Now’s the time for British politics to get back to basics
FIGHTING words came out at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, as Boris Johnson and Opposition leader Keir Starmer accused each other of being the bigger flipflopping fiend. And so it seems our brief period of cross-party co-operation has ended.
At the peak of the virus, the Labour leader promised a constructive opposition, one that would work with the Government to guide the country and challenge it when it was most helpful to do so.
As the death toll rose, our freedoms reduced and Mr Johnson found himself in intensive care. Labour broadly stuck to its promise, offering breathing room in politics – a foreign concept after years dominated by referendums, elections and an exit from Europe’s political bloc.
The Covid crisis has illuminated the extent to which politics is a luxury – or how politicking is reserved for relatively stable times, put on hold when real danger presents itself.
You can’t imagine politicians would have dedicated every waking hour to voting for Brexit amendment stalemates if the NHS had been in serious threat of being overrun.
Or that the colour of one’s passport and the origins of its manufacturer would have mattered nearly as much if people’s right to hug their parents or partner had been temporarily disabled by law.
Johnson and Starmer are back to mud-slinging, throwing around criticism and personal digs because they can: the Covid threat in Britain is tentatively under control and morsels of normality are returning. With the return of the pub has come the return of gotcha moments at PMQS.
That’s not to say all the political battles in the past few years have been fluff compared to coronavirus.the momentous decision to break with Europe’s political direction turned into an even greater battle for the crux of democracy, the need to carry out what voters instructed their politicians to do.
Last year’s election presented Britons with their first opportunity in decades to embrace a political philosophy that would have transferred nearly every bit of the economy and culture into the hands of the state.
They rejected it decisively. But these defining acts of politics have largely been carried out by the public. Which leaves one wondering, what has the state – elected officials, bureaucrats, departments and quangos – been up to?
In past months, it’s become abundantly clear that state institutions have been woefully unprepared to handle the most basic and fundamental of tasks.
It’s accepted that western countries were misguided in pandemic preparations, expecting a flu rather than a coronavirus, but Britain revealed itself to be especially understocked and understaffed.
Public Health England, formed in 2013 to focus exclusively on public health issues, dedicated nearly double the budget to preparing for what it ironically dubbed the obesity epidemic than it did to preparing for an actual pandemic.
PHE seemed more dedicated to pushing a sugar tax on fizzy drinks over the line than it did to increasing testing capacity or stocking up on ventilators. Britain is now the home of reformulated Irn-bru – and also, quite possibly, the highest Covid death toll in Europe.
And it’s not just public health where Britain’s institutions seem to be lacking. Last week, the release of the Russia report revealed some explosive information: not about the EU referendum but about the inaction of the UK Government, both in its handling of the investigation and also its handling of Russia as a hostile state. The report reveals the fractured way in which responsibilities are dished out across government, leaving a worrying impression that monitoring and analysing Russia’s actions is a world away from those who would make decisions about how to respond.
State failures on the most basic level are not new. Long before we were dealing with a pandemic, the Government was deporting citizens from the Windrush era, committing to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 without so much as an outline to achieve this, and committing to more public spending despite warnings that sustainability looks slim.
Government expenditure goes up every year, as more of its failures come to light: billions more pounds of taxpayer money poured into special projects, lifestyle interventions and quangos, despite the state failing to get many of the core functions of governing right.
While there may be miles between Johnson and Starmer’s politics, neither can be described as small-state advocates.
Johnson is already dressing up his 2019 manifesto commitments, pledging to be just as interventionist coming out of the Covid crisis as going in.
Threats of a junk food ad ban suggest the Government aims to pick up its public health agenda right where it left off, ignoring the serious threats in pursuit of relatively ineffective, nannying gestures.
What’s needed is not state meddling in new areas but an improvement on its operation in the most vital ones.
The Covid crisis has exposed that we don’t have the luxury of performative politics – nor can we wait to find out the next area where government oversight and processes are sorely lacking.
Politics may be returning to normal but the political agenda needs to go back to basics.
‘The state is failing to get many core functions of governing right’