Labour has made a mess of managing British Steel. It had no strategy and no plan, and hadn't had the foresight to see the consequences of this. It is time it learned to govern.
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Labour has made a complete mess of its strategy around the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe.
I can tell you how I know that. The contrast between Labour and Network Rail lets me realise that there are managers in the UK economy who can see a crisis coming and take action to prevent it impacting their business.
Network Rail has stockpiled more than a year's worth of steel track - the stuff that they have to lay to replace worn-out rail to ensure that they can get through any crisis at Scunthorpe and change their supply lines for the future.
The government, on the other hand, reached the point where, on Saturday last week, we had to have an emergency session of Parliament because they hadn't anticipated the fact that the Chinese owners of the Scunthorpe plant might not play ball with the government with regard to its future operation.
Labour had no strategy, no plan, hadn't had the foresight to see the consequences of this, and as a result had to panic and even now does not know how it can guarantee that the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe might remain open.
That is a staggering indication of management failure by Labour, and they can't blame the Tories. They've been in office for nine months now. That's long enough for this to be their problem, which they should have dealt with, they should have managed, and they should have delivered a strategy upon.
It's time Labour admitted its own mistakes, and it's time Labour learned to govern.
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Thank you and well said, Richard.
I can’t argue with what you say, but wish to add context.
Labour typifies the PMC. Governing means learning, listening and perhaps what one may call a proper job. That’s not what these people are about. To do so would mean taking responsibility, taking time to move up and not making as much money. In addition, they are there to stop alternatives, whether it’s Corbyn or the likes of Prem and you, Clive Parry and Mike Parr.
They neither need, nor wish to learn and govern. They need a parachute from 2029, so selling Britain is the order of the day. That includes facilitating genocide on behalf of the US war machine, which includes Wall Street.
I buy that
Yes, agreed, these Labour con merchants are going to struggle to persuade publishers to give them massive advances for their memoirs, the standard post-office payment for services dutifully rendered, rather than a commercial transaction based on expectations of massive book sales.
I wonder what the steel strategy should be?
After all everything has gone swimmingly well with Water
Rail has rallied and is right on track
Electricity is reliably generating pricy power
I could go on
Let’s just admit piratisation was wrong and renationalise the lot. Even now Labour are looking for a company to take over at Scunthorpe. They will never learn.
Good points. Oddly, the European Commission has a “Foresight Group” – it reports to one of the Commissioners & looks ahead mostly @ science developments.
No reason why Uk could not have something similar – maybe focused on industry: what does the Uk need – the basics, who/what provides them, tactical/strategic weaknesses etc etc. The sort of thing that a bright 3rd year @ uni could cook up in half a day (obvs an exaggeration but you get the drift – this should not be hard stuff to do but as far as we know – given current circs – this does not seem to happen).
Obviously this was not on the radar of the genius Mc Sweeney team. Or perhaps they thought ” they are bluffing” ?
Chaos rules.
McSweeney/MccFadden don’t have a strategy for governing.
They are focussed solely (& incompetently) on the 2029 election and the demographic who either didn’t vote in 2024, or used to vote Labour but recently voted Reform. That literally is it – how to attract their idea of the socially conservative right wing so-called)white) working class vote.
Between 2016-2020 the sole priority was destroying Corbyn and getting rid of the entire left of the party, as well as the “old” Labour right, and handing it lock, stock and barrel to their neoliberal masters (esp Trevor Chinn). That strategy meant losing the GE in 2017 and 2019 which was preferable to having an honest social democrat as PM.
Any “running the country” issues are only of relevance in terms of how they can be exploited to improve Starmer’s (or Labour’s) chance of re-election (Starmer is disposable, Streeting is available) regardless of whether they actually improve the situation or are good for the nation.
Once you realise this, everything Labour do or fail to do begins to make sense.
Important questions in any national crisis are:
Who can we blame?
(Select from one or more of, the Tories, foreigners, immigrants, small boats, Putin, China, workshy benefit scroungers, the huge deficit, the national debt, the chronically sick, PIP claimants, young people with ADHD, Corbyn, Palestinians, protesters).
Will this action or national cockup make Starmer look tough, decisive, patriotic?
What do our donors/controllers want?
What does Trump want?
Does it offer a photo-opportunity with other world leaders?
They are so good at this job that they are well behind Reform in the polls AND they have wrecked the country even more than the Tories did.
I’m serious, this analysis helps make sense of the incomprehensibly stupid things LINO do every day.
It certainly helps
Christ almighty.
If there is anything worse than no effort, it’s a half-hearted effort.
Well said Richard.
Thanks
It does seem incredibly naive of the UK government to assume that a Chinese company (with steel interests in China and elsewhere) that bought the plant for £1 should act in the best interests of the UK.
But, having made that error I do have some respect for their last minute action. It would have been too easy to shrug shoulders and say “nothing can be done”…. but they didn’t and used the power of the State to achieve policy aims.
Now, having wielded that power let’s home that they get a taste of it and tackle Thames Water.
But they’re looking for a private investor……
… but we all know they won’t find one.
Agreed, entirely.
So, why are they so stupid?
