Why is the Shadow Cabinet so distinctly mediocre?

It isn’t obvious that an Oxford college is a good place from which to observe the trends in British politics. But when I look back at my career at Magdalen College (in PPE), it’s impossible to miss the significance of the youthful waves of students that passed before me. When I began as a student in 1964 most of the PPE students (such as John Sargent) were moderately left, very much in tune with Wilson. When I arrived back in 1969 most of my students, such as Tony Crosland’s assistant, David (now Lord Lipsey) were further to the left, and this continued until 1973, as if predicting the Labour victories of 1974. By then, however, a new wave of Liberal students like (Sir) John Curtice appeared, and this wave grew together with the third party vote of that period. Then, after 1976 things changed abruptly: more students were apolitical and then straightforwardly Tory (William (now Lord) Hague arrived in 1979), clearly presaging the Thatcher period. By the later 1980s there had been a reversion to the non-political and, by the time I left in 1995, there had been a move back to the moderate left, this time presaging Blair. I always felt that each rising younger generation was the first to sniff the air of political change.

However, as I look back I tend to fasten on one particular student (who had better be nameless) who was as able as any that I ever taught. He was strongly Labour and eager to have a political career. After he went down he and I kept in touch. By the early 1980s he had hit the buffers. An active member of his London constituency party, he found that his private school and Oxford education made him anathema to the Militant tendency then so strong in the party. “It’s ridiculous”, he told me, “I’m just not allowed to speak at all. It’s like apartheid.” He departed for the SDP and later the Liberals. I always looked back on this case since I noted that thereafter none of my best students became prominent in the Labour Party.

The conventional wisdom among political scientists back then was that the calibre of British MPs was far higher than that of US Congressmen. This seems to have been true. Too many Congressmen were like Gerry Ford – famously unable (in Lyndon Johnson’s phrase) “to chew gum and shit at the same time”. Part of the problem was that a lot of them had become a big deal in Rotary, or the Elks or Kiwanis in some small city and had then parlayed that into being a Congressman. But more important was the electoral treadmill every two years (not counting primaries) and the absolute certainty that if their party chose a turkey for a presidential candidate – and it was bound to happen sometime – then they would become part of the Christmas dinner. Pretty quickly all who could ran for the Senate or Governor or just Something Else.

But Britain was different. A good number of the social and educational elite still wanted to go into politics and the calibre at the top was quite high. Macmillan, Eden, Butler, Hailsham – these were all very smart men. And the next Tory generation, Keith Joseph, Ian McLeod and Enoch Powell were exceptional, indeed Powell had been the youngest professor in the British Commonwealth. The Labour side was equally impressive: Crossman, Wilson, Crosland and Longford were all clearly out of the top drawer intellectually, as were Jenkins, Healey and Castle. Such people were not just clever, they were shrewd, and quite a few had done well in the war. These were, indeed, the finest flower of the post-war progressive middle class. Gordon Brown was the pick of the later generation, not only able and well-read, but willing to back his judgement against political fashion. It should not be forgotten that he almost alone prevented Britain from joining the Euro. The chattering classes loved the idea and so did Tony Blair, but it would have been a monstrous error.

If one looks at the Labour front bench today one cannot but be aware of a great falling off. There are some very able people such as Nia Griffith and (Sir) Keir Starmer, but the general standard is low. About Corbyn himself enough has been said, but neither he nor the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, has any training in economics. Emily Thornberry, the very image of the old stereotype of the hectoring Labour woman, was Shadow Defence Secretary but didn’t know what Defcon One was. Then, as Shadow Foreign Secretary, she couldn’t name her French opposite number and, of course, when found out railed about sexism. Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, has just been in hot water for her obvious hypocrisy over private schools, but this merely replicates an identical row in 2003. Leaving aside the issue itself, the striking thing is that she clearly feels that the rules are for other people but not for her. One shudders at the thought of the Home Office under her. One could go on.

The Tories are not similarly afflicted. The old channels of elite recruitment still work for them with a steady stream of well-educated folk coming through the private schools and universities. How could it be otherwise? After all, the old industrialised and unionised working class has largely disappeared but the upper end of the traditional British class structure is wholly intact and prospers as ever. What has really hurt Labour, however, is its diminished attractiveness to the middle class meritocracy. In part this is merely a function of Labour weakness: without Scotland how can Labour win an election? And able recruits are not willing to sit on the backbenches for ever. But it is also the case that the populist left has driven away the next generations of Croslands, Healeys and Browns. Militant Tendency did this in the 1980s and the Corbynites have done it again now.

If, like me, you are a traditional Labour supporter, this is a gloomy prospect. But there seems to be a cycle. Essentially, after a period in power, Labour loses and within the party an angry left faction (which didn’t much like the Labour government anyway) takes power. It happened with the Bevanites in the 1950s, the Bennites (and Militant Tendency) in the 1970s and 1980s and with the Corbynists in the 2010s. Each time the left cherishes the illusion that if only it can gain power within Labour it can win national power, the assumption being that Labour voters will tamely support the party whatever its leadership.

This assumption has always been false as the string of Tory victories in the 1950s and 1980s showed, but as the electorate becomes increasingly volatile the falsity only gets greater. Thus far Labour has lost elections in 2010, 2015 and 2017 and it seems likely that it will lose another one in December. The only other time that Labour lost four elections in a row was in 1979-1992, a sequence which produced eighteen years of Tory government. This dismal situation occurs essentially because the Labour left makes the same childish mistake over and over again (“this time it will be different”). But in fact it never is different and the sad truth is that only a string of Tory victories is ever sufficient to drive that truth home. It seems that nothing else works.