Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

The shenanigans in the White House and number 10 remind me, time for a re-read of I, Claudius 

It's just ridiculous:
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-how-vote-leave-lost-control-mark-of-cain-cult-of-dom/

I always thought the Vote Leave group would have an expiry date because constant macho aggression isn't a way to run a government in the long-run. But I didn't think it would end this soon. Also Cummings is kind of hilariously bad at this: he's not doing great at his job, which meant his boss had to spend all their political capital saving him. Now they've fallen out again and Cummings is, from what I can see, briefing against Johnson's partner

I feel like you don't need to be a svengali to note some flaws with that approach.

[Tamas]

Luckily we don't have to worry about unelected pricks having undue influence over the country, now that we have gotten rid of the EU. 

[Sheilbh]

I mean we have a House of Lords - I don't think we need to point to the existence of special advisors to find undemocratic elements in our constitution

Although reading The Light that Failed - I'm sort of struck if there is a slightly different understanding in the UK to what democracy is/means than the rest of the west (and if it's actually more similar to what CEE politicians like Orban were expecting).

[Sheilbh]

Luckily we don't have to worry about unelected pricks having undue influence over the country, now that we have gotten rid of the EU. 

Incidentally - this is another area where Cummings kind of has a point (but just can't follow his own advice).

He had a long blog a while ago about UK politicians being far too reliant on former tabloid journalists (or former journalists in general) for their staffing. I think this is because of the influence of Alastair Campbell as a model. But Cummings' point was the skills you need to be a good journalist - the daily news cycle management - is sort of the opposite of what's helpful to have around ministers/PMs. But, of course, he makes an exception for his colleague Lee Cain who is the former Mirror Chicken.

And it's really striking when you compare with the US - Joe Biden's Chief of Staff (just announced) has been chief of staff to two VPs, an Attorney General, worked as a senior aide in Congress and an advisor to two Presidents and did a clerkship to a Supreme Court Justice. It's a different skillset to former tabloid journalist.

We've only had "chiefs of staff" since 1997 - it's one of those innovations driven by British politicians obsessing about American politics and loving the West Wing. But since then Gordon Brown and Theresa May worked through 6 between them (a mix of civil servants and political advisors). Arguably the only two that were really successful were Blair's (Jonathan Powell - former diplomat in the 80s and 90s who worked on the handover of Hong Kong, negotiations around the unification of Germany, worked in the US embassy and was the diplomat attached to Bill Clinton's campaign) and Cameron's (Ed Llewellyn - aide to Chris Patten, both when he was last governor of Hong Kong and, later, an EU Commissioner, aide to Paddy Ashdown when he was the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina - he's now ambassador in Paris).

I don't think staffing is enough to make bad political decisions good (see Cameron). But I think it does say something about a government: May and Brown burning through staff in the hope that new appointments will solve the political issues they're facing. Johnson's appointment process being chaotic, riven with internal divisions and possible appointees mainly being focused on day-to-day presentational issues.

[Richard Hakluyt]

British Prime Ministers are so envious of the prestige of US presidents, their motorcades, airforce1 and all the bling of power 

Unfortunately all that prestige here goes to dear old Queen Brenda and PM Johnson is less respected than Mr Johnson at number 27  because at least his namesake isn't a power-hungry inadequate 

[Sheilbh]

British Prime Ministers are so envious of the prestige of US presidents, their motorcades, airforce1 and all the bling of power 

Unfortunately all that prestige here goes to dear old Queen Brenda and PM Johnson is less respected than Mr Johnson at number 27  because at least his namesake isn't a power-hungry inadequate 

It's not just PMs either. I've seen a few pieces about this by journalists talking about why it's more important than just inside the Beltway gossip. We don't have a Beltway. You're not Bob Woodward. You're filing copy from the Pret on Westminster Bridge Road

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally this is kind of nice - Rishi Sunak lighting Diwali candles outside of Nr 11:
https://twitter.com/sima_kotecha/status/1326925354653593601?s=20

We've had Nr 10 marking Diwali for a while, but it's done on a sort-of interfaith way. But Sunak is actually Hindu so this is a little bit different - a bit like Sadiq marking Ramadan and Eid as Mayor.

[Valmy]

British Prime Ministers are so envious of the prestige of US presidents, their motorcades, airforce1 and all the bling of power 

Unfortunately all that prestige here goes to dear old Queen Brenda and PM Johnson is less respected than Mr Johnson at number 27  because at least his namesake isn't a power-hungry inadequate 

That is kind of funny considering how so much of what we did was out of envy for European pomp and circumstance. I mean even at this late date Donald Trump always wanted his own American Bastille Day parade and all.

[Sheilbh]

That is kind of funny considering how so much of what we did was out of envy for European pomp and circumstance. I mean even at this late date Donald Trump always wanted his own American Bastille Day parade and all.

Yes. But pomp and circumstance here (the "dignified" bit of politics) is reserved for the Queen.

The PM doesn't have a department of civil servants to support him - they normally have a fairly small staff compared to similar countries (Canada, Australia, NZ, Sweden, Germany).

