Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

[Sheilbh]

I think this Wormald fellow sounds like a perfect fit with the current government. He can help Starmer relabel the levers of government and polish their brass work whilst failing to notice that half of them are no longer connected to anything.

Yeah - I think a lot is Starmer's lack of politics. I'm not really sure he knows what he wants to be in power to do. Just manage it better and make sure proper process is followed.

I think this was always the weakness of reading the previous government as Trump and focusing on the need to protect our institutions when for a long time now the warning lights have been flashing on the health and capacity of Britain's institutions.

It does feel of a part though. Appointing a very Sir Humphrey figure for a "complete rewiring of the British state", while on Labour's key pledges there appears to be a big gap. Centre for Cities today saying Labour's proposed plans will still lead it several hundred thousand homes short of their 1.5 million target. Everyone in the sector says Ed Miliband's targets on decarbonisation of the grid are unattainable (or, for the people directly reporting to Miliband, "stretching") - and the Guardian and others have pointed out that his pledge that it will save the average person money only works if you assume best case scenario on his renewables plans and worst case scenario for everything else.
-
Meanwhile I think so far ten new "independent" bodies have been set up to advise government. Similarly this cabinet is now the first all state educated, I think it's also the first where no-one has a background of running their own business or working on the commercial side of a business (not totally sure but I think that's right) - and I feel that is showing a bit. Then just today a piece on our Northern European (Netherlands, Nordics and Baltics) allies despairing because apparently on defence we've just become very dithery - the government says pending a new strategic defence review. And I saw one of the authors of that saying that we need to focus more on new threats like cyber and not trying to "plug gaps" in the forces we had during the Cold War - which feels very mid-2010s given there's a hot war in Europe and the Americans are getting cold feet.

I think the positive case is that Starmer is very good at course correcting pretty ruthlessly. The challenge with that is I think it's a lot easier to do when you're leader of the opposition and nothing really matters - when you're PM you'll have sunk political costs, policy mistakes/dithers will only come clear later (at the point they're failing to public annoyance) and I can't think of a PM using the "re-launch" narrative successfully as opposed to it just locking in the perception that it's all going wrong. And I think we're already on the second re-launch

They need to get a grip and start governing soon - and their proposals need to start matching the radicalism of their promises. Not least because I think Badenoch is underrated by Labour (and was the best choice for the Tories) - plus elections in Wales next year and one poll this week showing Reform level-pegging with Labour

[Sheilbh]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

You hear this a lot, but I can't off the top of my head think of many cases where it's actually true. I feel like the reformers tend to be people who have a very clear idea of what they want to do/where they want to go rather than consummate insiders who know how things currently work (not least because, and I think this goes for every private company too, most people hate change ).

Edit: And worth adding one particular concern with this guy is that I've seen some people praising him as very much in the model of Sir Jeremy Heywood. Heywood is hugely admired but I think the consensus now is that he was basically a very, very good civil servant with ministers - the model of the type of person at the British civil service pyramid. Creative, clever etc - perfect advisor for the PM. But he was, reportedly, basically not great (at best, outright neglectful at worst) at the other bit of his job which is running the civil service and make sure it's functioning well. I think there is something to Maude's idea of separating out those roles so you have a CEO who actually runs the civil service and then Cabinet Secretary who is supporting the PM/Cabinet. But that would basically be a demotion and involve giving up power accrued over many years so seems very, very unlikely.

[Josquius]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

You hear this a lot, but I can't off the top of my head think of many cases where it's actually true. I feel like the reformers tend to be people who have a very clear idea of what they want to do/where they want to go rather than consummate insiders who know how things currently work (not least because, and I think this goes for every private company too, most people hate change ).

If its an outsider who knows nothing then they fail to do anything or they don't reform, they completely destroy and replace.

[Tamas]

In my professional career in big organisations, I have experienced both insiders trying to reform and outsiders coming in with clear ideas of what needs doing, neither worked out well.  Although the worst example I experienced was an outsider coming in put in charge and their complete lack of understanding of the nuances becoming very apparent fast as they rammed their shiny square peg into the organisation's round hole without a moment's hesitation.

[Sheilbh]

Starmer did a big re-launch speech. I think it gets the good and bad of Starmer as a politician.

