Why is every British public service seemingly a shambles? The answer is that no one is in charge. The appointment last week of Grant Shapps to his fifth cabinet job in a year may be taken from the plot of some Ruritanian court comedy. Can it be serious that five great departments of state, including home affairs, transport, energy and now defence, have needed the magic touch of Shapps for a month or two before he passes on?
This may be the price the nation is paying for Boris Johnson’s July 2019 coup, when he sacked probably the six ablest members of his cabinet to guard his position. It was a mistake Margaret Thatcher never made.
Power in British politics is about how you run a parliamentary club. Weak leaders hold their positions by constantly reshuffling their teams. They judge loyalties, and balance support between front and backbenches. When they get it wrong they fall. Any consideration of efficient government is a mere bystander in this game.
After a hesitant start in small business, Shapps climbed the greasy pole of politics by deploying club loyalty with skill. When in office he showed what is now crucial in a modern minister: a talent for headline-writing and media plausibility.
It was once said that no minister could coherently lead a Whitehall department in under two years. Shapps can do it new-style in two days. As British government is overwhelmed by blowing billions more each year on health, pensions and vanity projects, everything else is just cut. So call in Shapps, the perfect schmoozer, the glorified comms manager.
British ministers have been likened to child monarchs, there to be patted and petted but useless when tough decisions must be taken. The reason is they can carry no responsibility over time. Is Shapps to blame for not cancelling HS2 when at transport, any more than he is now to blame for the billions going on two absurd aircraft carriers lumbering back and forth off Portsmouth, eating money that should go on soldiers?
One lesson of the Shapps saga is that the House of Commons is a dangerous pool from which exclusively to draw leadership in government. Perhaps the House of Lords should be used more as a base from which to bring experience and ability into high office. Either way, new ministers should receive at least some weeks of rudimentary training before entering their buildings. The alternative is chaos in the style of Nadine Dorries. Departments should not be run by people whose principal aim is not efficient government but, as is so often said, “their next job”.
The other fundamental fault with the British political system is its paralysing over-centralisation. In any well structured democracy, current rows over concrete buildings, hospital waiting times, polluted rivers, housing statistics or refugee hotels would be matters for local or regional government. In Britain, the past month’s silly season has been dominated by headlines orchestrated, with massive incompetence, from Rishi Sunak’s press office.
Whitehall’s government is now like that of Northern Ireland. It has few proper ministers, just civil servants running round like headless chickens, awaiting the great white dawn of a Labour government – or the car crash of a coalition. I have scant sympathy for the Ulez innovation of London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. But it is his democratic response to a genuine evil. When the Westminster mob – Tory and Labour – howled him down and asked how dare he pretend to run London, he simply turned away and ignored it. I cheered. Good for him.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
