Only the most extreme optimist has high expectations of government nowadays, while any idealism has been quashed. The arrest on Monday of Peter Mandelson, who Keir Starmer made his ambassador to Washington, has not helped. Even so, it seems reasonable to expect at least a degree of competence from our politicians.
It is the continuing pattern of apparently unexpected events and embarrassing policy reversals that makes the current government appear incapable of organising even a party in a brewery. From its early days in office, when it withdrew the winter fuel allowance, to its latest U-turn on plans to postpone some local elections, it is constantly correcting its mistakes.
Given the changes coming to the structure of local government, there seemed to be a reasonable case for the postponement. But a legal challenge was enough to persuade Keir Starmer – a former director of public prosecutions – that the policy was unlikely to win legal approval. The result is a hefty bill for taxpayers, chaos for those now faced with staging last-minute elections, and a desperate hunt for candidates. Worse still, at least from the government’s standpoint, the challenge was brought by Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Some gaffes result from an apparent lack of political antennae, while others seem due to reliance on faulty information. The first should be easy to rectify, by hiring a few people who understand the public mood and how best to present changes in the media. It is extraordinary that this glaring problem has still to be addressed.
Much trickier are the errors that go beyond the political, for example the effect that changes in inheritance tax would have on family-owned farms. The farming sector is highly effective in its lobbying, but neither the interviews with family members claiming their livelihoods would be destroyed, nor the protesting tractor-drivers who clogged up Westminster were enough to persuade the government to back-track.
What forced the policy change was the fact that the government had simply been unaware of the potential effects of its original proposals.
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How can this happen? And how can Starmer’s administration decide that a policy it had previously defended, arguing that postponing some local elections was the sensible and economically prudent thing to do, was probably illegal? If ministers aren’t able to get things right, the civil service should step in. Either ministers are failing to use the civil service, or they are choosing to ignore its advice, or the civil servants are being economical with their guidance. It may be that the explanation for Labour’s failings lies in a combination of all these things. The sacking of Chris Wormald, the short-lived cabinet secretary, and the unsightly dithering over who should be his successor will do nothing to improve relations between the administration and officials in Whitehall.
This Fawlty Towers approach serves to persuade voters that they should look beyond the main parties.
For those seeking novelty, there is plenty of choice. The latest comes in the shape of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party. Lowe is already an MP, having been elected as a member of Reform before being suspended from the party.
Lowe’s policies, based on what he claims are “Christian principles”, including the belief that high state spending is linked to “moral decline”, are in line with those of Ben Habib, a former deputy leader of Reform who now has his own party, Advance UK. He, like Lowe, advocates mass deportations of all illegal immigrants and has previously been a vocal supporter of Lowe. He now claims to like the idea of their two infant parties merging.
The leaders of Restore Britain, Advance UK and Reform are all a particular type: they attended public schools and went on to work in the City. Lowe did not stay there long, becoming chairman of Southampton FC through an unlikely takeover of it by his care homes business, Secure Retirements.
“Secure” was not the word that applied to jobs at SFC, as Lowe’s tenure was marked by many personnel changes and ended in the club’s relegation from the premier league.
Similarities with Farage’s management style are obvious. Perhaps the reason each of the trio is running their own party is because they are simply not team players. But, while politics is often said to be a team game, the winners are undoubtedly those with strong leaders. At the moment, that is what the government seems to be desperately lacking. That lack of direction at the top could end up pushing voters out to the extremes.
