AAfter five months in office, Labor knows where it wants to take the country; but they do not know how to get it. In this, and although with radically different priorities, the Labor government is imitating the Conservatives that preceded it. Boris Johnson found in the end that he was unable to deliver the work he wanted for modern Britain. Now it’s back to Keir Starmer today.
Starmer’s “change strategyThe speech at Pinewood Studios last week was an acknowledgment of the problem. The British Empire, says Starmer, “is broken.” Confessions are prominent, but also true in many ways, custody and social care prominent among them. Starmer responded by announcing five-year targets in key policy areas – the economy, housing, health, policing, early life and energy. But this was enough. Starmer’s response is not adequate to the problem he faces.
It is easy to claim that this failure can be explained simply because of ideological purity. Many Conservatives certainly thought that Johnson had not improved enough. Many in Work An equal and opposite charge is that Starmer is an inadequate leftwing. But these were and are lazy. They do not explain anything useful or true.
Johnson’s failure and Starmer’s struggles are not caused by a lack of commitment to their cause. Nor are they caused by a lack of personal determination – certainly not in Starmer’s case. But, while there are other things, the most excellent and greatest cause is the broken and uncontrolled nature of the British state.
In some of the neighboring countries, the debate about the state is the most familiar part of the state. France has a political tradition that still tends to assert the importance of the state of the republic, among other things, that its anti-clericalism was embodied after 1789. In Ireland, the state is often invoked in public debates, this time developing the nation’s independence from Britain over the past century.
Britain, on the other hand, has almost never gone down the line from the state of the republic, from the monarchy and the court of lords at the top, to the bureaucracy of Whitehall and the postcode lottery. The word “state” seems to be almost religious, to be avoided either as suspiciously intellectual or as much as that of communists or fascists. That is why we never think about his safety. I cannot remember one more significant speech from a British government minister in recent times. What is that prayer this week through the influential cabinet minister Pat McFadden was so visible.
McFadden’s headline in a speech about “on the reformation of the state“. This was quite unusual. But the word “status” also appeared in it 11 times, always in a meaningful context. The review that got the most media attention had the suggestion to think of public affairs more like a start-up business, which led to comparisons of the arrival of McFadden and Dominic Cummings in the age of Johnson, but the most complicated observation was that he could not “leave the republic.”
This is a real and present danger. In some cases it has already been done. The servants cannot pull out the passengers and know that their wishes are enforced. This indeed belongs to failure. Some of the effects are deliberative decisions that have reduced the state’s capacity to act effectively – including health, safety, education and criminal justice. National security is also being cut. The imbalance between national, devolved and local government is pernicious. In addition to other recent events, the extent of the damage caused by Covid has been explained. then, when the safety of the state was exposed to the supreme government, he was arrested.
However, the state of the machines and institutions is more than a number, although these are certainly important. More than Whitehall, more than the civil service and certainly more than the public sector. In a way, it can be better thought of as a human and national state. We are part of it, whether we work for the government or not. It helps keep us together and makes us safer, and because of this freedom we can exercise regardless.
McFadden’s speech did not go into Hobbesian or Spinozian territory. But at least he mentioned the problem – the need to reform the republic. He also considered the capacity of the state, sometimes eliminating the concepts of the state and the country in ways that are certainly a necessary part. And, to his credit, he admitted — a far too rare politician — that he didn’t “get this all figured out from start to finish.”
Starmer reiterates how vital it is to deliver the belief that politics can change life for the better. That’s right. However, telling civil servants to work hard and be more creative will not achieve this. Nor, even if it happens, will it be a transition milestones in project delivery. If in doubt, he can ask Rishi Sunak to remind him how they are useful.
Starmer’s premise calls for a much stronger, richer and more secure national narrative. Despite the globalized economy, the nation state remains the fundamental driver of politics and government in every nation on Earth. The success or failure of any national government hinges on the state of the state, not only in terms of security, but in economic, social and even cultural terms.
Watch the spectacular events in Syria this week. The Syrians did not recognize the state of Assad. But if they can be identified with the substitute state, immense change is possible. Something similar, though far less dramatic, is also true of Britain. McFadden’s speech was hardly a landmark event. But it opened the door to a better course of action than the Starmer government has managed so far.