This article was first published in The Critic. Everything I publish elsewhere is shared here, as a gift to the nation. But if you want the full picture become a paid subscriber. It’s a few quid a month; such is the price genius is reduced to.
Let us say, for a moment, that you own a factory. This family has been in your family for generations, the machines hum a familiar tune and it has been maintaining a steady, acceptable output for years.
Your most important machine is starting to be a problem. It was installed gradually, and parts of it are over 100 years old. To keep it running, some parts have been replaced, and to improve its performance some brand new modules have been grafted on.
The problem with this machine is that every so often, it kills its operator.
It’s unpredictable. Sometimes it can take days, sometimes it can take years; sometimes a snapped belt severs a limb, sometimes an electrical surge leaves them rigor mortised at their workstation.
After it happens, you always think of replacing the machine, but you’re put off by a long line of fresh-faced operators who assure you the machine isn’t the problem. The actual problem, they say, is that the previous operators didn’t know how it worked properly; it just needs an operator with a firmer hand, better knowledge of the controls, a sharper eye for warning signs. It’s the most prestigious job in the factory, and they all want to work on it. But every so often the machine kills its operator and, if anything, the death toll is climbing faster.
This seems an almost insane metaphor; yet when it comes to Britain’s political apparatus, it is an apt one. (Granted, it may go too far in claiming the British state’s output has been “maintaining a steady, acceptable output for years”.) But the machinery of government has undoubtedly made a nasty habit of chewing up its leaders like worn-out bearings, and we have made a nasty habit of being all too willing to throw fresh meat into the grinder.
The newest operator assured us a steady hand was all that was required, yet after a few scares, Starmer’s hands are already clammy and white on the controls.
Polling by Ipsos shows that he is, after less than two years into the job, now the most unpopular prime minister on record. Just 13 per cent of voters say they’re satisfied with his performance, while 79 per cent are dissatisfied, leaving him with a net approval rating of minus 66. This is the lowest since Ipsos began tracking in 1977.
Unsurprisingly, his party grows restless. A Survation survey for LabourList finds that 53 per cent of Labour members want a new leader in place by the next election, versus 31 per cent who support the current leadership. Even among those who backed Starmer in 2020, only 43 per cent wish for his tenure to continue.
It should be little surprise, then, that many have started casting an alluring glance at Andy Burnham — who has shot an equally provocative look back.
But were Burnham to take the controls, he would do little better. He would face all the same economic, cultural and institutional issues that are currently overwhelming Starmer, with the added disadvantage of having to unite a newly-factionalised Labour Party. He would also bring his own problems; it is much easier to run Manchester on the back of decades of control and success under Richard Leese and Howard Bernstein but, as his comments on ignoring the realities of the bond markets shows, it is quite another to run a national economy.
Meanwhile, the last operators are still spasming in death throes on the factory floor. Last week, the Tories registered fourth in a poll, placing them below the Lib Dems — equivalent to just 11 seats. Kemi’s handling of the lesser machinery of opposition inspires little confidence that she could be trusted with the bigger, more dangerous machine. The reality is not that Kemi needs more time, or that she’s running out of time. She is being outpaced by it — the political time horizon no longer permits the kind of methodical, slow-burn strategy she seems to favour. Her model so far — apologising for months, gradually building the intellectual case, slowly maturing policy — belongs to a different informational age. The luxury of long-term positioning no longer exists.
The problem with Britain is not so much any leader in particular but that our governing systems, including those that produce leaders, are simply unfit for the demands of modern governance. We are suffering from a complete collapse in the Decision Space — the room to think, choose, and act meaningfully in government — of our elected officials, and the officials we elect are increasingly unsuited to do anything about it.
As noted by Weber as early as 1918, the nature of liberal democracy is to draw the governing class to those who can communicate most effectively. Since the governance of politics through parties essentially translates to governance driven by interest groups and liberal politics consists of debating, it makes sense that British politics is increasingly dominated by those from the “communicating professions” — law, education, journalism and public relations — that Weber would have recognised.
The snag is that the greater priority on narrative and debate, means, of course, there is less on execution and delivery. People skilled in their ability “to weigh the effect of the word properly”, as Weber put it, put an overweighted emphasis on saying rather than doing, which neatly explains why our political class can seem able to frame problems so persuasively yet struggles with the technical delivery and sustained vision required to solve them.
That is why MPs reach for new laws instead of working out how to better enforce the ones we have, why the solution to most of the problems faced by public services is to throw more money at them, why needless regulation is mindlessly added to needless regulation and in particular why, for the last 14 years, Conservatives spent time raging about things they didn’t like on GB News instead of using their power to prevent them.
Nor is the “government by commentary” problem exclusive to the right. An observable response the left is developing to Britain’s rightward turn is that they could “combat the far-right narrative” if only they had “leadership” with a “progressive voice”, “willing to talk about our values” and delivering a “message of hope”. They cannot see any problem beyond the loss of narrative control; they think the turn is the result of losing narrative control, and can simply be reversed with good enough comms and strategy.
We have a political class that believes framing is equivalent to fixing. Anthony King’s warning that there is “always the possibility that those who are adept at the use of words will come to believe that words are enough, the words are just about as good as deeds and are, indeed, all but equivalent to deeds” has come good. But words are not good enough. In order to regain control of the machine, we must have a radical re-expansion of the Decision Space. Tepid managerial tinkering will not future-proof British governance, but overhauling the vast machinery of government and reordering the constitution might.