When Francis Maude was a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, he sent a note to Margaret Thatcher detailing a particularly fiendish political problem he was struggling with, in the hope that she might offer a solution. By return, he received a one-line reply from her adviser Charles Powell, which read: "The Prime Minister has studied your note with interest and agrees it is a difficult issue." Translation: he was on his own.
In the era of the compulsive micro-manager who currently occupies Number 10, it is worth remembering that ministers were once expected (sometimes, at least) to sort things out for themselves. Lady Thatcher, whose first months in office are being studied carefully by David Cameron, has things to teach even the lowliest frontbencher about what to expect if the Conservatives win. But are they doing their bit?
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We are scarcely three months from May 6, the likely polling day. While Mr Brown plots his survival via a brutal game of tactical opportunism, and Mr Cameron does his best to offer an inspiring (if airbrushed) face to the voters, the Tory machine is carrying on the work of preparing for government. Such is the scale of the project being overseen by Mr Maude, now a battle-hardened veteran of government and opposition, that some boast this will be the best-prepared government ever.
However, if you put that to him – or anybody else in the inner circle of Tory high command – there will be a noticeable wince. Oliver Letwin has gone grey with worry about what remains to be done before May 6. Mr Maude shakes his head in frustration. Expectations are outpacing reality. Those at the top realise all too well that what awaits them is a challenge of such epic proportions that no amount of preparation can truly do the job.
Scarcely a day goes by without more evidence showing just how bad things are, or how difficult the decisions will be for whoever is in charge after the election. An important report from the Institute for Government set the backdrop this week by describing the "conspicuous lack of a single coherent strategy for government". The machine that runs the country is "weak" and "dysfunctional". Senior officials interviewed anonymously for the survey were scathing: Downing Street issues "barmy ideas", said one; another claimed that Gordon B
By Benedict Brogan Published: 8:04PM GMT 20 Jan 2010
Comments 26 | Comment on this article
When Francis Maude was a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, he sent a note to Margaret Thatcher detailing a particularly fiendish political problem he was struggling with, in the hope that she might offer a solution. By return, he received a one-line reply from her adviser Charles Powell, which read: "The Prime Minister has studied your note with interest and agrees it is a difficult issue." Translation: he was on his own.
In the era of the compulsive micro-manager who currently occupies Number 10, it is worth remembering that ministers were once expected (sometimes, at least) to sort things out for themselves. Lady Thatcher, whose first months in office are being studied carefully by David Cameron, has things to teach even the lowliest frontbencher about what to expect if the Conservatives win. But are they doing their bit?
We are scarcely three months from May 6, the likely polling day. While Mr Brown plots his survival via a brutal game of tactical opportunism, and Mr Cameron does his best to offer an inspiring (if airbrushed) face to the voters, the Tory machine is carrying on the work of preparing for government. Such is the scale of the project being overseen by Mr Maude, now a battle-hardened veteran of government and opposition, that some boast this will be the best-prepared government ever.
However, if you put that to him – or anybody else in the inner circle of Tory high command – there will be a noticeable wince. Oliver Letwin has gone grey with worry about what remains to be done before May 6. Mr Maude shakes his head in frustration. Expectations are outpacing reality. Those at the top realise all too well that what awaits them is a challenge of such epic proportions that no amount of preparation can truly do the job.
Scarcely a day goes by without more evidence showing just how bad things are, or how difficult the decisions will be for whoever is in charge after the election. An important report from the Institute for Government set the backdrop this week by describing the "conspicuous lack of a single coherent strategy for government". The machine that runs the country is "weak" and "dysfunctional". Senior officials interviewed anonymously for the survey were scathing: Downing Street issues "barmy ideas", said one; another claimed that Gordon Brown has reduced it to "a little bunker".
On one level, such comments reflect the growing rage among civil servants at the awfulness they see at the top. Labour MPs are not the only ones who have spotted the absence of clothes. Long after Mr Brown has retired to an academic berth, or to redesign the world's financial or philanthropic architecture, the multiple weaknesses of his leadership style will remain in the memory of those who have worked alongside him – far longer, indeed, than his achievements at the height of the financial crisis.
So the Tories can at least look forward to the honeymoon they will be given by a Civil Service eager for change and new challenges. But the structural flaws identified in the institute's report, in particular the absence of an effective form of central control in Downing Street, will be inherited by Mr Cameron if he takes over, at a time when he will need to be able to deliver wide-ranging changes across Whitehall more urgently than ever.
This is why the Tories' first Queen's Speech will focus on reforms that will transform the landscape of public services. Legislating to require all departments to list every item of spending above £25,000 may not make great headlines, but it will expose waste and drive down costs; legislating to give parents – not local authorities – the power to advertise for the groups or firms needed to set up and run schools will encourage the citizen activism that lies behind that clunking phrase Mr Cameron is so keen on, "the post-bureaucratic age".
The immediate task, however, will be to cut costs. Alistair Darling talked this week of "non-negotiable" reductions in all areas except hospitals, schools and the police. He did not demur when it was put to him that his plan for halving the deficit would require 17 per cent cuts in departmental budgets over four years. Labour is castigated by the Tories for not going far or fast enough, and for not saying where they would start, but we should acknowledge that these cuts alone are eye-watering.
Last week, George Osborne went further by promising to start cutting as soon as he enters the Treasury. A £31 billion spending increase this year will be reversed, although he has not provided new detail on how he would do it. This is where all that preparation should come in handy. Mr Osborne, and his impressive deputy Philip Hammond, have had months to pore over the books, scrutinise departmental budgets and put the squeeze on their frontbench colleagues. By now, a roadmap – albeit a secret one – should be nearing completion, detailing where savings can be found. Frontbenchers eager for favour should be forming an orderly queue outside Mr Hammond's Westminster office, clutching lists of candidates for the chop.
