The Parliamentary Peter Principle

The Hollow Men strike again

And so, the briefings have begun. Less than a week after she won the leadership, less than 6 hours after she named her Shadow Cabinet, Kemi Badenoch has seen in her first round of Conservative Party infighting.

According to Christian Calgie, a senior Tory source has responded to Kemi's cabinet appointments with criticism, saying: "‘Kemi won support from a third of the parliamentary party but has stuffed 80 per cent of the shadow cabinet with her supporters. It’s like Liz Truss all over again."

It’s nice to see that, even after it played a major role in consigning us to our greatest ever election defeat and five years as a political irrelevance, Tory MPs can’t stop pointless, counterproductive bitching about each other. It’s particularly funny given that all of the candidates - and all of their surrogates - spoke of the need to unite behind the leader once the campaign was over.

But deciding to brief against Kemi at this point is an INCREDIBLY stupid decision. She still has that new leader shine and (putting clichés about 100 days aside) that means many will be listening to us for the first time since the election. A shine which you are trying to knock off by comparing her to the most toxic leader we’ve ever had whose named is still, two years after she left office, uttered with motor memory as an example of how poor our show became.

It’s also INCREDIBLY stupid because Kemi is - almost literally - untouchable right now. She is immoveable; even if you wanted to remove her after less than a week in power (you are INCREDIBLY stupid), why blunt your sword now? Where is the political advantage you’ve won?

This briefing is, in fact, so INCREDIBLY stupid I actually wondered if it might point to something more serious - possibly pathological.

For the last few years (the problem became worse as the end grew nearer) the Tory Party has been beset by infighting. In fact, one could argue that at times it was occupied more with infighting than the actual business of government.

When we were in Government, my parents would often say that the Conservatives were ‘addicted’ to infighting. But I don’t think that’s right. Certainly the symptoms are the same, and I present this clinically-reviewed list as evidence;

• Secretive or dishonest behaviour

• Poor performance and/or attendance at work or school

• Withdrawing from responsibility and socialising

• Isolation

• Losing interest in activities, hobbies or events that were once important to you

• Continuing to use the substance, or engage in certain behaviours, despite the negative consequences that these cause

• Trying but failing to reduce or stop misusing a substance, or engaging in certain behaviours

• Taking risks - these might be legally, financially, in relationships and with your physical and mental health

But the diagnosis has to be different, if for no other reason than you cannot actually be addicted to party political infighting. In fact the cause is not addiction, but limitation.

For years, we’ve bemoaned the quality of our politicians and, more recently, the inability of Conservative Ministers to govern Conservatively. There is probably no-one with a sounder grip of this problem than Dominic Cummings, who has written extensively on how Westminster’s obsession with the media swamps the actual business of government. In particular, this section of The Hollow Men is illustrative;

For the first few months, all sorts of things spewed from the Department causing chaos. The organisation was in meltdown. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was often impossible to distinguish between institutionalised incompetence and hostile action. Things were reported as ‘Gove announces…’ that he did not even know about, never mind agree with. Then pundits and bloggers would spin to themselves elaborate tales of how the latest leak was ‘really’ deliberate spin, preparing the ground for some diabolical scheme. (I would guess that <5% of the things people thought we leaked actually came from us – maybe <1%.)

From that day for over a year, about every 2 hours, officials would knock at our door bearing news of the latest cockup, disaster, leak, and shambles, all compounded with intermittent ‘ideas for announcements’ from Downing Street. The last one would be at about 9ish on Friday evening – thump, thump, thump down the corridor, the door opens, ‘Dominic, bad news I’m afraid…’ One measure of ‘success’ was that the frequency of episodes fell from hourly towards a few per day, then daily, then, by the last quarter of 2012, a few days with nothing important obviously blowing up.

What this illustrates is that governing - even for a competent Minister like Gove, backed by someone who thought about systems management and solutions like Cummings - is fucking difficult. But it also shows how important the management of, and reaction to, media is.

But whilst Gove and Cummings bought the chaos in the DfE under (relative) control, what happens if you don’t have people of high competence like that?

Here is the thing rotten in the state of Denmark; there are, simply put, too few politicians capable of, or interested in, effectively wielding power or governing. Many politicians are, indeed, interested primarily in getting their face on the media. But an equally large problem is that in politics, the Peter principle does not apply; people can rise far above their level of incompetence. Positions are often gained with clever alliances to other politicians, friendships or Parliamentary influence, but rarely are they lost on grounds on incompetence. We have a system that is full of people who do not have the tools necessary to succeed, but who cannot be removed for failure.

Either uninterested or unable to stop the swirling mass of chaos that Cummings described, it simply swamps them and their political priorities; as Cummings noted, ‘Priorities slip unless you remain dementedly focused’.

But luckily, Westminster offers a way out. You don’t have to be good at governing to be good at politics; you can simply be a good chaos reaction device. This owes much to the Low Namierist tendency of the British media, as descibed in J’accuse;

Much has been said of the particular political sense of British journalists which has variably been called ‘Low Namierism’. It is an introverted narrative which fixates almost entirely on the squabble and manoeuvre of the prime minister and their immediate circle. As with Namier, politicians are never the representative of an ideology, or a class. Political news is reported on in glib Greek chorus fashion, even though these journalists are themselves very quick to swallow the latest pieties. There is also a crudely authoritarian streak: politicians are judged on their ability to ‘lead’, that is, to quell and overawe criticism in what is supposed to be a liberal democracy. The greatest prize for a lobby journalist is to find evidence of disagreement within a party or Cabinet, which is ipso facto thought to reflect badly on its leader. Internal party debate is always recast as chaos and weakness.

Politics playing out on these terms encourages infighting, not simply for the ‘advantage of manoeuvre’, but because it gives those who face insurmountable limitations in their ability to wield power a displacement activity for the actual business of government; that is, governing. The burden of effort falls away.

Displacement activity is a psychological term for behaviours that appear irrelevant or out of place, often occurring when an individual faces a conflict or stress. They act as a coping mechanism, allowing the individual to release tension or anxiety in a situation where they might feel frustrated, conflicted, or unable to take direct action. So it is with politicians; governing is difficult, and for those that prove incapable instead focus their efforts on what they are capable of; pointless, counterproductive bitching.

In government, the electorate found this intolerable. In opposition, they will find it irrelevant. What we need instead is clear and cold insight into why we failed, what we need to put right, what we need to reform and how. We have five years, but we have to begin with the end in mind, and the end is to elect a Conservative government that governs conservatively. Those that are failing already may be left, unmourned, by the roadside.