The bad is the inability to tell a story and the risk of just coming across as government by maagement consultant. So the key was announcing six "milestones" for his government - this is not to be confused with the "seven pillars of growth" which will feed into two of those milestones, which in turn support the "five missions", which are supplemented by the "three foundations" and the "two key priorities".

The actual content was a bit more interesting. I often say the issue with Starmer is that he doesn't have a politics - and I think that's true. He is not able to set out what he wants to do and why because he doesn't think in that way, he does think of KPIs and milestones etc. The positive side of that is that he's not wedded to anything so can be pretty ruthless. So the striking thing about the speech was that as one journalist put it the main message seemed to actually be directed at Whitehall and reflected how frustrated Starmer was dealing with the civil service - lots of stuff about the need for them to change and about the collapse in public sector productivity. This following the call for a "complete rewiring of the British state" - now balancing that against his appointment of the longest serving Permanent Secretary as new Cabinet Secretary is challenging.

Also positive is some of the specific targets and he basically comes pretty close to my view that the populist upsurge is basically legitimate and happening because mainstream politics has stopped delivering: "you look at our infrastructure and it is clear that we have long freeloaded off the British genius of the past - because we won't build a future" and wanting to triple the number of major infrastructure projects. This will be meaningless of course if the Treasury continue in the way they typically do.

Or to put it more bluntly, from the BBC

Why Labour echoes Tory criticism of the civil service
Henry Zeffman
BBC chief political correspondent
    4 hours ago

"Dominic Cummings was right".

No-one serious about their future in Labour Party politics would dare say that in public about the mercurial former chief adviser to Boris Johnson.

But in private, again and again, that sentiment comes from the mouths of this new government's most senior officials.

No, they are not talking about Cummings's views on Brexit or Elon Musk. They are talking about 'Whitehall' - the shorthand by which the political class refers to the tangle of institutions and civil servants whose job it is to implement the government's agenda.

In Whitehall, Cummings has long argued, "failure is normal" while "confident public school bluffers" - rather than people with real policy expertise - reign supreme.

Generations of politicians have made similar critiques but rarely with such freewheeling intensity.

Sir Keir Starmer's speech on Thursday was primarily designed to offer more clarity for a sceptical public about the direction of his government, refining the five missions which he talked of in opposition.

But the speech had a secondary aim: galvanising Whitehall, after he accused too many civil servants of being "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline".

When they were in opposition, many Labour figures took the view that the Conservatives had hobbled their own government through a needlessly antagonistic relationship with the civil service.

Few talk that way now. "The biggest disappointment of going into government has been the quality of the civil service," one leading government adviser said.

Another added: "The Cummings analysis is where we are in lots of ways."

One senior government source said: "Dominic Cummings was right about Whitehall. But I blame him and the Conservative Party for 14 years of low pay, bad leadership and demoralisation which means we don't have the right people in the right places."

Wherever the blame is ascribed for Whitehall's deficiencies, the frustration is beginning to spill into public view.

Peter Hyman, the Labour adviser who came up with Sir Keir's 'missions' but did not follow him into government, wrote in the New Statesman last week, external that there were "barriers within the state" to delivering Starmer's agenda.

He said it was "astonishing" how many senior civil servants still relied on "clunky cabinet committees" and old-fashioned processes.

For some of the PM's top team the flaws in the British state are built into its very fabric.

"10 Downing Street is a ridiculous place to run a major economy," one government adviser said.

"You go from a modern open plan office in opposition to Downing Street where you're all scattered around like kids in a big house who've gone off to separate bedrooms to do their homework."

Yet vague aspirations to move the prime minister and his team into the Cabinet Office next door and turn Downing Street into state rooms to entertain dignitaries — yes, also previously discussed by Cummings - are likely to remain just that.

"Can you imagine how long it would take the civil service to make that happen?" an official sighed.

Plenty would think this unfair on the civil service, which has often found itself a scapegoat for failings of politicians but cannot publicly answer back.

After all, Labour figures acknowledge they were nowhere near as ready for government as they needed to be. That was in part the reason for the rapid departure of Sue Gray, Sir Keir's initial chief of staff, after just three months in post.