Certainly, the message from on high is that all is in hand, that we should have faith and be patient. "We are Thatcherites, we are ready to take difficult decisions, but we can't say it publicly in case nobody votes for us," is how it was explained to me last week. But we have no way of testing whether that is true, or whether all that hard work we keep hearing about is producing something credible. For the moment, we are being asked to accept on trust that Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron have a robust plan that will be equal to the task.
Labour, as you might expect, smell a rat. Mr Darling told his Cabinet colleagues in a strategy meeting on Monday that he was surprised at how quickly the Tories came unstuck when a policy they had had years to work on – tax relief for marriage – was put under pressure. Which brings me back to the role of ministers, and the expectations we place on them to get on with Lady Thatcher's "difficult issues". Ask around Westminster, and you will be hard-pressed to find a Tory frontbencher who offers the faintest suggestion of what a 17 per cent cut might look like. One member of the shadow cabinet, whose department faces swingeing cuts, whispers confidently that he will be spared. There is even talk that previously accepted savings – such as the scrapping of the Regional Development Agencies – are being reconsidered.
Maybe the mystery that surrounds this process is doing Mr Cameron's credibility more harm than it deserves. Maybe we fail to appreciate the impact of the measures Mr Osborne has already promised, such as the one-year freeze in public sector pay or the extension of the retirement age. Or maybe the Tories are right to doubt whether we, as a nation, have the stomach for the truth about what is to come. Why should they do anything to shift the focus away from Mr Brown?
Far better to say that we voters are at fault than for Mr Cameron to discover, late in the day, that you can prepare for government as much as you like, but are still stuck if your team haven't done their homework.
Comments: 26
Hiya Ben x . Don't waste your breath , honey . You sound like the guy in the lifeboat , desperately tryin to scribble down the inventory of The Titanic while you can remember wot woz on it x . We're sunk . You're sunk . Iceberg or popped rivet - we are goin down , hun . Pleeeeze be quiet while I mourn the loss of my ship . Ta . E x .
I don't know about 17%, but most people I talk to know where savings can be made: Health and Safety; Regional Assemblies (they should never have been set up without a mandate anyway), and all the trendy lefty quangos. There - that's probably 20%. Oh, we could leave the EU as well. That would save us a tidy bit.
I don't expect to see any detail until the manifesto is published. They will have to be rather better prepared than the Tory new boy Timpson who I have just watched on Newsnight, nearly falling into the trap of admitting that he is making up policy as he speaks ! As Alex Gallagher 11.21 supposes, they are just making up nonsense as they go along.
'...There is even talk that previously accepted savings – such as the scrapping of the Regional Development Agencies – are being reconsidered.' Dear me. Poor Dave must have discovered that the aforementioned RDA's are the flagship of the EUSSR, covertly established by Common Purpose and planted strategically for full-on national obliteration. If Dave wanted to make life easy for himself he could adopt the suggestions as put forward by... Andy C on January 20, 2010 at 10:05 PM All of them are relatively painless to the taxpayer and with a bit of determination could be implemented within six months of taking office. Of course we know don't we, Dave doesn't want to make life easy for anyone. He just wants to be a Commissar.
Spare the Regional Development Agencies? - God give me strength!
The run-up to this election, and the election itself, is going to be like no other we've ever experienced. Just three-and-a-half months or so until the mooted Big Day, and any Cameronian policies that might exist are buttoned up tighter than a nun's knickers. Apparently, we're expected to trust and believe that Dave and his lads have concocted a multitude of Baldrick-like "cunning plans" that will knock Nulabour bandy. All this "worried faces", "furrowed brows", "sharp intakes of breath" malarkey is clever Tory tactics to throw those Nulabour dummies off the scent. I suppose, beneath all the angst, the Tories are secretly dancing with joy, high-fiving each other, ordering the champers. All will be revealed 10 minutes before the polling-stations open, thus denying those nasty Brownjobs the opportunity to steal good, honest vote-winning Tory strategies. Well, that's a relief, then. We've got nothing to worry about. Dave's on the case.......
About 20% of the necessary saving can be made if we withdraw from the EU. The improvement in trade that will bring about will cause an increase in tax revenues equivalent to a further 25%. Apply a tax specifically on loans made by RBS to American Companies to make up the remainder. I don't think Dave has too big a job to contemplate. All it takes is that one big decisive decision to redress his broken promise on the Lisbon Treaty.
If the Tories have a secret plan who knows the secret? Doesn't appear to be anyone on their front bench.
I think Cameron is a good bloke. I like what he is trying to do. I want him to win and hope he continues to work hard for the people of Britain. I have confidence in him.
a year ago , it was said that this is the election the Tories wouldnt want to win. Absolutely correct. Inheriting such a disaster from this laughable administration is a poisoned chalice indeed.
Ben, that the Tories have no policies is made evident every time they make a "policy pronouncememnt". Two months ago Andrew Lansley said his big idea was to put all our health records on Google! Really! How prqactical is that?! How secure! Yesterday David Cameron said that all new teachers should have 2nd-class or above degrees from "good" ("good" defined by DC) universities. How acute a judgment of the personality traits needed to be agood teacher is that? (clue, not very). If there are two policies which indcate more clearly a lack of touch with reality I've not heard of them. Oh wait. Cut inheritence tax... The Conservatives got the big economic questions wrong. They obviously don't understand how the NHS (or Google) works and now they have shown that they haven't a clue how teaching works. It's often said that governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them. It looks as if that's the secret Tory strategy
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