As I start writing this (11h15 on Thursday 14th May) no Labour MP has yet triggered a leadership contest. Whether they do or don’t, here is some advice to Sir Keir Starmer or whoever replaces him.
Look at the careers of the five previous prime-ministers: Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak. They have each been crashing failures and ousted in ignominy.
One if the reasons why is they have tried to do too much, be centre stage, and made the job an impossible one beyond the resources of one person. (The possible exception is Johnson, who thought he didn’t need to do much, just be centre stage.)
So if there were an international crisis, there was the PM, seen to be jetting off to wherever,(we have foreign secretary for that); a medical crisis, there’s the PM in a white coat, (we have a health secretary for that); an industrial crisis, there’s the PM adorned in hard hat and high-viz jacket (we have an industry secretary for that); some natural tragedy, there’s the PM dripping sympathy and assurances that the thoughts and prayers of the nation are with the victims,(we have a royal family for that, and they do it very well.)
Let us go back to the drawing-board, in this case the Construction.
Ours is not a presidential system, but a cabinet system. The prime minister is not exactly the boss, but the “first among equals” (the clue is in the title). His/her job is to prioritise, encourage, cajole, warn and , when necessary, replace his/her colleagues.
Then set back and let them get on with the job. If they succeed they get the glory and the government gets the credit.
Certainly that seems to have been the case in my childhood.
The minister who enabled me and my cohort to have a free secondary education was R A Butler. He wasn’t even in the government when his famous 1944 Education Act was implemented.
Nye Bevan created the National Health Service which has cared for our bodies (and some minds) ever since, and is regarded by many as the Labour Party’s greatest achievement.
Manny Shinwell steered us through the infamous cold spell and resulting energy and transport crisis of the winter of 1946/7. ( Hardy any houses had central eating or double glazing and most were heated by one central coal fire, but coal was hard to get. You boomer and generations x, y z and whatnot, nor present day politicians, haven’t a clue what real austerity is.)
The great foreign secretary Ernest Bevin secured us in the Atlantic Alliance and, for better or worse, ensured we had our own atomic bomb so that he did not “go naked into the conference chamber."
I can’t recall what Hugh Gaitskell did to come to our notice, but he was famous enough to feature in a parody Good King Wenceslaus (When old Gaitskell came in sight, Gathering winter fu – u- el!).
Oh yes, and there was a prime minister. He was Mr Attlee, quiet and self-effacing. Later he wrote his own epitaph:
Few thought he was even a starter,
There were those who thought themselves smarter,
But he ended P.M.
C.H. and O.M.
And an earl and a knight of the garter.
So, Sir Keir if you survive, and if not whoever succeeds you, please don’t rush around trying to look powerful: set priorities, sit back, pull strings and let your colleagues bloom.
Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak. They have each been crashing failures and ousted in ignominy.
ReplyDeleteMr Cameron was not ‘ousted’. He resigned entirely voluntarily in a fit of pique that the electorate did not do what he wanted of them.
Some (including me) see his resignation, when not under any pressure to go, as a culpable dereliction of his responsibility to carry out the duties of the office that he had twice sought to be elected to.
Oh yes, and there was a prime minister. He was Mr Attlee
ReplyDeleteAh yes — the modest man with much to be modest about.
Does it occur to you that Mr Attlee’s utter lack of, well, everything, might have contributed to his administration being rejected by the voters in 1950 and then ‘ousted in ignominy’, as you put it, by those same voters in 1951?
ReplyDeleteManny Shinwell steered us through the infamous cold spell and resulting energy and transport crisis of the winter of 1946/7.
ReplyDeleteThis isn’ta bit of history of which I had previously been aware, but it’s fascinating to learn about.
Especially because far from Mr Shinwell ‘string us through’ the crisis, he seems in large part to have been responsible for it: first by nationalising, reducing the responsiveness of the industry; then by believing the Soviet-style inflated production figures provided him by the unions; and then by, rather than acting on the reports that a shortage was coming, gambling that the winter would be mild so that he wouldn’t have to crack down on the unions.
It sounds like a great object lesson in why nationalisation and central control of important industries is a terrible idea, so thanks for that.
I have been reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1946%E2%80%9347_in_the_United_Kingdom