I agree.
But Grangemouth?
Scotland’s only oil refinery in the the only one of the four nations which actually has oil fields?
Not a chance.
Might they be exhibiting a type of stupidity which is the consequence of an organisation which always works to remove those who exhibit any traits of differences of opinions attitudes or styles.
“Genuine political parties are there to enable all citizens and their children to live well, therefore let practical usefulness be preferred to conformity.” (From Francis Bacon)
Richard, I agree Labour are a bunch of politicians not business leaders or managers.
However blaming them entirely is a bit harsh. The Institute of Government has been pointing out for years that amongst the senior civil service cohort there are real deficiencies in key skills such as IT, contract management the list is long! I would add strategy and policymaking too.
Civil servants also have to deal with SPADs who frankly make governing and facing up to major issues even more difficult by effectively blocking access and quality time.
These things will contribute to poor governance too.
So who disabled the civil service?
Politicians did.
It was Thatcher and her neo-liberal friends.
They sold off national assets and industries in the belief this would “liberate” these industries to succeed by becoming commercial enterprises. This hasn’t gone well. Economic performance was better in the sixties and seventies than since.
But the worst offence was to undermine the whole idea of responsible government in the national interest. Their ,and since Blair , all governments seek to distance themselves from responsibility by using consultants as key advisors, and seek to outsource responsibility to the public sector outsourcers. The civil service now lacks the self confidence and experience in running things effectively . Politicians are now corrupt intermediaries in a public sector contracting circus where the party hoovers up bungs and subsidies to fund an electoral machine that perpetuates the system.
Can people come to their senses? They will first have to disavow Thatcher and all that she stood for.
We are not there yet.
They are managing to do something, it’s just not what any of us want. Labour have managed to, nearly, get a trade deal with the US, according to Vance. I wonder whether Streetings dismantling of the NHS is in preparation for this. Just the pesky food standards to get rid of next.
I’ve just read “The Nonaccountability Machine” by Dan Davies, and thought it very good. How cybernetic principles apply to management of large organisation, govt, company . . . Rapid takeaway: “the purpose of a system is what it does.” TPSIWID. This applies to so much comment on these pages. It also drives home idea that if we want to change what our system does, we need to change the purpose.
Sorry; Unaccountability Machine.
I find that maxim very useful when looking at systems and trying to frame my thoughts on them: “the purpose of a system is what it does, not what it says it will do.” For example, neoliberalism maintains that “human well-being can best be advanced within an institutional framework characterized by free markets, a minimal state, free trade, the absence of economic regulation, and strong individual property rights.” As we don’t have universal human well-being, and free trade, minimal state, and deregulation seem to disproportionately favour a minority, it is easy to conclude that that was its purpose all along.
Yes Richard, Col Smith, PSR, CP ,RJ , ST
Francis Bacon indeed – ” usefulness preferred to conformity.”
The depressing thing is that behind their utter uselessness in social and economic strategy there is also super efficient ‘conformity’ of the McSweeney/McFadden Labour operation. Any sign of any Labour MP or party member actually showing signs of thinking for themselves , or even wanting to discuss or debate ideas, will consign them to the wilderness.
This is wedded to the ideology that only the private sector creates ‘growth ‘ or ‘value’, – which is why they pretend to be seeking a private ‘partner’ for British Steel – they don’t want to be seen to think that the public sector can create anything useful.
Any Labour MP interviewed, has to directly quote from Starmer, or from recent Downing Street briefings, and otherwise utter the usual platitudes.
‘Conformity’ as ideology.
What hope is there?
We have to make hope
Richard, politicians have weakened the Civil Service for sure over time regardless of which party has been in power but those at the top of the Civil Service have also contributed to the current state. The move over time towards senior civil servants who are “manager” types rather than experts in their field with management skills has been welcomed by most civil servants at senior levels and not resisted. Where there was resistance this was quietly dealt with, HMRC being a prime example starting with the merger of Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise 20 odd years ago.
To change matters will take a long time and will be resisted by the politicians, their advisors, think tanks (IFS for example), consultants and media commentators who shape our policymaking today.
Mike P’s comments on this blog regarding Gas storage facilities recently is another example. There used to be a team that dealt with that sort of thing including maintaining critical reserves of key minerals etc. Alas now gone.
BTW, these comments apply to the F&CO too in such areas as language abilities and use of local staff in all sorts of roles.
I find it bewildering and depressing in equal measure how govt expenditure can be such a large percentage of GDP yet so little thinking about the future is allowed, encouraged, etc.
You spoke movingly I thought recently about why private sector initiatives can fail but that public sector ones must not fail, they must always deliver. I see the loss of expertise across govt and the lack of people able to think constructively about major issues like British Steel or possible issues in the long term as a major failing too.
There is a book written by Ian Dunt: “How Westminster Works … and why it doesn’t” that touches on civil service capability, from memory it is only one chapter but worth a read.
I will stop ranting now……….
Yes indeed Eric.
Many decades ago I was part of an economics/transport unit within a govt department set up by an enlightened minister and all the talk then was about generalists vs those with specialist skills . Things seem to have regressed over the decades.