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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
“Why are politicians so useless?” As we start the year, the cry goes up that democratic leaders are either bullies or pygmies. Trust in politicians has slumped below even that of journalists, a new nadir. So let me begin with the thought that politics is still a noble profession. And that the very unpopularity of Downing Street’s current occupant should give him the courage to move fast and break at least a few things.
A well-kept secret of British politics is just how much agreement there is, between those who’ve served governments of all stripes, that the state needs drastic rewiring.
Dominic Cummings, the Boris Johnson aide whose name crops up increasingly among Labour apparatchiks who now understand what he was on about, advocates drastically shrinking the civil service and replacing generalists (“confident public school bluffers”) with specialists. Paul Ovenden, who was Sir Keir Starmer’s director of strategy until September, has launched a blistering attack on what he calls the “Stakeholder State”: the ecosystem of quangos, charities and interest groups which increasingly call the shots.
Ovenden thinks that a strong leader could face down these groups, which are far removed from voters. This reflects what other insiders have been saying for a while: many of those close to Starmer are frustrated with his tendency to act like a lofty chairman in what is essentially a CEO role.
It would be easy to be catty about Starmer’s New Year lament that his Plan for Change is being obstructed by “parliament” (he’s got a huge majority in the Commons, and is packing the Lords), “arm’s length bodies” (he’s created 20 of them) and “consultations”. But most of his predecessors have expressed similar sentiments.
It doesn’t matter who occupies Downing Street: they quickly feel like they’ve fallen into an Escher drawing where every door just leads to another staircase. Pat McFadden’s Cabinet Office speech on reforming the public sector, delivered one year ago, contained many echoes of Conservative minister Francis Maude’s 15 years before. McFadden called for consistent, long-term reform of Whitehall to tackle the toxic combination of “rising costs, bad outcomes”.
His articulation of the problem was right. Outside, the public see hospital waits, trains cancelled, prisoners released early. The most vulnerable experience state failures most acutely, because they rely on multiple services which don’t join up. Inside, every policy must go to consultation, with “stakeholders” of varying relevance, and be assessed for equality impact against every protected characteristic. Attempts to inject urgency die in task forces and reviews. Weak ministers then start asking for “announceables” to satiate the media, although these often cut across policy. They try to assert themselves by raining down diktats on frontline professionals, with no idea of how demoralising and distracting that is.
One reason why nothing ever seems to change is that it’s hard. Without vigilance and drive from the top, delivery drifts. But it’s also because politicians are scared: of unpopularity, of judicial review, of their own side. That’s not good enough.
Take housing, a major manifesto promise which Labour is failing to meet. In London, new developments are being blocked by a monstrously risk-averse Building Safety Regulator, created by the Conservatives after the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Labour could abolish the regulator but fears it might be accused of not caring about vulnerable groups.
Next, energy. High electricity prices are making industry uncompetitive and slowing the rollout of data centres, one of this government’s only bets for growth. A paralysed Number 10 decided not to support zonal pricing, on the grounds that southerners would resent paying higher bills than Scots with wind turbines. It’s also scared of Ed Miliband.
And what about the various impact assessments which have burgeoned into a whole industry, loading costs on to business, which the chancellor and other ministers have complained about? There clearly needs to be some kind of overhaul of the 2010 Equality Act’s impositions, especially the public sector duty. But the act was one of Gordon Brown’s proudest achievements.
Making progress in any of these areas would mean the government risking a fight with its own side. But this might actually be popular. No one believes that Labour doesn’t care about equalities, or fire risk, or clean energy.
There are equally obvious steps to take when it comes to the civil service. End the generalist merry-go-round where rising stars are moved every 18 months and no one carries the can if a project goes wrong. Include risk-taking in appraisals. Tie pay to performance. Make “diversity” mean working-class, not just different versions of metropolitan graduate. These things never happen, because cabinet secretaries resist. So why not appoint a civil service chief executive? Who’s stopping you?
Public sector reform should be easiest for Labour to do, precisely because it is Labour. Whitehall and the public sector, tending to lean left, are less suspicious of motives. In Starmer, Britain has finally got what some wished for: a politician who had a long career before politics, who is open to changing his mind and who isn’t obsessed with soundbites. Unfortunately, he can also be naive, robotic, and his U-turns look like weakness. But he does care about public sector reform.
Tony Blair once said he’d only just got good at the job before he left it. One of the tragedies of our system is how many veterans are marooned on podcasts, or in the House of Lords. Starmer assumed his missions would happen because he said so. Now he knows otherwise. It’s time to be brave.