Certainly even among those civil servants who are alive to Whitehall's systemic flaws there is a view that the prime minister himself needs to be much more active in driving the machine if he wants to achieve results.

"Starmer appears to confuse process with outcomes," one said.

"You can set up a child poverty taskforce, OK. But what do you want to do about the two-child benefit cap? You still have to make political choices and officials can't do that for you."

As well as setting up a child poverty taskforce, Sir Keir has formed a series of 'mission boards' designed to drive through his agenda in each of those five core areas.

Each is chaired by the relevant minister - for example, the health mission board is chaired by Wes Streeting, the health secretary.

Alex Thomas, a former senior civil servant who is now at the Institute for Government think tank, suggested that Sir Keir himself would be a better chair for those boards if he wants "action and dynamism across the system."

Thomas said: "The British system of government responds to ministerial and particularly prime ministerial involvement and leadership ... If you leave it to the civil service, however much talent there is, it will end up missing the mark because it lacks that political direction and that authority."

Those around Starmer acknowledge that the mission boards are not yet quite at full strength. They will soon become more public-facing entities, holding meetings outside of London and doing more to bring in expertise from outside government.

Stocktaking

But the principal way in which the prime minister will seek to drive his agenda is via "stock takes". These are meetings where Sir Keir brings those responsible for each mission into Downing Street to hold them accountable for what the data is showing in their area and asking them how they propose to improve. It's an idea which was pioneered by Sir Tony Blair on the advice of Michael Barber, his delivery adviser, who recently returned to government.

The frequency of these stocktakes will soon increase, a senior government source said, adding: "If we are saying that this is the mission of the government and this is how people should judge its success and failure then it is clearly something you need the PM driving through."

In the next few weeks Pat McFadden, the cabinet minister helping the prime minister to coordinate policy across Whitehall, will give a speech with more detail on the government's plans for civil service reform.

Both he and Sir Keir are said to be seized of the need to bring more outside expertise into government and to make better use of data and artificial intelligence.

The government's stated aims here are bold. Announcing the appointment of Sir Chris Wormald this week as the new cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, Sir Keir charged him with "nothing less than the complete re-wiring of the British state".

There was no shortage of people in Whitehall questioning whether the longest-serving head of a government department - Sir Chris has run the health department for eight years and education for four before that - is the right person to transform Whitehall. Sir Chris's supporters say that within the current system he is one of those most open to reform.

The appointment was received with open contempt by Cummings, who sarcastically described it as a "truly beautiful, artistic" decision which should serve as a "wake up call" that "the Westminster system is totally determined to resist any change".

And on that, at the very least, the success of this government depends on Dominic Cummings being wrong.

I'd add particularly in relation to Cummings and Wormald that it is very striking in light of the covid inquiry. Cummings is clearly a nightmare to work about but was raising red flags very early, talking about lockdown, saying the UK needed to be paying far more attention to what was happening in Italy - and is now an external critic; Wormald apparently bollocked Sir Patrick Vallance for being too alarmist and was encouraging chickenpox parties to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible - and will get the top job in the civil service.

Separately, that obviously political capital matters and that is a thing in every system from ours to China's, so the leader engaging and actively monitoring a policy area will drive things. And I take the point that Starmer seems to confuse process with outcome. But it is slightly mad that it should be some important in a mature system of government, especially when there's a new government with a massive majority after 14 years in opposition - they should all be pushing on all fronts at this stage and instead they feel alarmingly similar to Sunak's government at the end of 14 exhausting years. (On the PM's interest being key I do think this is where we need a stronger support system for the PM - there is no Office of the Prime Minister and the PM has about 10-15 political appointees in their office. I think we could do with both).

