We're still in a bit of a mess: how sensible people have failed us

There’s an urgent need to act, to free up the economy, to respond to crime, to get immigration under control, to fix vital services in health and care. The sensible people are too scared to act.

There’s a moment sometimes when you realise that things aren’t going to improve, that despite your fervent hope for a turnaround, even a miracle, it’s over. Usually this feeling lands sometime in the second half at the Emirates as Arsenal slide their third goal past the hapless West Ham ‘keeper. But the game ends, nobody has died, there isn’t economic or social collapse and a couple of stiff drinks will fix everything.

Sometimes this feeling lands as a result of some event in the world of politics and government, a realisation that nothing is going to get better for the simple reason that those who administer the work of government, advise those administering the work of government and write or speak about the work of government for grand, important media organisations, are not prepared to allow things to get better if it means compromising on their sensible and simplistic views. Or, dare it be said, for these great and good to face some actual accountability or take any responsibility for their failure.

Back in September 2023 I made the observation that “(t)hree years into a Starmer government we’ll be wondering why we bothered changing horses”. It turns out that I was wrong, the wondering started a little more than a year into the new and glorious Starmer regime. But when I made that observation, I also said that the central intractable problems - the wicked issues - would simply not get fixed:

“We face the likely prospect of a Labour government led by Keir Starmer. I don’t want to be harsh but I’ve a feeling it will be a disaster - at least in facing up to the problems of demographics, infrastructure and economic growth. When we look at the things the Labour leadership currently offer, changes they definitely plan to make, what we see is a combination of purposeless spite (scrapping VAT on school fees), self-defeating grandstanding (more windfall taxes), and economically illiterate ideas around energy (almost everything proposed by Ed Miliband). There are no proposals to fix social care or the crisis in acute health services. There is a lot of rhetoric about building houses but nothing of substance about getting a better planning system. And the shadow chancellor babbles on about ‘growth’ without giving even the tiniest hint as to how such a thing might be achieved without reforming how we build infrastructure.”

As the 2025 budget looms we have all (bar a handful of swivel-eyed Labour loyalists) realised that Starmer’s government hasn’t just been a disaster but a complete traincrash of epic proportions. It is hard to remember, and I can recall the Callaghan government as well as the Major government, a government for which every single proposal turns out to be a mistake, where literally nobody, officials and politicians, displays any trust in their colleagues let alone any foresight or consideration. The only cover for Starmer comes because pretty much all the leading media names are complicit in getting Starmer into power. Sir Keir was the British establishment’s choice, or at least the choice of the large part of those great and good who socialise with each other at those probably mythical North London dinner parties.

Of course, what the great and the good don’t realise is that they are the reason why we are in such a mess. It is a bit rich for the Financial Times, which has endorsed Labour’s technocratic big government approach since 1979, to suddenly start picking at the things the government is doing. It was all entirely predictable but the sensible people who write for the FT, The Times, The Economist and wag their tongues on the BBC were too invested in laughing at Tories, hating Donald Trump and trying to destroy Nigel Farage. And this still carries on: Ed Davey, who leads an offshoot of the Labour Party designed to appeal to guilt-ridden middle class women, thinks Donald Trump is trying to destroy the BBC and John Sweeney, erstwhile BBC reporter is paddling in the sea at Clacton peddling conspiracy theories in the hope he can bring down Farage.

Meanwhile inside the Labour Party the pretence of unity created to get elected is crumbling to dust. Assorted factions maneuver themselves, ready for the moment when Starmer collapses under the weight of his utter incompetence. Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner and probably Ed Miliband aren’t thinking about the country, the economy or Britain’s place in the world, but instead about how to look strong and prime ministerial without appearing too eager. And while this posturing takes place the legion of aides and advisors are so sieve-like that jumblies are lining up for a boat ride.

I can’t see anything much changing any time soon. There isn’t going to be a general election because all those Labour MPs don’t want to lose their jobs, power and influence and, unless Starmer decides to cut his losses, I doubt there’ll even be a change of leader. The sensible people will stay in charge, sensibly presiding over the crumbling of our economy, the deterioration of social order, the collapse of critical institutional infrastructure and Britain becoming a laughing stock everywhere else in the world (even places with all the same sensible people presiding over similar disasters). But the sensible people won’t be the ones up for election, they’ll continue with comfy academic tenure, sitting on the myriad boards and panels that control our state, massaging the decisions of courts and enquiries, and providing the bedrock of commentary for every part of the media.

What Britain needs isn’t a government that smashes everything up in the hope that the people who made the mess go away. Nor does Britain need a government that thinks money grows on trees and that Scrooge McDuck really does have a swimming pool filled with gold. It needs lots of those sensible people to struggle out from the ruins of their technocratic temple, blink in the sunlight of reality and recognise that maybe their sensible approach to managing Britain hasn’t worked. OK, it has worked for them, still is working for them, but it really hasn’t worked for the nation. We are getting poorer because of over-regulation, net-zero and the inability to build anything anywhere that might be useful. And crying about how immigration isn’t so bad really doesn’t wash when the economy is tanking, half of London has had its phone snatched and women in previously unheralded provincial market towns are muttering, occasionally shouting, about how the streets aren’t safe for them any more.

When New York elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor he set out the very definition of the worldview that dominates our politics here in Britain, the belief that “...that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about”. The UK has had this form of government since the early 1990s, whether it was Michael Heseltine intervening before every meal, Tony Blair leading the modernisation of everything because modern is good, or Gordon Brown and George Osborne creating a system of government finance that leads inevitably to higher spending and lower productivity. Now Starmer’s government of human rights lawyers has added a new stasis where nothing can be done because those human rights lawyers are going to block anything being done.

Everywhere I look I see the sensible people carrying on as if nothing is wrong. Lots of sensible, carefully researched ideas to tinker with a regulation here, tweak a law there and set up a new board or panel. There’s talk of being task-focussed and outcome oriented yet the results are the same inadequate, limited and ineffective changes designed not to upset or annoy anyone (except, they hope, Donad Trump or Nigel Farage). There’s an urgent need to act, to free up the economy, to respond to crime, to get immigration under control, to fix vital services in health and care. And most of the sensible people know this but are too damned scared to break ranks and tell the world the things they know are true: we have too much government, Britain is too centralised, parliament is dysfunctional, tax and regulation are throttling business, and there are far too many people - old and young - who think that the taxpayer owes them a living. Worse, that getting huge dollops of other people’s money is their right.

It is time to say that Ronald Reagan was right when he observed that ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’ are the most terrifying words you can hear. We have had over 30 years of technocratic, managerialist, centralising government and the result is economic stagnation, a disgruntled populace, a collapse in trust and the fragmentation of society. It is tempting to simply take a sledgehammer to the whole edifice of government and I can see why saying ‘the billionaires will pay’ is appealing, but neither approach does the job. Instead we need to ask why we got rich, healthy and happy in the first place (something called free market capitalism) and focus on doing that well rather than believing that clever men on boards meeting in fine London offices can fix every problem. It won’t happen though, will it?