Today’s speech was a powerful statement of intent from the prime minister, and a step in the right direction. Scrapping NHS England is eminently sensible; its relationship with DHSC was dysfunctional at best, frequently leading to duplication or inaction, and blurring lines of accountability.
Key decisions about the future of the country should be determined by democratic politics – not unelected quangos – and Keir Starmer is right to want parliament to take back control. But reforming government is only one half of the equation. You also need to prepare people to actually govern the country and its public institutions.
I spoke to one SpAd recently and asked him what books he’d been reading since he started in government. I was interested to learn the intellectual influences shaping the new government. He looked at me as though I were mad.
Westminster, with its short attention span, its focus on the ephemeral over the substantive, its constant hum of scandal and intrigue, and its at times demeaning working conditions, provides little space for reflection.
‘Politicians effectively go in blind’
When you are caught in the middle of it, it is hard to see beyond the latest update in the 24-hours news cycle. The distinction between appearance and substance dissolves and political life becomes a frenetic blur of competing factions, of petty power struggles, of which journalist said what, and whether a given line at PMQs ‘cut through’ (it did not; no one watches it; get a new hobby) – not helped by the constant psephological din produced by polling. Amid this frenzy, it is easy to lose sight of what matters – the country, and how to govern it better.
And the problems do not start in government. Politicians and their advisors effectively go in blind, with little training or support. After a 14-year stint in opposition, this was felt particularly keenly by the new government.
It is not exactly a secret in Westminster that Labour was not ready for government, despite all the evidence that government was what awaited us. New YouGov polling for Civic Future shows that fewer than a third of MPs think their new colleagues receive adequate training.
Without time and space to develop a coherent understanding of the country and its problems, without knowledge of how the system and its intricacies work and can be reformed, without any basic training in statistics or public finances, we expect our politicians to grip hold of a Whitehall system that remains as elusive as Yes Minister’s portrayal suggested it was 45 years ago.
READ MORE: Union backlash as Starmer vows ‘flabby’ state reform and axes NHS England
‘We are moving into French territory – politicians unpopular upon arrival’
Yet Britain’s problems are profound, and we need leaders capable of rising to them. The government’s poor popularity figures are less about the specifics of the government itself, than the underlying malaise deep in Britain’s body politic. We are moving into French territory, with politicians unpopular upon arrival; getting ‘the grown-ups back in charge’ has not proved enough.
It is not difficult to understand why. We are getting poorer – rising immigration has covered up the extent of our poor growth; on a per capita basis, GDP has declined six out of the last eight and eight out of the last 11 quarters. Productivity and real wages – despite a recent uptick – are flat too. We struggle to build anything, with infrastructure projects frequently cancelled or over budget, crippled by regulation and the costs of judicial review.
And there is a sense that the social contract has broken down. Outside Westminster, there is profound anger at a political establishment that has left behind huge swathes of the country. Many young people, meanwhile, want to leave the country altogether; a report found that 38% of people between the ages of 25 and 34 are considering moving abroad in the next five years.
READ MORE: ‘With budgets tight, Starmer is right to crackdown on quangos’
The Civic Future Fellowship (applications close on Sunday), now recruiting for our third cohort of Fellows as well as our first cohort of more senior future leaders, provides a space for reflection on the meaning of liberal democracy, the role of Britain in the world, and how we can overcome the long-term dysfunction in our country.
Keir Starmer is right that government needs to take on the vested interests, bloated bureaucracy, and judicial overreach that block decisive executive action, and Pat McFadden is right that the machinery of the state needs shaking up. That requires politicians who are ready to grapple with it from the outset. Without that, any agenda – especially a radical one – will be dead on arrival.
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