And I do worry a lot of Labour's policies are not joined up at all which is going to create problems. All of this matters because I think with the Tories failing so badly over 14 years, Labour barely even being able to take off and - I think - huge incoherencies in their net zero/energy policy, it's perfect for a party like Reform. On that front it feels like only a matter of time before they're leading in the polls given that earlier today there was a poll with the Tories on 26%, Reform on 24% and Labour on 23%

[Sheilbh]

Following on from that, civil service union (doing their job) has attacked Starmer's comments on the "tepid bath of managed decline" as "Trumpian. But striking article from Starmer in the Times - again, so far the action has not matched the analysis and rhetoric. But I think he's getting to the right point:

Keir Starmer: We will launch a golden era of building
The prime minister says ending the housing crisis is the key to improving the country's prosperity
Sir Keir Starmer
Thursday December 05 2024, 8.30pm, The Times

Britain is in the grip of the worst housing crisis in living memory. For too long, the country has been held to ransom by the blockers and bureaucrats who have stopped the country building, choked off growth and driven prices through the roof. They're suffocating the aspirations of working families and obscuring the future of our country.

Those days are over. Our manifesto was very clear — the only way to improve the nation's prosperity and the living standards of working people is sustained economic growth. We're determined to do this with stability, investment and reform.

Take our planning system — urgently in need of decisive reform after decades of becoming increasingly ruinous. House prices have gone through the roof as home-building has gone through the floor. Last year, the number of homes granted planning permission fell to the lowest for a decade, and the average home now costs eight times the annual earnings of an average worker.

It's no wonder home ownership for 19 to 29-year-olds has more than halved since 1990. And, disgustingly in 21st-century Britain, there are more than 150,000 children, the highest on record, in temporary accommodation, without a safe and permanent home. Since 2019, the number of our veterans that are homeless has increased by more than a quarter. This is a shame and a failure of our politics that my government will not tolerate.

It's not just housing — good homes need to be supported by good infrastructure. In the past 14 years, the Tories decided fewer than 60 infrastructure projects. We haven't built a reservoir in 30 years, not least because the time it takes to secure planning permission for major infrastructure projects has almost doubled in the past decade. Every road, pylon and mast — which connect people with opportunity — must jump through endless hoops, only to be opposed, dragged out, before eventually, if lucky, approved. That's how we ended up with the absurd spectacle of HS2 building a tunnel for bats that cost £100 million.

Generations before us built the infrastructure the entire nation was proud of — from civic buildings to train stations, hospitals to schools. So we will introduce a new golden era of building. That's why we're fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure by the end of parliament, more than double those decided in the previous parliament. We'll build the schools, the hospitals, the railways and roads, the towns and villages, that will shape our national landscape for years to come and fuel growth in every region and nation.

And we are reforming our planning system to fast-track more houses. We have set out a milestone to build 1.5 million safe and decent homes in England this parliament. And we will deliver the biggest wave of social homes in a generation. That's hugely ambitious — I won't pretend otherwise.

But this government's aim isn't to continue our path of managed decline, suggesting easy targets we know we can deliver to boast of our success while people continue to struggle. The entire point of this goal is to throw down a gauntlet — it's a challenge for the government, Whitehall, housebuilders, councils and everyone else to stretch ourselves to the max to meet the scale of the challenge we face.

Because I do worry that we've lost sight of this in our country. I know, with trust in politics so low, the public are sceptical of promises made by politicians. And who can blame them, after years of inaction by successive Tory governments. But that can't be an excuse for low expectations and easy ambitions, a culture that isn't brave enough to even try for fear of failure. I know some councils have come out this week to challenge our plans for housing reform. I always knew there would be resistance to our planning reform. Let me say this — I won't shy away from this argument. In fact, I welcome it.

Where there are blockers putting the brakes on, it's a sign you are delivering real change. And change is what the British people voted for this summer — a government that is willing to take on the obstacles and break down the barriers that prevent us from reaching our full potential. We have wasted no time in making important changes to put UK armed forces at the front of the queue for homes.

That is what our plan for change, which I announced yesterday, is all about. These are milestones that won't just set us a direction of travel, but push us hard to get there.

As well as 1.5 million new homes, we're committing to better living standards, to put more money in people's pockets. We'll end hospital backlogs, meeting the NHS standard of 92 per cent of patients in England waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment. We'll put police back on the beat, with 13,000 additional neighbourhood police. We'll give children the best start in life, with a record percentage of five-year-olds in England ready to learn when they start school. And finally, we'll secure home-grown energy, keeping bills down, improving energy independence and creating good jobs, with at least 95 per cent of low-carbon generation by 2030.

