16 Leaders The EconomistNovember 21st 2020
T
he year was 1976 andrevolutionwasintheair.Punkwasde-
stroying orthodoxies in the music business. Concorde was
breaking the sound barrier. The economy was going down the
tubes. And Lord Hailsham, a former Conservative Lord Chancel-
lor and old boy of Eton, Oxford and the Rifle Brigade, urged the
overthrow of what he called Britain’s “elective dictatorship”—
the overweening executive, whose power, in Britain’s parlia-
mentary model, was untrammelled by the checks and balances
of the courts and legislature that restrict it in most democracies.
Since then, the executive—made up of ministers and the peo-
ple who do things on their behalf—has been constrained in
many ways. The European Union’s powers have grown, and in
the 1990s Tony Blair weakened the executive by strengthening
other parts of government, creating a Supreme Court, starting a
reform of the House of Lords, devolving power from Westmin-
ster and granting independence to the Bank of England.
Now a Conservative counter-revolution is under way, driven
by radicals in and around Number 10. They believe that the exec-
utive is the expression of the will of the British people, so to limit
its power is to muzzle democracy. And they complain that gov-
ernment is far too slow. Frustration over the difficulty of getting
Brexit done has fused with an enthusiasm for Silicon Valley’s
mantra—move fast and break things—into a determination to
speed government up.
Accordingly, they are pursuing a programme
of radical reform to the British state. Brexit is the
boldest step, but it is only the first. The Tory plan
is to unchain the executive by limiting judicial
power, pushing back against devolution and re-
forming the civil service. Dominic Cummings,
Boris Johnson’s recently defenestrated chief ad-
viser, was one of the architects of this transfor-
mation, but it will continue without him (see Britain section).
Plenty about Britain needs to change, but the reformers’ argu-
ment and direction of travel are both wrong. First, weakening de-
volution will not make the union stronger, it will only under-
mine it. The parliaments in the union’s smaller nations were
created in response to a real demand for a government with
which their people could identify better than they can with
Westminster. Second, liberal democracy is not majoritarianism.
It includes checks and balances on executive power designed
both to protect the rights of individuals and minorities, and to
promote good governance. None of the reformers, it is worth
noting, advocates removing the Bank of England’s indepen-
dence. That’s because of the wealth of evidence showing that
constraining politicians’ power over monetary policy leads to
better economic management.
If evidence were needed against the unshackling of the exec-
utive, covid-19 has provided it. At the beginning of the pandemic,
the government arrogated to itself vast powers, unthinkable in
normal times. In some areas, that has worked. Most of what the
Treasury has done has been accomplished efficiently and effec-
tively. In others, money has been wasted and chums have bagged
top jobs and fat contracts. Yet the government has failed to get
the job done. Look abroad, meanwhile, for evidence of the effica-cy of devolution: powerful, well-resourced local authorities
have been central to the effort in Germany and South Korea, two
of the countries that have managed the pandemic best.
Brexit is indeed a good moment for a reset. The reformers are
right to argue that the civil service needs more expertise, less
churn and a powerful cohort of techies to digitise the operations
of government. But their actions to undermine the political in-
dependence that gives career civil servants the confidence to say
“No, minister” would make governance worse, not better.
The main impediment to getting things done is not the con-
straints on the executive but the people running it. Mr Blair was a
highly effective prime minister even as he constrained the exec-
utive’s power. That was because he was focused and energetic,
and surrounded himself with a team of clever, hard-working
ministers. Mr Johnson needs to emulate him in both of these
ways, and should start by replacing incompetent ideologues
with some of the talented, experienced mps who have been ex-
cluded from the cabinet just because they are not Brexiteers.
The Tories are also right to advocate constitutional reform,
but their proposals would take the country in precisely the
wrong direction. The biggest issue which Mr Johnson will con-
front next year is Scottish independence. Instead of alienating
Scots—on November 16th he described devolution as a “disas-
ter”—he should focus on making the relation-
ship work better. The pandemic has shown that
the four parts of the United Kingdom struggle to
co-operate on common problems. That job is
supposed to fall to the joint ministerial commit-
tee of the four nations. It needs the power and
status to act more like a real federation.
Britain should have more devolution, not
less. City mayors have had a good pandemic:
their popular standing ought to be matched by resources and re-
sponsibility. The balance of power between the branches of gov-
ernment needs to shift away from the executive, not towards it.
The legislature should have a second chamber with more credi-
bility; that means replacing a selection process for the House of
Lords that combines feudalism and cronyism with an elective
one. Turning the Lords into a senate of the devolved nations and
the regions would give it a useful dual role. The judges’ power to
prevent ministers from acting unlawfully ought to be bolstered,
not constrained. Regulators with the independence to insulate
business from ministerial whim need to be set up to wield some
of the powers that are returning from Brussels.L’état, c’est eux
These changes to the way the executive and the constitution
work would both strengthen British democracy and improve
government’s ability to get things done. Restoring the elective
dictatorship of half a century ago would not.
Concorde, the most memorable relic of 1976, was a thing of
beauty, but it was also a commercial disaster that used up huge
quantities of taxpayers’ money with virtually no oversight—just
the thing for a prime minister with a taste for untrammelled
power and grands projets.Mr Johnson would have loved it. 7Remaking the state
The Tories have got the wrong idea about why government isn’t workingPolitical reform in Britain