Andrew Griffith is the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs.
Amidst everything on the to-do list of new or returning Conservative Members of Parliament this week, we must not fail in our task as the country’s Official Opposition. We cannot take our eye off the ball. That work needs to start today.
Yes, we should do so with the humility of our own shortcomings in government. And yes, opposition must never be knee-jerk, and we must be generous where the new government gets things right – or, as with the NHS’s failings, says correctly things that we did not say.
But with the endorsement of fewer than 34 in a hundred of the people who did vote, and the second lowest turnout in democratic history, this government walks into office far from having a mandate for change.
The first 100 days in any government can be momentous. It’s when radical changes (such as the independence of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England) are enacted, priorities are established, and key appointments are made. It is also when we as an opposition can set the right tone – either rolling up our sleeves and starting the job that is expected of us professionally, or looking like we are gearing up for another episode of Game of Tory Thrones.
For the country, this is the moment of maximum danger. Our constitutional safeguards are at their lowest, Parliament is at its least experienced and its most distracted. Watching last Thursdays broadcast media – with honourable exceptions such as the BBC’s Chris Mason – the enthralled election-night faces of so many supposedly ‘impartial’ political journalists confirm they cannot be trusted to hold a government of the left to account.
Within days, the Chancellor will be sending a draft budget to the OBR which could have dire consequences for Britain’s competitiveness as a place to do business or attract overseas investment. (As a former Treasury Minister, I can never unsee many of the horrors on HMRC’s menu of ideas to raise taxes.)
Immediate decisions on departmental spending – or even the failure to make decisions – will have real world impacts on our constituents. Arguments about the foreseeable or even unintended consequences of some of these need to happen now, not when it is too late.
The Kings Speech committing months of parliamentary time to causes good and bad will this week be sent to the Palace to be etched on goatskin parchment – and goodness knows what concoction of left-wing comrades and fraternal sycophants are being considered for peerages and quangos.
All require the forensic scrutiny of a well-organised opposition which is willing to dedicate significant time and energy to the task, and properly organise its resources to do so.
Much has already been written about the timing and process of a new Conservative leader. Time, in opposition, is now the one attribute that regrettably we now have in abundance. We should use that to look widely at the potential within the parliamentary party, learn the right lessons from defeat and ensure that our membership – the vast majority of whom now have no Conservative MP to represent them – are not taken for granted.
With just the same number of MPs as a four-form intake in a medium sized secondary school, we must properly utilise the competence and experience of all who will serve in frontbench roles. Wasting talent is a luxury we can no longer afford; coming to politics after a career in business, it has been a source of genuine despair how little priority is given to composing top teams with the right skills, as opposed to having backed the right candidate.
The first Wednesday of August is reportedly the moment not to be seriously ill, as that is when newly-qualified doctors take up positions within hospitals for the first time and the more experienced junior doctors they replace rotate elsewhere. Our liberties, livelihoods and the future of our economy are too important for us to risk the political equivalent in the coming weeks.
Andrew Griffith is the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs.
Amidst everything on the to-do list of new or returning Conservative Members of Parliament this week, we must not fail in our task as the country’s Official Opposition. We cannot take our eye off the ball. That work needs to start today.
Yes, we should do so with the humility of our own shortcomings in government. And yes, opposition must never be knee-jerk, and we must be generous where the new government gets things right – or, as with the NHS’s failings, says correctly things that we did not say.
But with the endorsement of fewer than 34 in a hundred of the people who did vote, and the second lowest turnout in democratic history, this government walks into office far from having a mandate for change.
The first 100 days in any government can be momentous. It’s when radical changes (such as the independence of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England) are enacted, priorities are established, and key appointments are made. It is also when we as an opposition can set the right tone – either rolling up our sleeves and starting the job that is expected of us professionally, or looking like we are gearing up for another episode of Game of Tory Thrones.
For the country, this is the moment of maximum danger. Our constitutional safeguards are at their lowest, Parliament is at its least experienced and its most distracted. Watching last Thursdays broadcast media – with honourable exceptions such as the BBC’s Chris Mason – the enthralled election-night faces of so many supposedly ‘impartial’ political journalists confirm they cannot be trusted to hold a government of the left to account.
Within days, the Chancellor will be sending a draft budget to the OBR which could have dire consequences for Britain’s competitiveness as a place to do business or attract overseas investment. (As a former Treasury Minister, I can never unsee many of the horrors on HMRC’s menu of ideas to raise taxes.)
Immediate decisions on departmental spending – or even the failure to make decisions – will have real world impacts on our constituents. Arguments about the foreseeable or even unintended consequences of some of these need to happen now, not when it is too late.
The Kings Speech committing months of parliamentary time to causes good and bad will this week be sent to the Palace to be etched on goatskin parchment – and goodness knows what concoction of left-wing comrades and fraternal sycophants are being considered for peerages and quangos.
All require the forensic scrutiny of a well-organised opposition which is willing to dedicate significant time and energy to the task, and properly organise its resources to do so.
Much has already been written about the timing and process of a new Conservative leader. Time, in opposition, is now the one attribute that regrettably we now have in abundance. We should use that to look widely at the potential within the parliamentary party, learn the right lessons from defeat and ensure that our membership – the vast majority of whom now have no Conservative MP to represent them – are not taken for granted.
With just the same number of MPs as a four-form intake in a medium sized secondary school, we must properly utilise the competence and experience of all who will serve in frontbench roles. Wasting talent is a luxury we can no longer afford; coming to politics after a career in business, it has been a source of genuine despair how little priority is given to composing top teams with the right skills, as opposed to having backed the right candidate.
The first Wednesday of August is reportedly the moment not to be seriously ill, as that is when newly-qualified doctors take up positions within hospitals for the first time and the more experienced junior doctors they replace rotate elsewhere. Our liberties, livelihoods and the future of our economy are too important for us to risk the political equivalent in the coming weeks.