What makes a successful Prime Minister? Britain has had plenty of political leaders in recent years, but how many have really understood what governing the country requires?

I argue that a successful Prime Minister needs three essential qualities.

First, they must understand the country they govern. They need to recognise why people are dissatisfied, what they fear, what they hope for and what they expect the government and a Prime Minister to deliver.

Second, they must understand how government actually works, including government finance. The UK government is not a household or a business. It creates the currency that everyone else uses. Money is not therefore the fundamental constraint on what government can achieve. The real constraints are people, skills, energy, materials and other available resources.

Third, a Prime Minister must have the determination to deliver change. Understanding what needs to be done achieves nothing if a political leader cannot withstand opposition from vested interests, the media, business, the City and even their own party.

Neoliberalism has hollowed out our idea of political leadership. Too many politicians now see government as something that should stand aside rather than actively shape society.

Could Britain once again have a genuinely transformative Prime Minister? I think so. But first we need political leaders who understand what government is actually for.

This is the audio version:

This is the transcript:

What are the characteristics of a successful Prime Minister? We've had a lot who've been very bad, so what would identify someone who has the skills that are needed to become Prime Minister of the UK and deliver us the sort of government that we are crying out for?

In my opinion, a successful Prime Minister needs three essential qualities.

Firstly, they must understand what people want and why they are dissatisfied.

Secondly, they must understand how government and government finance really work.

And thirdly, they must have the determination to use government to deliver change.

Without all those three qualities, I think they are likely to fail.

And they're going to fail people because they will not deliver change. After all, people do not vote to keep everything as it is.

Dissatisfaction is what drives people to vote, and it creates demand that politics is expected to answer. A Prime Minister must understand where that dissatisfaction comes from, and they must know what they think the government can do about it.

So let's talk about these required qualities in some more depth.

The first requirement is that a Prime Minister must understand the country that they're governing. That means that the Prime Minister must be deeply tuned in to the society for which they are responsible and to whom they are responsible.

They must understand people's wants, fears and aspirations, but they must also identify where disquiet exists and what is causing it. They must understand what people expect government to do about it, and as a consequence, they must understand what people want the government to deliver.

Political leadership begins with understanding the questions that people are asking. The people may not have the answers. It is the job of the Prime Minister to find them. But unless you can hear and understand the question, you cannot succeed in the role of Prime Minister.

Neoliberalism has created deep disquiet in this country. Neoliberal capitalism has failed large numbers of people. Many people no longer believe existing politics can meet their needs. Some are turning to the far-right for radical alternatives. Others are looking for people to blame for their situation. A Prime Minister who cannot understand this disquiet becomes part of the problem, and that is why we've had about seven in a row who've failed to deliver. All of them, neoliberal to their cores, have not understood the issue that this country is facing, which its people well and truly understand.

The second requirement of a Prime Minister is that they understand the way in which government works. It's a sad fact that, in my opinion, almost none of our recent Prime Ministers have come anywhere close to achieving that requirement.

A Prime Minister must really understand how government works, and in particular, they must understand how limited are the powers that they have available to them.

They can change the law, they can change regulation, they can change spending, they can change taxation. And beyond that, there are very few levers available to them. But the fact is that at present, governments seem not to understand the role of spending, and they seem not to understand the role of taxation, or borrowing, come to that. That is because government cannot be understood as though it were a business or as though it were a household.

Understanding its unique economic role is essential to political leadership, but David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham, as far as I can see, none of them has had this understanding of the unique economic role of government, and that's why we are in the mess we're in.

And let's be clear, government finance is fundamentally different to that of a household, a business, or even local government; a point that I do not think that Andy Burnham understands.

The UK government creates the pound that everyone else uses. It is not dependent on raising revenues before it can spend. It does not need to borrow money to provide the funds that the government spends. Treating government as financially constrained misunderstands what government is. And that is why so many Prime Ministers fail.

By definition, government is the one entity in the country that is not constrained by money because it has the essential job of creating it. If it does not do so, nobody else has the money they need, and if the government does not understand that, we really are in what might politely be called a deep pickle.

A Prime Minister has to understand that government money creation serves essential purposes. The economy literally cannot function without government money. Banking and finance depend on it, and a growing economy requires a growing money supply. It cannot function without it. And limited inflation that is created by that growing money supply is always preferable to economically damaging deflation. Government must also provide people with safe opportunities to save, and that is what we call government borrowing. And this must be understood by a Prime Minister who is going to successfully lead the government. If they do not understand what the core role of the government is, it cannot do its job, and that is the problem that we face .

