Book review: The Conservative Effect 2010-2024 – 14 Wasted Years?

Adam Somerset

There is no last word in history. But there is a first word. For thirty years Sir Anthony Seldon has set the pace in converting journalism into door-stopper books that are a first history of the times.

If the first word is not the last these big first histories set the template for those that follow. “The Conservative Effect” is a compendium of fifteen essays by prominent names across academia and think-tanks. It makes lacerating reading for adherents of the party that used to think of itself as the natural holder of office.

The subtitle is “14 Wasted Years?” The lesson overall of the fourteen years goes back to Seldon’s book of 2007 “Blair Unbound”.  “Modern government cannot work if its leadership is perpetually at odds with itself.”

The language used across the essays  is direct. Paul Johnson, Carl Emmerson and Nick Ridpath are joint authors of a thirty-one page summary on the economy. “By the start of 2023”, they write, “business investment was no higher than it was in June 2016- a phenomenon not replicated in other advanced economies.”

As for the make-up of the labour force “one expected consequence of Brexit that has not materialised is a sharp decline in immigration.” The trade-off between sovereignty and open access to the economy across its own continent is clear. “The Office for Budget Responsibility judges that post-Brexit will reduce UK productivity by 4% relative to remaining in the EU.”

Low productivity economy

In 1870 the standards of living in Manchester and Manchuria were similar. Late Victorian Britain generated growth of 2% year on year. The authors put the low productivity economy in its context of history. “The period between 2010 and 2024 has been extraordinary from an economic point of view. Earnings grew at probably their slowest rate in more than 200 years.”

Rachel Sylvester writes of health in an essay of 26 pages. “The first big mistake came in 2010”, she writes, “ when the Conservative-led coalition embarked on a massive reform of the NHS that nobody around the cabinet table could explain and few understood..”

A repeated theme across the essays is the lack of continuity in government. Jon Agar concludes that the science portfolio was at its best under David Willetts. After 2014 there were eight science ministers.

Rachel Sylvester concludes of the health portfolio: “There has been a shocking lack of political stability at the top of the Department of Health and Social care, with seven secretaries of state appointed in seven years. Such merry-go-round government has made it almost impossible for decisions to be made with the long-term health of the nation in mind.”

Brendan O’Leary reports the same in his 48-page contribution “Parting the Unions.”:  “eight secretaries of state for Northern Ireland . With the notable exception of Julian Smith they have been mediocrities in office, unsuited to the requirements of historical knowledge and “rigorous impartiality” demanded by the Good Friday Agreement.”

O’Leary, an Honorary Professor of Political Science at Belfast, reaches for unacademic language over the struggle to set the external border with the European Union. “Insincerity in signing and ratifying a treaty”, he declares, “is public lying.”

Michael Clarke, former Director General of the Royal United Services Institute, uses language of equal pungency. “Despite having been Foreign Secretary for two years, Johnson had no ideas whatever about the foreign policy he wanted his government to pursue when he became prime minister.”

‘Lamentable’

Clarke’s conclusion is withering. “Overall Britain presented a lamentable picture in its external policies in the years spanning the premierships of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Cameron had little interest in foreign affairs and no feel for strategy. Theresa May was shackled by the Brexit hospital pass let fly when he resigned. Johnson used the chaos to become prime minister with no preparation and little instinct for top-level policy. “

Meg Russell, an expert on the constitution at University College London, recalls the time of turmoil. The civil service was not immune. A diplomat whose job it was to explain Brexit to US audiences resigned on the basis that the government’s briefing materials were “nakedly dishonest”

Her summary is bleak: “parliament and regulators were weakened, the courts and aspects of the devolution settlement were threatened, and conventions that constrain executive power were quite frequently set aside.”

The book reports some points that go against the general drift. “The reforms to the Select Committees were first written into standing orders just before the election of 2010 and were implemented at the start of the new parliament. “ They boosted the power of the legislature over the executive. “These changes significantly reduced the power of the whips. The cross-party chamber-wide elections for committee chairs…widely seen as having strengthened the select committees, and thereby the Commons’ capacity for scrutiny.”

The Equal Marriage Act passed, albeit with opposition support. The vote from Conservatives was 136 against the Act with 127 voting in favour. Education is given a rare credit. The book has the imprint of Cambridge University Press. Education, as with other areas, is treated on an England-only basis.

Education was a major element in the decline of the Scottish National Party. The records of the devolved governments elude scrutiny in this book.

‘Discontinuity’

The last section “Conclusion: Fourteen Wasted Years: the Verdict?” is co-written by Seldon and Tom Egerton. Again the language is plain: “ five prime ministers in fourteen years, including two, Johnson and Truss, not up to the job.” The discontinuity, they add, went beyond those who hold the headlines. The see “the historically unprecedentedly churn of four cabinet secretaries and eight principal private secretaries to the prime minister.”

They look back to some ministerial predecessors- Bevin, Cripps, Crosland- and make a few selected comparisons. Michael Gove, Amber Rudd, Jeremy Hunt, Philip Hammond are a few names fit to stand comparison among the many who are not.

As for the third of the four premiers they give a reminder of his fidelity to the constitution. At the time of the attempted prorogation of Parliament his supporters briefed the Sunday press that he might refuse to surrender office even if subject to a parliamentary no-confidence vote.

This book has all the more impact for the breadth of its authors. They have decades of experience; they live and work within central institutions of the United Kingdom. And they return to the cause of the distemper. The granting of the choice of leader to the party membership has been a cause of calamity not just to party but to country. Of a limited geographical and demographic representation they make choices that are neither those of the parliamentary party nor those of the electorate. In the autumn of 2024 the same error persists.

The Conservative Effect is published by Cambridge University Press and can be purchased here.

Adam Somerset is editor of Theatre Wales- www.theatre-wales.co.uk