British Politics' Fatal Flaw
A short tale on your path to Number 10.
After three years working for a Member of Parliament, I am often deferred to as the ‘politics guy’. Routinely I will be subjected to endless questions on this policy or that issue, but the question I get most often can simply be summarised as ‘why?’
Why does this, why do they, why can’t they, why are they. Why, why, why?
Politics is opaque to say the least, but the murkiest issue of them all is where power resides.
I was recently speaking to an American, and they were confused as to why it seemed so little was happening in the British system.
The Prime Minister has a stonking majority of 148, the fourth largest in history. However shaky that coalition of voters is, that is enough to radically transform the country. Yet it seems as though the Government is almost at a standstill: Secretaries of State forced to defend themselves from No. 10’s media department and constant infighting. This to me is because of British Politics fatal flaw.
The fatal flaw of British politics is its unitary nature.
At the heart of British Politics there is a paradox: power is everywhere but also nowhere.
Let me paint you a picture. Say you were particularly motivated by one issue – so much so that you are willing to put yourself through the torture chamber of an election. After a long-fought campaign, at 5am in some leisure centre you are declared the Member of Parliament. You are now – in theory – one of the 650 most powerful people in the United Kingdom.
You make your way down to London, eager to make a change on your particular issue. But unlucky you: you are in the opposition, and the Government rarely ever changes the law on behalf of opposition backbenchers – God forbid you are a Lib Dem.
But with luck, by the next election your party is now in power.
However, you are still a backbencher (an MP who is not a member of the Government). You set up a meeting with the Secretary of State (SoS) one of the heads (in theory) of a department.
But it turns out the SoS can’t meet you and you have to meet the Minister of State – the second in command. During the meeting the Minister nods along, agrees to speak to the department. Yet months later, nothing has happened.
You complain to the Whips; the Whips speak to the SoS and you get another meeting, but the same result. At this point it has been 7 years since you were first elected and nothing has changed. You think maybe being a Minister is where you can effect change. With luck, at the next reshuffle you are promoted to what they call the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (PUSS) – the lowest rung in the ladder.
You are now one of 83 paid ministers. One of the most powerful people in the country, but as the Duke of Devonshire said, “No one who hasn’t been a PUSS has any conception of how unimportant a PUSS is.”
The job of a PUSS is to do what is required by the department; you aren’t there to make decisions. You are there to go to the events no one wants, to sit in debates that last all night, and suck up to the backbenchers.
But with further luck you have been promoted to Minister of State: a mid-level role with a nice office and often a good role in a specific policy area. You are now in your area of policy; you speak to the Department after many years and get them working on your long-desired change. However, when presented to the Secretary of State its shot down.
Your dream languishes in the desk drawers of some 21-year-old civil servant fresh out of university.
But once again your political career continues to rocket. The Prime Minister has now appointed you to become a Secretary of State. You are now one of the 21 most powerful people in the country. You are in control of departments that employ thousands of people and affect the lives of millions.
You reach into that drawer and pull out your plan for change – the thing you have centred your political career on, the dream you have had for 10 years at this point – finally about to happen. But on the phone is the Special Adviser (SpAd) to the Prime Minister; he has invited you down for a cup of tea to chat. At which the Prime Minister shuts down your plan.
You head back to your office to commiserate with your two SpAds – the first time in your political career you have ever been allowed to hire your own people. You are surrounded by a Civil Service who treat you like grit in their oyster, and it is up to you and your two advisers to steer the ship.
Calamity has ensued for the Government; the Prime Minister has been forced to resign. After a couple of different reshuffles you are now a ‘big beast’, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Your colleagues have already anointed you Prime Minister
You walk through the black door of 10 Downing Street and head into your office. You call in your Chief of Staff and finally dig out your plan – that one policy that started it all. You ask them to get started on it. But nothing happens.
Months pass; you are swamped in the job that you never really wanted, continually chasing this policy in the spare moments you can breathe, but it is never going anywhere.
This is the flaw of British politics: to get anything really done you are required to become Prime Minister, yet when you reach that pinnacle as Jonathan Powell, National Security Adviser to the PM, says “When you … pull on the levers of power, you discover they are not connected to anything.”
How does one change that?
Who really knows? There are millions of suggestions: reduce the number of MPs, introduce a separate executive, or add more political appointees to the Civil Service.
But until it has radically changed, there will always be this vacuum of power in which elected officials have little control over the system that they are constantly blamed for and this in some way helps explain all the political melodramas that very few outside of SW1 care about.