The Times - UK (2022-05-26)

the times | Thursday May 26 2022 31

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No one fears Johnson, and that’s a problem

A lack of prime ministerial grip led to lockdown disorder in No 10 and is responsible for a government of drift and decay

save the animals had the prime

ministerial imprimatur. This chaotic

approach when extended into the

economic sphere — not an area that

much interests this PM — is even

more disastrous. While inflation

surged, the chancellor has spent

most of the past six months trying to

fight Johnson’s demands for ever

more spending on everything, while

spending excessive amounts of his

own time trying, and failing, to take

over as leader. Rishi Sunak did so on

the basis that this surely can’t go on

much longer in what is, theoretically

at least, a grown-up country.

Only on Ukraine, where the

permanent defence and security

architecture does its work, is there a

clear British policy that commands

authority and respect. Even so, the

chancellor will not engage with the

defence secretary’s warnings that

long-term defence is going to

increase in cost. Such squabbling is

replicated in other departments. The

country, ungoverned, looks on.

The vacuum is a huge opportunity

for the opposition. The shadow

cabinet is growing in confidence and

stature. Sir Keir Starmer tried to

make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister,

a horrific thought I can’t shake off.

Starmer may lack charisma. At this

rate he won’t need any, or not much.

To win, he’ll just have to promise to

restore some order and head a

functioning government.

the prime minister said that since the

dreadful events took place, all senior

management had been replaced. The

startling implication is that he thinks

someone else was really in charge, as

though he was a guest in the

penthouse suite while the hotel

manager went rogue. The main

person who hasn’t been replaced in

senior management is the person

who was supposed to be in

command. That’s him.

The Gray report was published

only a day after the damning

findings of the foreign affairs select

committee about the evacuation

from Kabul. It exposed shameful

failures in the Foreign Office. One of

the most contentious elements of the

scandal was the pet rescue operation,

with animals from a charity boarding

a plane instead of desperate Afghans.

This was another manifestation of

the Johnson work method. Contrary

to the conspiracies, the prime

minister did not intervene. What

happened is that others, who clearly

understood Johnson’s chaotic

approach to detail, invoked his

authority and created the impression

among officials that the decision to

influence how business leaders make

decisions or talk with pride and

respect about the future of the

country. Margaret Thatcher very

clearly had it, as did Churchill and

Attlee.Tony Blair’s supporters will

say he had it too, at points.

On its own, a strong grip and clarity

of thought is no guarantee of success

or of decent decision-making. But

trying to organise a country’s affairs

without it is completely hopeless.

I acknowledge Boris Johnson has

communication skills. He has been

an election winner with a gift for

distinguishing between what really

matters, in terms of personal

survival, and what is media froth and

hysteria. What he is not is someone

cut out for government.

The contents of the Sue Gray

report illustrate the problem perfectly.

No one involved was even moderately

scared of the prime minister. No one

involved in the embarrassing

exchanges, where officials boasted

they “got away with” drinks during

lockdown, or who stayed in the

building getting smashed until the

early hours, would have dared

behave at work like that under any

predecessor in the modern era. Even

the ethics adviser (the ethics adviser,

for goodness sake) brought a karaoke

machine to the pandemic party.

In perhaps his most

unintentionally revealing comment

when responding in the Commons,

B

ritain does not have a
functioning government. Of
course, Whitehall is there
and the panoply of state
power remains with all its
attendant ceremony. The impressive
buildings exist. Inside them are
ministers, advisers and thousands of
officials spending hundreds of billions
of pounds of the country’s money.
Underneath all that is a different
story. There is drift, decay and a
disintegration of decision-making: a
shambles. This has become a
government in name only, with no
economic policy to speak of in an
inflation crisis, a confused approach
to energy as it wrestles with net zero,
and almost nothing to offer on
public-sector reform as a social-care
meltdown looms and schools struggle.
In sticking with the person in
charge, because it doesn’t know what
else to do, the Tory party is in line
for the most terrible whacking. As it
stands, Britain is heading for a Labour
government of one sort or another.
How can this be, less than three
years since Boris Johnson won a

thumping majority? The answer, and

you’ll have guessed this — some of

you may have shouted it out — lies

in the question.

Like many large organisations,

governments tend to reflect the

personality of the individual running

them. This tends to apply even more

in our relatively uncodified system.

The British style of government

works only when the person at the

top knows what they are doing, can

process paper, transact policy, drive

decisions within proper structures

and create a widely understood sense

of what they want for others in the

organisation to anticipate.

Everything flows from that. Officials

take their lead from orders or

questions that filter through the

system. There should be a quickening

of the pulse on receiving a summons

to No 10, and not because the official

concerned might get to swig a glass

of wine and have a go on the garden

swing.

Those working in close proximity

to government, in institutions such

as the Bank of England, feel it too

when a leader has authority and

projects seriousness. It will even

No partygoer would

have dared act like that

under previous leaders

Starmer may lack

charisma, but at this

rate he won’t need it

Iain

Martin

@iainmartin1