They also have to understand that the real constraint on their activities is not money. The real constraint on what they can do is the availability of resources. People, skills, energy, and materials determine what a government can actually buy and therefore what it can deliver for people. Money is not the constraint. If resources of the sorts I've just described are available to buy, most especially if there are people available to hire, then the government can deliver services.

The government's task is, in fact, to manage resources without creating excessive inflation. That is its fundamental role. And to confuse financial limits with resource limits prevents that necessary process of change that people expect from government and makes the real task of managing the economy nigh on impossible.

The third requirement that a Prime Minister must have is a desire to deliver. They must come into office believing that they are going to create a change. They cannot be like David Cameron, who thought he wanted to be Prime Minister because he believed ‘he might be quite good at it'. He didn't know why he'd be good at it. He didn't know what he wanted to do as a consequence of having the job, but he thought he might be quite good at it. That is not good enough.

Personal aspiration to be Prime Minister is not the criterion for appointment. A Prime Minister of this country must possess an iron will to achieve change. A serious change will always encounter powerful opposition, and so a Prime Minister must be able to resist all the fight back which will come from within their own political party, from political opponents, the media and the City of London, plus businesses and other established interests that will not be happy with what they're trying to do. You can guarantee these will come, and the Prime Minister has to weather all that and carry on regardless.

In that case, understanding what must be done is useless without the determination to deliver it. This determination is an essential characteristic. Margaret Thatcher did know what she wanted to achieve. I didn't like it, but there is no doubt she was possessed of that ability. She understood exactly why she was Prime Minister. So, I think, did Harold Wilson, who I remember as Prime Minister and Clement Attlee, who was before my time. They also understood why they held office. That was why they were successful and won more than one general election each.

Their politics were very different, but they were determined to deliver. Since then, has anyone really, including Tony Blair? He might have won several times, but did he really have a determination to change the country? There's no evidence that he did. Leadership requires more than simply occupying the office of Prime Minister. It has to be matched by this desire to use it for the will of the people.

Neoliberalism has hollowed out political leadership in this country to the point where we do not have politicians who believe that this is the role of the government. They believe their role is to stand back and provide opportunity for markets to grow, but that is not good enough. That is having a Prime Minister who actually is achieving power to undermine the very institution that they've wanted to control so badly. The result has been government without sufficient ambition to govern itself.

A successful Prime Minister has, then, to turn their back on neoliberal thinking, and they must be possessed of all the qualities I've noted.

Understanding society identifies the change that people need.

Understanding government reveals how that change can be delivered.

Understanding government money removes artificial barriers to political action, and political determination makes delivery possible despite opposition.

Miss any of these qualities, and you risk failure.

So, the question is, could such a Prime Minister reach office today? A successful Prime Minister of this sort must still be possible. Human beings are possessed of these characteristics, but what we need is for them to achieve office so that we can have the transformative political leadership that is increasingly needed. But neoliberal institutions will resist anyone seeking to make change. Established interests will fight such a person.

So the question is, how do we get such a Prime Minister into office so they have the chance of winning against established power? And the answer to that is, if we want it badly enough, we have to take the risk on delivering it. But will we? Will we take the risk to demand the sorts of change from political parties that will require that they select leaders with these qualities so we get the change that we require?

At present, that appetite for change is not present in our society. But will it come? Yes, I think it will. Why do I think it will? Because I think we are going to face an economic meltdown. And as a consequence of that, we will need somebody with these characteristics to lead this country again, because without that insight, that use of sheer determination to create change, we're going to be in deep trouble.

I believe that person is out there. We might not know who they are as yet. That is, in fact, very likely. But my point is they do exist. This is possible. I've named people who've done it. We will get another such person. A successful Prime Minister is possible in this country, but we will have to sweep away neoliberalism first, and that will only happen when the neoliberal system has failed, but I think that will be happening fairly soon.

That's what I think. What do you think? There's a poll down below. Let us have your comments, please. Please do like and share this video. Please do subscribe to our channel and ring the bell so you get notifications when we publish new videos. And if you'd like to buy Tom, who's the other side of the camera and me a cup of coffee, there's a donation link down below that you can click so that you can do that. We'd be very grateful.

Poll

PDF of article