Edit: Just on this it also means as we mentioned earlier the relationship with the forces is between the Queen and then. I think there's been one occasion post-war when a civilian politician was invited (by the Queen) to receive a salute from soldiers and that was Thatcher after the Falklands. So even if we do things like a parade or remembrance celebrations, they're primarily aimed at the Queen/royal family not politicians (and no politician would salute back or they'd be a laughing stock).

Angela Merkel's chief of staff's qualification is that she has been Merkel's chief of staff for twenty five years now and was an aide of Merkel for five years before that.

Yeah I mean the chief of staff is a very new role in UK politics (Johnson doesn't have one at the minute) - it's not entirely clear if it's even necessary.

But I think there is a wider issue which I've mentioned before about Nr 10 generally not being staffed properly. There's no "Department of the Prime Minister" like there is in some countries. The PM gets some civil service support through the Cabinet Office (and the Cabinet Secretary works closely with the PM) but they are there primarily to coordinate the cabinet itself because the PM is just a chairperson. But basically aside from the "private office" which really just deals with things like the diary and correspondence there is no formal structure in Nr 10 so each PM has to invent it for themselves, they just have their political advisors.

Blair basically did create something a little bit like the White House - so he had his advisors but they had proper titles and were given departments and he then had a formal "Policy Unit" whose job was to develop policies and an "Implementation Unit" whose job was to basically follow up with other government departments to monitor whether policies were being implemented/any issues coming up. This was highly controversial because it was too "Presidential" and not using the civil service. Since then I'd say every PM who's come into office tears apart their predecessors model - they say there were too many special advisors and they're going to use the civil service more etc etc. If they last more than a year or two they always end up building something that looks a lot like what Blair had. It's one of those endless cycles of British politics a bit like the whole "PM is over-centralising/Presidential" to "PM hasn't got a grip/is just acting like a chairman".

Personally I think we are way past the 19th/early 20th century idea that the PM can just act as first among equals with a small support staff and a few advisors, plus some civil servants. I thnk we need a "Department of the Prime Minister" and a structure that is permanent to support the PM, even if it will necessarily more political than pure civil service. But no-one wants to do that because suggesting more civil servants is rarely a vote winner (sorry BBoy)

[Zanza]

I actually deleted my post as the person I had mind is Merkel's "head of office", not the "chief of staff", which is officially called "Head of the Chancellery" and is a political cabinet level minister. The current one has been in office for only two years, is a medical doctor and MP and has served in various secretary level roles for ten years.

The German Chancellery, i.e. Merkel's official staff, has close to 600 persons and a budget of 2.9 billion Euro.

[Sheilbh]

Sorry - slow responder.

That's interesting but very different.

Downing Street has up to about 200 staff supporting the PM (but that was during the Cameron era when Nr 10 was quite well staffed because he moved to a Blair-ish model by then and also had the coalition to manage). Even then, for example, the Policy Unit would only have about 80 people most of which were civil servants looking at policy design. Typically the PM will only have about 20 direct advisors and then up to about 200 other staff doing policy, implementation, day to day management.

From what I understand because there's no department Nr 10 doesn't really have a fixed budget (but given the size it's quite small). The Cabinet Office has a budget of about £15billion but they aren't just working for the PM and have a lot of responsibilities - largely around coordination of other departments, but also things like civil service pensions or properties, the Government Digital Service - I think the Government Legal Department is technically in the Cabinet Office too.

Edit: Ours is really dating back to when the PM's main job was to coordinate and shepherd the cabinet, which just doesn't reflect the reality of what a head of government does now.

[Barrister]

Personally I think we are way past the 19th/early 20th century idea that the PM can just act as first among equals with a small support staff and a few advisors, plus some civil servants. I thnk we need a "Department of the Prime Minister" and a structure that is permanent to support the PM, even if it will necessarily more political than pure civil service. But no-one wants to do that because suggesting more civil servants is rarely a vote winner (sorry BBoy)

Ha!  In the latest Alberta election the United Conservative's [latform included a promise to hire more Crown Prosecutors. And they have been.

I have to admit I'm not informed enough of the inner workings of 10 Downing St or 24 Sussex Dr* to comment much, but I know there have been complaints going back at least a couple of decades (so covers both Liberal and Conservative governments) about the increasing power and scope of the Prime Ministers Office (PMO).  I can't find any more recent info but Wiki suggests the PMO's budget in 2012-2013 was $8 million, which is a fair bit for an outfit that doesn't run any programs and just advises the PM.


*you'd never actually refer to "24 Sussex Drive" in this way because it is purely a residence - no business gets done there.  In fact you'd normally just refer to the PMO.

[Sheilbh]

So, apparently Cummings will be out by the end of the year

Edit: His line to Laura Kuennsberg:
'My position hasn't changed since my January blog' - when he planned to make himself 'redundant' by the end of 2020 - he's off

[chipwich]

Shelf when you say that the UK isn't sovereign over Northern Ireland you come across as having brexiteer brainworms.

[Zanza]

If he leaves before Christmas,  he can blame all issues that occur after the end of the Brexit transition period on others and claim that Brexit would have been a success if it just had been done right. Similar to people like Farage, Hannan etc.

Or he comes back as senior advisor for PM Gove next year...