Cameron and Osborne are all yin and no yang

Intimacy of the British prime minister and chancellor, with their hive mind, is a historical aberration

There is a design quirk in Britain’s current government, and it is not what you think it is. Yes, this is the first coalition since the Second World War, but that makes it unusual, not unique. It is also the first administration whose term is fixed by law, but that just formalises the convention that a parliament lasts four or five years.

The oddity of this government is not structural or constitutional but personal: the partnership of David Cameron and George Osborne. Human relations are hard to quantify but it is doubtful whether a prime minister and his chancellor have worked so closely for so long since the latter office gained real eminence at the end of the 19th century.

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher formed a productive bond with her chancellor Nigel Lawson in the 1980s, but it curdled horribly. By the end, he was reputedly helping the pound track the Deutschmark without her knowledge. Former PM Tony Blair negotiated a co-premiership with Gordon Brown, but under duress. Osborne has never needed to ask for his roving influence across government. Brown stymied prime ministerial initiatives he did not like; Osborne knows who is the boss. Brown had his “people”; there is no such thing as an Osbornite, or at least none who is not also a Cameronite.

Prime ministers and chancellors either clash or work sympathetically but separately, like John Major and Ken Clarke in the 1990s. The ultra-intimacy of Cameron and Osborne, with their hive mind and informally pooled staff, is a historical aberration. And it matters. In 2012, when the economy was going nowhere, another prime minister might have moved Osborne aside and revised his policy of fiscal contraction. In Downing Street, the idea was never entertained.

When a cabinet minister pursues a policy Whitehall does not like, civil servants often try to get around him by appealing to Cameron. When the chancellor sets upon a project, they do not bother. The devolution of powers to northern cities, planning reform, extra money for free schools — any idea that flows from Osborne is implicitly underwritten by Cameron. Opponents within the governmental machine never have a prayer.

Liberal streak

If the advantage is constancy, there is a price paid in forgone creative tension. For all the chancellor’s liberal streak, he and his neighbour view the world — and politics — in roughly similar ways. An odder couple might have produced a less orthodoxly Conservative government. Political parties only win new votes when they do things that confound expectations of them. The Tories are going into the general election in May on a platform that is all too familiar. Previous week, they announced their zillionth clampdown on welfare. Last week came more coddling of pensioners. There are many causes of this narrowness. A lack of yin and yang at the very top of the party is among them.

So the harmony of Cameron and Osborne can mean executive coherence, or it can stifle. Either way, it is the real innovation of this government. And nothing like it will exist in a Labour administration led by Ed Miliband, with Ed Balls at the Treasury.

Personally, the two men are far from close. Philosophically, they are different kinds of social democrat. Balls is minded to let markets do their thing, and then tax and spend their output. His leader favours intervention before the point of taxation.

Shared power

This is no small difference. It is, on reflection, a heavier disagreement than anything between Blair and Brown during their decade of tempestuously shared power.

Balls worried about Miliband’s proposed freeze of household energy bills in 2013, which, thanks to the subsequent collapse in oil prices, now looks as shrewd as most technocratic efforts to buck the market.

They disagree on the best way to fund universities, on the urgency of extra airport capacity in London, on the political wisdom of squabbling with major employers before an election. It is easy to see why Labour radicals might find Balls a stick in the mud, and why he might view their dreams as the classic work of good but not quite first-class minds.

The pair will probably strike a cool but professional relationship in office. But even this would constitute a sharp break with five years of Cameron-Osborne telepathy. The change would be felt throughout government.

The Treasury view would no longer be coterminous with Number 10’s. The offices would haggle over policy, like a single-party coalition. A bad patch for the chancellor would have consequences. A Labour government beyond May would lack many things. Creative tension is not one of them.

gulfnews.com