I expect the public to hold us accountable to these milestones. Our success won't just be in delivery, it will be in the change people can see and feel in your lives, restored trust in politics and hope for the future of our country.

We'll inject ambition back into Britain. Let's get on with building that better future.

[Gups]

We'll have to see what the NPPF and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill contain but in terms of decision making, positive so far for energy and regen with Ed Milliband approving a number of solar schemes pretty quickly and Angela Rayner giving the Marks & Spencer redevelopment permission and calling in the big Sittingbourne housing scheme (we are working on that one).

Louise Haigh as SoS for Transport was not dealing her schemes within the time limits. Hopefully her successor will be better.

[HVC]

He's blaming the Tories for the bat fiasco? Protections run wild seems like more of a liberal thing.

[Tamas]

He's blaming the Tories for the bat fiasco? Protections run wild seems like more of a liberal thing.

Not if there is money in it.

[Gups]

He's blaming the Tories for the bat fiasco? Protections run wild seems like more of a liberal thing.

The relevant body HS2 Ltd is a subsidiary of the department for transport who would have signed this off as would the Exchequer and probably at ministerial level for £100m. It's absolutely down to the last Government.

There's a wider issue here about balancing the need for protection and mitigation with other public benefits and opportunity costs.

[Sheilbh]

And different layers of government/stakeholders. In that case my understanding was it was very strongly pushed by one statutory stakeholder (Natural England) and opposed by the local government (because it's ugly), on a national project legislated for by parliament.

More generally I think net zero and the environment will become more of a contentious political issue because I think we're getting to the more difficult and expensive stuff now.

But (and this is something Johnson boasts about along with vaccines and Ukraine - in one of the big differences with the Republicans) the biggest drop in emission in the G7 was in the UK, under a Conservative government. It's been Tory governments (particularly May and Johnson) that set net zero targets, phase out of non-EVs, agriculture subsidies being re-designed to focus on biodiversity and re-wilding etc.

[Josquius]

Lots of talk of new towns but I've yet to see a solid plan for one.
The closest is vague plans with the Oxford - Cambridge axis?

[Gups]

Lots of talk of new towns but I've yet to see a solid plan for one.
The closest is vague plans with the Oxford - Cambridge axis?

There's a commission appointed to put together proposals. Much more likely to be  urban extensions/infills than actual new towns.

[Sheilbh]

Spurred by Assad's downfall in Syria, slightly fascinating how much of the last 10 years (and the huge human devastation in Syria) is down to Ed Miliband in, possibly, the most consequential British vote of the mid-2010s.

Basically in 2013 after Assad used chemical weapons and Obama's red line had been crossed, the US was looking at intervention. As an American ally the UK would obviously be part of that intervention and Cameron (in coalition with the traditionally fairly anti-war Lib Dems) went to parliament for a vote authorising British participation.

Ed Miliband was apparently advised by his foreign policy team that it would be the right thing to do: chemical weapons should be a red line, we should back the Americans and Obama isn't Bush it's not an attempt at Iraq War II. Reportedly Miliband also personally believed that. But, trying to move Labour on from Iraq and, perhaps expecting to lose, Miliband decided to whip the party against intervention. There were some Labour rebels but not that many. At the same time there were enough Tory and Lib Dem rebels meaning that no vote won and the UK would not participate.

This was then used by Obama as a reason to not intervene without Congressional authorisation, which was proposed a week later - though so opposed it never even reached a vote. (Worth noting on our theme of de Gaulle and the French that the French absolutely thought the West needed to intervene as a punishment for the use of chemical weapons).

The Syrian civil war intensifies with enormous human cost as Assad realises there's no limit on how his regime can fight back, Russia gets involved barrel-bombing Assad to a sort of stability and provoking a massive refugee crisis across the region and in Europe - and I think that crossed red line had an impact on perceptions of the US and West more generally. All because Ed Miliband didn't want to pay the political price of doing what his advisors (and apparently he) thought was the right thing. And the West ends up intervening anyway when, out of the of the Syrian war, Daesh emerges and inspires the attacks in Paris.

(I don't know if it was right or wrong to intervene, I'm not sure - but striking how little a thing can then have such impact. Also Miliband's insouciance then is one of the reasons I'm still dubious of him in a senior cabinet role...)