipts. Never mind the appalling issues faced in Scotland after major ferry tenders were not properly negotiated.
UK Government needs to be far more accountable. It is somewhat irrelevant what course of economic policy is pursued. If value for money criteria are not applied rigorously by those in public service who actually care about investing tax revenues responsibly, the whole point of the exercise is lost.
In the UK, we seem too caught between lavish over-spending and ludicrous cutbacks from two very different sets of arguments. The common ground should be – and there has never been an easier time to access – at the touch of a button – readily employable statistical comparables – sensible costings and budgetary planning. Otherwise one is left at the mercy of major corporate providers who can simply force UK public servants into decisions based on expediency rather than commonsense.
Central government spending does not have to be excessively debt-inducing to work. Central government cost efficiencies should not involve closing down entire departments. UK Government should nail down what is critical, and what is not. Nationalisation versus privatisation policies need to be debated and agreed upon as part of a long-term industrial strategy. Underpinned by public servants who treat tax revenues with the respect they deserve.
What Scandinavian countries seem to benefit from is a sense of consensus as to how government should be run. Absent a similar consensus in the UK, we will always be caught chasing our tails as we lurch from one set of extremes to the other. Or – as we seem to have today from the outgoing Tory and incoming Labour Administrations – a whole lot of confusion.
Why has the consensus on the right way forward for a long-term industrial policy not even been settled yet? From the prospect of potential Corbyn to Truss governments in a matter of years – none of this makes any sense at all… Without consensus and economic leadership – we are nowhere.
Why is this important?
Does anyone really trust the current crop of political leaders to see the UK through a major (economic….!) crisis with any level of competence or reassurance…??
The three powers of hegemonic gaslighting (via cultural institutions like the BBC and the control of education), etiolated political parties with little or no democracy, and the heavily funded (and indulged – Farage on the TV!) simplicities of the populist far right. That’s why we are where we are.
Thank you, John Griffin, above.
With regard to the prevent programme, I sat alongside a very close relative, government employee, who had to complete the online training recently and noticed the political slant.
Thank you to Karl Greenall and PSR, above.
I stopped rating Brown when he became shadow chancellor.
PSR: “I think he was just another British politician who was over-enamoured with the U.S. with bad results for the U.K.”
Brown would only holiday in the US if abroad. He is obsessed with the US and preferred Cape Cod, so he could bump into the Clinton gangstas. After the World Bank and IMF meetings in Washington and his holidays and other visits, he would go to ECOFIN and lecture EU peers about the US and name drop the USians he met. After his monologue, the monoglot Brown would work on his UK papers whilst other finance ministers spoke. He would not even wear headphones and pretend to listen to the translation.
In the spring of 2008, as I arrived at the main City trade body, so well before Lehman, I learnt that, some years before, including when opening the new Lehman HQ at Canary Wharf, Brown asked banksters to send the names of government officials felt to be blocking business. Older and wiser heads at the trade body asked the banksters not to take up Brown’s offer.
Bank of England independence was big mistake. Setting up the FSA was equal to that. In 1999 and 2005, a senior Bank of England employee, who retired as deputy governor a decade or so ago, was threatened with dismissal for raising the alarm about the new regulatory architecture and warning signs that led to 2008. This fellow would like the papers unsealed now, not when they do under the thirty year rule, and a public enquiry. He wants his day in court.
Hmmmm, maybe I should review my views on Brown’s ‘morality’?!
Thank you, PSR. You should.
I tried to post this yesterday but it seems to have gone walk-about. Here goes again:
Iain wrote: “What Scandinavian countries seem to benefit from is a sense of consensus as to how government should be run”.
I think there are two factors at play here:
The presence of a national Constitution (and they’re pretty well universal except for the UK) helps define the parameters which apply to the politicians’ powers and policies, just as it also shapes the public’s opinions of politicians’ proposals. In short the Constitution effectively sets the rules for politicians and the social and electoral standards which the public expect to be delivered. In essence the system is designed to protect citizens’ rights.
In contrast, in the UK with no written Constitution, the electoral system delivers disproportionate and unrepresentative outcomes while the political parties, driven by their dogma, hold sway with unlimited powers if they hold enough seats. It’s as though the whole system is defined without regard for the people’s rights.
The other factor is the relevance or otherwise of class. England seems to have a fixation with it (in the form of caste) that’s not typical of the UK’s devolved nations or indeed most of Europe. There’s certainly more social homogeneity in the Scandinavian nations than in England and this may explain the apparent disdain for people’s rights in the policies of recent UK Governments.
The SNP and the wider Scottish Independence movement are much closer to the Scandinavian model, both in Constitutional and societal terms, than the UK Gov is, hence the endless friction deriving from England viewing sovereignty as lying with Westminster, while Scotland’s view is that the people are sovereign. This can’t be maintained indefinitely. Scotland already aligns more closely with the Scandinavian nations in these matters. It’s only a matter of time.
Thanks Ken
I had not seen it before…..