We have a Tory government, so why is the liberal establishment still in power?

Earlier this year, Mark Carney walked out of his job as governor of the Bank of England and into a new government advisory role connected to the COP26 climate change conference, which the UK is hosting. He has been dispensing little pearls of green wisdom ever since. The pandemic presents “a big opportunity” to transition to a new sort of economy, he said recently. He co-authored a column on the subject for The

Guardian last week. He has called for policies that will accelerate green growth, citing the coming UK ban on diesel and petrol cars. Maybe you agree with Mr Carney. I do not. But a Conservative government has given him an official platform from which to lecture the rest of us on how we should be living.

All this has been eagerly reported by the BBC, of course. The Corporation last week announced its new directorgeneral will be Tim Davie, whom some are describing as a new broom because he ran the BBC’s commercial arm and was once apparently a Conservative. I don’t wish to prejudge Mr Davie, and his appointment was not in Downing Street’s direct gift. Perhaps he will address the Corporation’s systematic under-representation of non-liberal, non-PC viewpoints, and accept that the licence fee must be replaced by a subscription model. But is this necessary revolution likely from a long-time BBC insider who, by most accounts, is a safe pair of hands?

Where is the army of radicals we were promised to remake the state from the inside?

Then there is the Chancellor’s nominee to chair the Office for Budget Responsibility. This is not a minor job. The OBR’s judgments on the Government’s spending plans are treated as gospel from heaven, even if its work is somewhat technocratic. So it is important that Rishi Sunak has selected Richard Hughes, a research associate for the Left-leaning Resolution Foundation, to fill the role. Was a Right-leaning economist not available? When Labour governments are in power they never miss a chance to advance their own side.

Obviously I am not proposing some kind of Test Act. Consult the Cabinet Office’s list of recent public appointments and you will see that a smattering of Tories have also been honoured with jobs in the quangocracy, although they have tended to be ex-politicians like Lord Pickles rather than civil society figures. But where is the army of unorthodox-thinking battle-hardened radicals we were promised to remake the state from the inside?

The pandemic has shown all too clearly the failures of the bureaucracy. It has also shown how “sticky” bad Left-wing policymaking can be unless there are people in positions of authority to challenge them. Why is the Government making such a song and dance about cycling, when we know that most people have reacted to the pandemic by jumping in their cars, and the policy of widening cycle lanes makes the latter harder? Why is the Treasury reportedly seeking to revive the economy through “green jobs”, when any jobs would do? Why does it feel as if authentically pro-freedom, pro-individual policies to lift us out of this nightmare are not even being considered?