With no apparent irony, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently announced he was cancelling HS2 – one of the UK’s largest long-term infrastructure projects – under the 2023 Conservative party conference strapline, “Long-term decisions for a brighter future”. He did so after a week of repeatedly saying he would not be pushed into “a premature decision”. This, despite the fact that the decision was about the future of a project the government set in motion back in 2009 – 14 years ago.
This sequence of events illustrates a fundamental problem with the way politics and policy are done in the UK. The British political system is infused with political incentives that drive short-termism. It places extensive powers in the hands of the Westminster government, but with limited checks and balances. Short-term, often electorally-driven, priorities regularly trump longer-term policy targets, in a deeply corrosive way.
As Labour now sets out its priorities ahead of the 2024 general election, a key challenge confronting the opposition is whether it can prove it can do things differently. Shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities Angela Rayner has opened the 2023 Labour party conference with a speech claiming the party will end “short-term sticking plaster solutions” through a “mission-driven” approach to the economy.
