“You guys should get outside London and go to talk to people who are not rich Remainers’.” (Dominic Cummings, September 2019.)
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Britain’s political and economic model from Margaret Thatcher through Tony Blair to David Cameron had roughly the following in common.
A dominant capital city, London, with its south-eastern hinterland. A flourishing City of London. An economy based on services rather than manufacturing. A high level of immigration, at least recently, to service its needs – both internally and externally. Pressure in this wider South East on schools, hospitals, roads, rail, cohesion, and especially the price of housing.
An Ascendancy class of civil servants, lawyers, journalists, academics, and media workers doing well out of this system, whichever of the main parties governed. Government focus on message and spin to feed the London-based newspapers and media. A recent Ministerial and Whitehall preoccupation with Parliament, reflecting the unwillingness of voters to elect a government with a strong majority since 2005 – and the increasing rebelliousness of backbenchers. A currency that some believe to have been overvalued (further reinforcing this system).
Outside this greater South East, a provincial Britain in relative or sometimes absolute recession. A growing gulf between its view of this system’s success and London’s. A sense that it has done less well out of the growth of the capital city, the universities, the media, services, the law – and infrastructure spending. A less favourable view of immigration. Less expensive housing but also lower wages. Skills and employment gaps.
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All this is about to change – at least, if a new post-Brexit Conservative Government based broadly on Thursday’s results, serving at least two terms and with Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings in place, has its way.
Perhaps wrongly, I read the briefing in much of Sunday’s papers about the new Government’s intentions as Classic Dom. In the short to medium term, expect to see the following:
There are some oddities about bits of the briefing, or at least parts of what’s being written. For example, if a new department for Borders and Security is to be set up, what becomes of the Home Office – which under the Theresa May/Timothy reforms became a department for security and borders? Is it to be amalgamated once again with the Justice Department? Might Johnson want to mull reviving an updated Lord Chancellor’s department?
And if the SNP is to campaign for a second independence referendum, with Northern Ireland undergoing huge post-Brexit change, wouldn’t it make sense to have a Secretary of State and department for the Union – perhaps headed by the ubiquitious Gove? What becomes of the traditional power of the Treasury?
Finally, Johnson could do all the restructuring and appointing available to him with his near three-figure majority…and find that the economic and political model he inherited is too entrenched to be shifted. Because the commanding heights of our culture have so big a stake in it that they won’t willingly let it go. Buy your ringside seat now for the clash between the Ascendancy’s instincts and Cummings’ plans. With Johnson refereeing.
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* Mr Grieve…we’ll see what he is right about.” (Cummings, August 2019.)