Britain's new Philosopher Kings
Appropriately enough for a prime minister who studied ancient Greek, and who learned the history of Athens and its philosophers, Boris Johnson is embracing Plato’s concept of the Philosopher-Kings, the wise men who are best suited to rule a state in times of deep trouble.
The classic British constitutional concept of ministers, who are accountable to parliament which has supreme power, is fading visibly.
Boris Johnson prefers to rule with as little contact with the Commons as he can manage. He got into a row early on in his premiership when he tried to suspended the Commons in order to force through a hard Brexit. This move was blocked by the Supreme Court. In the midst of the worst economic and health crisis in centuries, he sent Parliament off on a four-week break.
His illness has kept him away and this morning he returned with a confident, measured Downing Street performance. The old flippant, insouciant, joke-a-minute Boris appears to have been left behind in St Thomas’s hospital. A more serious Johnson has emerged, sounding more like a President Macron or a Chancellor Merkel than his former, joshing self.
But it was striking in his first address that he did not mention Parliament. Soon there will be the Whitsun recess. He is entitled to take some decent paternity leave, and after that will come the long summer recess. No prime minister has spent so little time being accountable to the Commons in recent history.
The Zoom Commons is a travesty. While Sir Keir Starmer’s exchanges with Dominic Raab showed that the Labour party now has a much sharper leader than before, Prime Ministers’ Questions still sounded like a Lincoln’s Inn moot in front of no-one.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister is handing ministerial power and authority over to the men he trusts. Dominic Cummings is the most obvious example. Any prime minister might want to have an official to report back on discussions of scientists grouped in SAGE.
Jonathan Powell did the heavy lifting for Tony Blair on the Good Friday Peace accord. But Powell was a life-long civil servant. Cummings is not. He outranks most ministers. Everyone at the SAGE meeting would have watched what they said as one of the new philosopher-kings of the British state sat in the meeting.
Another is David Frost, the diplomat who is negotiating the terms of the final settlement on Brexit. Every previous major negotiation with Europe was headed by a minister. I remember Jack Straw when he was Foreign Secretary, spending a summer holiday poring over the fine print of the constitutional treaty. He knew he would have to defend it in the Commons and led from the front as a minister. Mr Frost, whose highest diplomatic posting was Ambassador to Denmark, is a serious, thoughtful man. But he is not elected. As another philosopher-king he tweets his denunciations of Brussels to social media applause from devout Brexiteers. But he is not accountable to Parliament.
A third is Sir Patrick Vallance recruited from a giant pharmaceutical firm to be Chief Scientific Advisor. He propagated the herd immunity theory that led to the much later lock-down in the UK than elsewhere in Europe. He is another philosopher-king, wise, benevolent but not accountable to MPs.
In other countries the all-knowing state servant or political aide can be made a Minister. Britain has preferred Ministers who are elected MPs to be in charge. No longer.
Now the reign of Philosopher-Kings has begun.
