Where are all the conservative thinkers who should be rebalancing public life?
We are coming to the end of almost a decade of Conservative majority rule in the UK. And what do we have to show for it?
Obviously, the Conservatives now have a majority in Parliament. But what about in the wider technocracy? In all those quangos, government appointments and other gifts that come through proximity to power? Those baubles (or balls and chains, depending how you look at it) that constitute the gift of the government of the day?
During its 13 years in government Labour used these gifts well. So well that even now, a decade after they left office, you still find Labour functionaries perched, like partisans, in every other tree.
Take the Royal Society of Arts, a well-funded, ancient and influential institution that is precisely the sort of outfit which directs the cultural weather. Today, its mission statement still constitutes that bland, dated New Labour guff about “human potential” and “challenges”. And why might that be? Perhaps because the chief executive since 2006 has been a man called Matthew Taylor, whose previous role was as adviser to former prime minister Tony Blair and head of the policy unit at No 10 during Blair’s tenure.
There are so many roles like this – ones into which Labour apparatchiks slipped with considerable ease and there remained. James Purnell’s career as a Labour MP reached its height with his role as a minister in the government of Gordon Brown – a CV point that ought to have all the appeal of the coronavirus. And where does Purnell perch now? Why, at the loftiest heights of the BBC, as the corporation’s director of radio and education. When you see the BBC pump out another unadulterated piece of Left-wing grudge-whisking, it might not be because of Purnell alone, but it certainly is because people like him so dominate our cultural institutions that their now-dated values and world-view are believed to be the norm even when they have been rejected at the ballot box.
The job of a Conservative government ought to be not just to seek, and keep, a parliamentary majority, but to ensure that the cultural winds begin to blow the other way. To ensure that conservativeminded people and even (shock, horror) Right-wing figures are placed in positions of responsibility. Imagine what could be achieved if the soft tools of British diplomacy, never mind the harder ones, were in the hands of non-Leftists. Imagine if organisations such as the British Council were headed by people who actually believed in the good that our country has done and can do, rather than these expensive and timorous entities which never saw a self-hating trend they did not prostrate themselves before.
If you point this failure out to Conservative MPs and party workers, you always get a certain number of ripostes. In the first, they try to name successful, non-Left wing political appointments of the last decade. The one name that always comes up with is William Shawcross, the author and royal biographer whose successful two-term stint as head of the Charity Commission helped turn around a woefully wet and wasteful institution. Go beyond that and some people might quietly add Roger Scruton, the conservative philosopher who spent the last year of his life writing a report at the request of Theresa May’s government, only to have been treated as disgracefully as it is possible to be treated by the government of the day. Beyond these two names the party loyalists flounder.
Recent analysis by the Tax Payers Alliance proves the trend. Its scrutiny of appointments to public bodies or quangos over the past decade breaks down appointees by declared political activity. Over the past decade Labour appointees exceeded Conservatives in almost every year. Even in 201819 there were 54 appointees who declared significant political activity in the Labour Party, as opposed to 36 who said the same about the Conservative Party. Given some of the other numbers over the decade it is surprising the Conservative presence was so high. But it is also a demonstration of a pathetic and craven oversight by three consecutive Conservative governments.
Of course, we then get to the other excuse that Conservatives give when this is pointed out, which is that the party was held hostage throughout most of the past decade. For five years every appointment had to be agreed, or bartered over, with their
Liberal Democrat coalition partners. Nick Clegg – now of Facebook – had considerable veto powers and could tell David Cameron and Co who he would and would not approve. What could the Conservatives do before such mighty powers?
Which brings me to the third excuse of the party faithful. “We just can’t find people willing to be put forward,” they say. To which – assuming that is true – one might pertinently ask: “And why might that be?”
One reason is because of something like what happened to Toby Young during the weakest days of the Theresa May minority government. Readers will remember that over New Year’s Eve 2018 the Conservative government slipped out the news that
Young – a prominent, writer, journalist and founder of and campaigner for free schools – was to be appointed as a member of a 15-member advisory board called the Office for Students.
Now, frankly the OFS is the sort of entity that shouldn’t exist. If the entire board of the OFS agreed as one to do something bold it would still merely land as a recommendation to sit as a paper on a ministerial desk and possibly provide a blueprint for future consideration and action. I am amazed that Young wanted anything to do with such a eunuch-like body.
But the Left went for him when it discovered one of its toys might land in his hands. They picked his life apart, found some sophomoric tweets from a decade earlier and destroyed him in public view. During the ensuing firestorm, the government allowed Young to step down from the role he had not started. So it isn’t exactly difficult to work out why Right-wing, or even just vaguely conservative, people might not find the whole appointments thing attractive.
Well, here is a thought. I would think that the present Government has no more than three to six months to enact it. Flood the public sector with Right-of-centre cultural and political figures. Change the weather. Re-centre the culture. If they don’t do it now, they never will, and the frit-ness of the past decade will remain the default position of this one.
As well as all the other appointments, the Conservatives should also focus on making appointments that enrage their opponents. To demonstrate that the era of Clegg-ism and May-ism is over, appoint Toby Young – and worse – to meaningful, “damaging” roles. Watch the Left scream and stamp their feet once more. At which point we can all turn round to them and say: “Well, perhaps you should have won a majority of 80 at the last election.” And: “Isn’t this what you would do?”
The Tories should ensure that the cultural winds begin to blow away from the Leftist quangocrats