It’s that the most underrated ability in public life is the ability to think. Politicians have got to stop proposing things without thinking about them.
The thing with Andy Burnham is: I liked him as a person. I found him straightforward to deal with. Unlike, say, Sadiq Khan, he respected confidences and kept promises. But he’s not your guy for even slightly difficult decisions.
Put absolute effort into getting big policies right. Be clear about your objectives and how you will meet them. Work out its strengths and weaknesses. Predict and pre-empt lines of attack. Test messages, stroke stakeholders, refine the offer.
Jean-Claude Juncker, of all people, summed up the current state of politics: “We all know what to do. But we don’t know how to get reelected once we have done it.”
The freeze and the cut are estimated to have cost the government around £130 billion over the time they have been in place. But they are almost pointless, either for easing the cost of living or for buying votes.
Perhaps that’s the central problem this country has to grapple with, and not just in transport. How do we get people to vote for the things that need to be done rather than stupid wasteful mega projects ? And how do we get politicians with the balls to do them?
It needs to start soon: ideally, selecting an excellent candidate several years out who can be the focus of opposition to Khan, denying that space to others.
Blair wrote in his memoirs, the ideal line of attack against an opponent was “low-key… I never made it overly harsh. I always tried to make it telling. The aim was to get the non-politician nodding. If any of these low key charges comes to be believed, it is actually fatal.
The right Tory candidates could use the role to shape an alternative vision to Labour, show that Tories can be competent and deliver, that we can change some of the things that voters think aren’t working. Some mayors have, in parts of their remit, more leeway than a government minister.
Reforming the failing leadership of the civil service will be critical to any new government’s success in office.
Many British prime ministers turn from the frustrations of domestic policy to foreign affairs, albeit not as swiftly as has this one. But it seldom works for them politically: to voters, overseas triumphs count for little against GP appointments.
Policies with short-term costs and long-term benefits, including tax cuts and immigration control, are harder to pursue because of the OBR and the fiscal rules. Truss wasn’t wrong about that, either.
Politics is a little bit like the army; you can survive only as a team, not as individuals, something that not enough recent Tory politicians seemed to realise.
If we actually want to reduce congestion, we have to tackle the real causes of it, which are the same as they always were: traffic, parking, and roadworks.
We’ve dismantled much of our defence, indulged social forces which divide and weaken us, subsidised millions of our citizens not to work and imported other countries’ citizens instead, tolerated economic stagnation; and as a result, we’re vulnerable to whatever fate stronger folk have in mind.