Simon Hoare MP admits past failings, and warns that if government and opposition don’t deliver, the vacuum will fuel populism and protest votes
I cannot believe that we are in the ninth month of the year – time appears to be turbocharged at the moment. As the nights (regrettably) draw in, I hope you had a good summer, whatever it is you did.
If anyone has ever seen a hard copy of a speech given by a government minister, it always says at the top: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY. What this means is that the prepared text might not be read out in full. An event that happens before the speech is given may require an off-the-cuff response. A minister (I know I certainly did it) might riff and extemporise to amplify a point or add colour. Alternatively, whole chunks of speeches might not be used, if you read the room and recognise the audience isn’t ‘with you’.
So, there is a difference between what has been written down and planned to be said, and what is actually delivered. Therefore, journalists always need to make sure the minister has said what it was claimed the minister would say (thank you, Sir Humphrey) before writing an article declaring: “the minister said …”
So. Let me start with a mea culpa on behalf of my party. Too often, we said what we were intending to do … and didn’t always follow through on it. In short, we did not check against delivery.
There were events which got in the way of that delivery – Covid and Ukraine, for example – but sometimes it was simply a case of taking the eye off the ball. It is too easy, when in government, to say something in a speech – still more so after a No.10 summit: “this will be done”. The assumption is that simply by the heartfelt saying of it, the thing promised will, as if by magic, happen. That is not always the case. Policy must be driven hard and with a forensic application of energy and will.
The current government has fallen into the same trap, but at a much earlier stage. Remember Mission-Led Government? Five departmental, cross-cutting themes that would revolutionise the doing of government.
Well we might remember, but the government is apparently suffering from amnesia. Ministers can make all the grandiose pledges they like, but if there is no monitoring of delivery, then it is doomed before the first step is taken.
People are also not fools. We no longer fall for the Emperor’s New Clothes stuff. Ministers can tell us one thing, but if we are experiencing or feeling something different – or the complete opposite – then we know exactly who to believe … (hint: it’s not the minister). We see a slowing economy, rising costs, collapsing business confidence, inflation on the up, taxes entering the stratosphere… and yet ministers tell us we are privileged to be living in some sort of Labour nirvana. Saying something over and over again does not make it true – or any more believable – if it is entirely counter-intuitive to daily lived experience.
Some current ministers appear to have taken political advocacy classes from Iraq’s Chemical Ali: “there are no allied tanks on Iraq’s soil,” while they were plainly visible in the background.
The disappointment in my party when in government – and the growing despair with Labour now – is, of course, fuelling the popularity of Reform. This is understandable, but it will prove to be unsustainable. The only thing Mr Farage has ever delivered is speeches: by his own hand, he has delivered nothing. His easy, headline-grabbing slogans, shouted as he jumps on yet another passing bandwagon, have no substance. Delivering in politics is not about the what, it’s about the how. Farage has drunk too deeply of the Trump Kool-Aid, and he is giddy at the thought of some kind of UK presidential executive power.
But in a parliamentary democracy, executive power does not rest in one pair of hands. Farage’s idea of appointing a cabinet from outside Parliament is a nonsense: ministers must be accountable to Parliament. His random plan for deportations is simply not deliverable at the click of a PM’s fingers.
So, there is a clear challenge to both government and opposition if we are to deflate the Farage ego. Government must deliver.
We in opposition must work up credible, deliverable alternatives.
The why, what and how need to be stark.
In short, we must both check against delivery.
