Is Britain finally waking up?
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My starting point is that realism, as opposed to wilful denial, wishful thinking, and can-kicking, is the foundation of Britain’s two most urgent needs: hope and confidence.
The reality one year into this parliament is that our broken political system now really is on suicide watch. It is finally striking home that we are indeed locked into political and economic doom loops.
The political doom loop of recent decades refers to the lurching between Conservatives and Labour (plus five years of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition), to no discernible strategic benefit. Big issue problems have continued to mount and hope and confidence in the political system keeps plummeting. Lacking the strategic leadership abilities (including resilience against opposition and unpopularity) of an Attlee or a Thatcher, successive recent PMs have been beholden to special advisers and focus groups, rather than sticking to their guns. Single political party policy making weaving here and there has not provided a stable framework to furnish long-term strategic coherence.
The economic doom loop was laid bare in last week’s latest Office of Budget Responsibility report. We face “daunting risks” (ie, we are broke) including levels of government debt three times the size of the economy. Of 36 advanced economies UK has the 6th highest debt, 5th highest borrowing, 3rd highest borrowing costs; last year we spent £105 billion debt interest, compared to £60 billion on schools and £55 billion on defence. We really are in a downward spiral. Our debt is driving our politics and growing popular dissent.
Common sense and sound evidence-based decision making seems no more possible under Labour than they were under the Conservatives. This is because it is electoral harakiri. Upping the hyperbole and making unconvincing noises, whilst only fudging and tweaking, is the art of the politically possible, whilst not fixing the roof.
I am a strictly non-partisan political observer, who notes that Sir Anthony Seldon, the respected biographer of many British prime ministers, has slammed our current one as “fundamentally incompetent and lacking a narrative” on the domestic front. Whilst many agree that Sir Keir has, so far, failed the Attlee test at home and showed that he is unable to wield Tony Blair-level control of his huge parliamentary majority, he has performed better in the foreign policy arena. If only he would properly resource the new genuinely transformative defence, national security and resilience strategies, at pace and on time, he would be receiving accolades all round.
The brutal reality is that it looks highly likely that the doom loops will now pick up pace. If events, enemies, and economic competitors are kind, we might continue to wing it for a few years and simply continue to stagnate and decline. But the odds are increasing that even before we limp on to the expected date for the next election, a seismic event or a dramatic turning of popular opinion will force a profound shake-up amongst the elites and political class that have taken us all here.
The despair of the next generations at their declining life prospects in this country shames my generation and should, you would imagine, galvanise our leaders to be radical. But there is scant evidence of the necessary leadership, vision, or boldness waiting in the wings. Nothing new here you say – and that is the point. Only something really big – and very painful, the “burning platform” — will start to reverse things.
Two years in politics these days is an age. It is two years since Rory Stewart’s Politics On The Edge was published. In his brutally honest audit of the condition of the British State, what stood out was his view that the major political parties were toxic cartels that should be broken up. Today that looks remarkably prescient. Many think that we have now tipped over the edge, and that the Conservatives-Labour death rattle is audible.
At the time of writing the betting sites have Nigel Farage as next PM by a factor of 4. Of course, he may come unstuck, but they said that about Donald Trump – twice.
Overarching it all is an economy that shows little sign of growing or diversifying and paying for all the manifesto commitments, defence and resilience promises, and social and welfare aspirations that have been made. As the economist Paul Johnson and others point out, debt servicing and bond market strictures are increasingly preventing us from meeting urgent spending priorities. Something must give. Fraser Nelson warns that we will soon get into Latin American economic doom loop territory. Debt is driving political stasis.
Take defence, security, and resilience – the first duty of government. A quick scan of the strategic defence review, and national security and resilience strategies reveal just how ramshackle the entire system is. We learn how three decades of wilful raiding the defence budget has left us more defenceless relative to very real and new threats, and active “sub-threshold” attacks than for centuries. At precisely the worst time.
Worse still, the resources to make this emergency situation good are far from assured. General Sir Richard Barrons, one of the three architects of the SDR, says that they will be forthcoming too late, and only when driven by fear. Lord Robertson, former NATO Secretary General and Labour defence secretary, has been ignored when he says the leadership must lead on the issue of defence, the primary duty of government, versus welfare, and that hard choices must be made.
Or take your family’s safety. Sir Brian Leveson warns that the criminal justice system is close to breakdown. There are 77,000 outstanding Crown court cases, and some now reaching out to 2029. Hence he is calling for jury-free trials. The state of emergency in our prisons described by Rory Stewart in his book has not improved. Our prisons are a stain on our standing as a civilised major developed nation. There is no “bad days” surge capacity. Our “normal days” safety valve mechanism is prisoner early release.
British policing is decades behind where it should be. Sir Mark Rowley points out that the Met have 50% of the funding per capita provided in New York or Sydney. If you are burgled or robbed in the street there is a diminishingly small chance that the criminals will be stopped and sentenced. If, and when, we experience the next sudden widespread breakdown of public order (quite possibly on a greater scale and severity than in 2011), we can no doubt expect a public outcry and official inquiry findings that will reveal system-wide level failure to have implemented earlier recommendations.
Together and cumulatively these failures have resulted in unprecedented and dangerously low levels of public trust in government and the system. I have deliberately omitted going into one lightning rod issue of successive governments incompetence and inability to govern, and which shows no sign of diminishing as a top public political issue: illegal migration.
Just one NHS example. We spend more on maternity compensation litigation each year — about £1 billion — than on every obstetrician, midwife, and nurse. One heart-rending, significant issue amongst hundreds of other similar complex level issues, for sure, but the point here is this is nonsensical and completely unsustainable. Jeremy Hunt, long-serving former health secretary, has always said that we should change to a significantly cheaper, quicker, no-fault compensation scheme. Why has this problem been allowed to fester for so many years?
There are two critical questions that should have been answered long ago: why are we such a sick and unproductive nation? Alan Milburn, former Labour health secretary says “the cost of sickness benefits is not sustainable financially, socially, or economically…we need a national mission to get people back to work”. This has been true for decades. When we finally get round to doing it it will be infinitely more difficult and painful than it would have been had we done it at the right time. The same logic applies across multiple central government departments and local government.
So, it is surely better to get on with the deep pain now. IMF-imposed austerity, populism, and brutal trimming of the state and bureaucracy could be on the cards if we do not get a sensible grip now.
For some twenty years we have been in stagnation and decline. We are now 21% poorer per capita than our former peer group nations that included the Netherlands and Australia. This situation needs Attlee-level leadership at the top. But it also demands that all sensible politicians join in. Populism does not have a good history. And the electorate needs to hear it loud and clear that they must accept difficult trade-offs. Want defence and resilience and putting the next generations first? Then older generations are going to have to pay for it.
We may not just limp along to the next election. Might a seismic event or popular opinion turn and finally bring in the radical fixing of the roof? Will it be a radical populist government next, or can our major political parties at five minutes to midnight summon the urgently needed, bold, and radical leadership and dodge the populist bullet?
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