Getting a grip

If last week was about first-day-at-school selfies, and for some, red boxes, then this week is about the hard yards of change. The thrill of a new government is fleeting, and soon people want to see what difference their votes will make.

Making a difference is hard. The Tories may be fighting each other for the foreseeable future, but there are other forces ranged against the Labour government. The political opposition is obvious – the Greens, the ‘Gaza’ independents, the Lib Dems, the SNP and Reform UK. These forces create a new dynamic within parliament, and new challenges. We will have to find ways to deal with our enemies to the left and right which deny them the oxygen of publicity, and close down their facile sloganising and transitional demands.

But there is a less obvious enemy of change. Incoming Ministers will soon encounter the same phenomena that every Minister encounters. This is the subtle resistance to change which frustrates governments of every hue. On the left, we sometimes call it the ‘establishment’. On the right they refer to ‘the blob’. It manifests as the sclerosis and slowness that government systems display when confronted by change. It is the classic battle between the elected and unelected, between politicians and officials, judges, quangocrats, media tycoons, pressure groups, and those who benefit from some version of the status quo.

New Ministers will encounter all of the frustrations and clashes of cultures that have beset Ministers since the days of Walpole. They will find, like generations of Ministers, that their wishes seem to be ignored, that the advice they receive seems remarkably narrow, that the options they are offered appear unfeasibly loaded towards a single course, that their days are filled with pointless meetings and their evenings and weekends are filled with a forest of papers.

They may find that their power to make a difference is illusive, seemingly outsourced to arms-length bodies, unelected regulators, and quangos. The tumult of the election campaign, and the pledges made on doorsteps and at hustings, will seem like a distant echo. The grim, exhausting treadmill of Ministerial life will consume them, from early dawn to late into the night. As democrats, we believe this is not merely ineffective but dangerous. As Harold Laski said ‘democracy requires the drama of positive achievement to retain its faith’.

A new report this week from Policy Exchange attempts some political solutions to this ministerial impotence. The report draws on my experience in Government as a special adviser, alongside the experience of a senior civil servant and a Conservative special adviser to three education secretaries. What we all agree on is that democratically-elected Governments must govern. Ministers must be allowed to make the changes they promised. Democracy must prevail, not least because the alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.

For example, incoming ministers must be allowed access to a plurality of advice, beyond the group think. Already, ministers have been instructed they must not serve on the executives of think tanks. The Fabian Society has just lost four executive members on this stricture. Yet successful ministers must be involved in the places where ideas are percolated and formulated, like think tanks, seminars, and conferences (beyond turning up and making a speech).

In my experience, civil service advice is excellent but often narrow. The role of special advisers is to expand the range of advice, and test the officials’ assumptions. The judicious use of political notes in the ministerial box can help – but there should be far more political advisers and more advice for successful decision-making.

Incoming ministers are learning the limitations of their power. They are discovering that many of the levers of change are pulled and pushed by arms-length bodies, over which they have little control. The things that mattered in the election, from rail ticketing to water bills, are beyond the immediate reach of ministers. Systems must be far more responsive to ministerial direction.

And of course, this must include the Prime Minister. We need a strong centre with a clear sense of mission. Labour’s campaign missions must translate into machinery of government changes to deliver them. The cabinet sub-committee system must be adapted to mission-led government, and departmental resources marshalled accordingly.

There are plenty of recommendations in the Policy Exchange report and each is worthy of serious interrogation. The fact is that most Ministers, on handing back the seals of office, have little to show for it. Few can point to a significant improvement in our national life, and say ‘I did that’.

Change, when it comes, can be grinding and almost imperceptible. Our democratic socialism is incrementalist and gradualist. That is both its utility and its curse. It lacks populist drama, preferring steady progress over emotional spasm. Aneurin Bevan pointed to the rosy cheeks of the post-war babies in their prams, raised in the welfare state, as his legacy. What will Bridget Phillipson or Wes Streeting be able to claim as theirs? The answers will rest on their ability, and that of the entire new government, to get a grip on the system and make it work. Selfie time is over.

 

If you enjoyed this piece, see ‘We may have turned the page but we now need to write the next chapter’.

The post Getting a grip appeared first on Progressive Britain.