As a Party we should be and have been moving away from an oppositional mindset and towards preparing ourselves to be a Party of Government in 2 years time. We need to be thinking about how our policies will be implemented and ensure that we understand the way Government works and the way Whitehall works. Above all, everybody in the Party needs to be pulling together and forgetting about the difficult decade or so that preceded David Cameron’s leadership. Since DC won the leadership, we have succeeded in pulling together and allowing voices from all parts of the party a voice under his leadership. The Party has truly become a broad church once again.
This was what made the response to recent stories about a potential Cabinet comeback for Ken Clarke so concerning. There was some predictable handwringing in some of the right wing blogs at the prospect of Ken Clarke potentially returning to a Cameron Cabinet to oversee the Government machine and the Cabinet Office. The posters over at Con Home were almost unanimous in their screeching opposition to the idea (some particularly loopy posts managed to tick all the boxes of right wing paranoia – Euro federalist and “Bilderberg” being common insults). Iain Dale wasn’t much better on Sunday either. Quite why these posters and bloggers feel that a man who has held virtually every major office, knows Whitehall like the back of his hand and is still hugely popular in the country should not play a part in a future Conservative administration is quite beyond me.
But they all miss a pretty fundamental point. Whitehall is a furiously complex animal. So many newly elected Governments have been stuck in the mud and failed to make significant ground in their first term because of a limited understanding of how Whitehall works. There is no better example of this than Tony Blair’s first term, brilliantly documented by Anthony Seldon, when a Cabinet with little experience of Government failed to make any kind of headway for much of their first term.
If we win the next election and if we are to implement the changes we need to make in our first term then we need to quickly understand how to use the Whitehall machine to bring about change. We cannot afford to get stuck in the mud of spending the first few years understanding Whitehall. To deliver on our promises we really need to hit the ground running. For this reason, Francis Maude and Nick Boles’ work with the implementation office needs to be commended. But we also need as many people as possible who understand how large Departments work, how Whitehall works and how to ensure the Civil Service does actually deliver what we are elected to deliver. To do this we will need to draw on all of the talents in the Party. We will need to listen to the voices of experience in the Party.
Good government should be our absolute priority once elected. Hopefully some of those voices on the harder right of the Party will come to understand that ensuring that a Conservative Government is a success should be all important. In doing so, they should put the personality clashes of ancient history aside.
Well said, David!
You misrepresent my position. I would happily have Ken Clarke back on the front bench. But I do feel that he needs to serve in the Shad Cab first.