I cannot believe that we are in the ninth month of the year. Time appears to be turbocharged at the moment. So, as the nights (regrettably) draw in, I hope you had a good summer whatever it is you did.
If anyone has ever seen a hard copy of a speech given by a Government Minister, it always says at the top: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY. What this means is that the prepared text might not be read out in full. An event that happens before the speech is given may require an off the cuff response. A Minister (I know I certainly did it) can riff and extemporise to amplify a point or add colour. Whole chunks of speeches might not be read if you read the room and recognise the audience isn’t ‘with you’. So, there is a difference between what has been written down or planned to be said and what is actually delivered. Therefore journalists need to make sure the Minister has said what it was said the Minister would say (thank you Sir Humphrey) before writing an article saying ‘the Minister said….’
So, let me start with a mea culpa on behalf of my Party. Too often we said what we were intending to do and didn’t always follow through on it. In short, we did not check against delivery. There were often events which got in the way of that delivery e.g. Covid and Ukraine but sometimes it was simply a case of taking the eye off the ball. It is too easy in Government to say in a speech, still more so after a No10 Summit: this will be done. The assumption is that simply by the heartfelt saying the thing promised will, as if by magic, happen, happens. It is not always the case and policy has to be driven hard and with a forensic application of energy and will. The current Government has fallen into the same trap but at a much earlier stage. Remember Mission Led Government? Five departmental cross-cutting themes that would revolutionise the doing of Government. We might remember but the Government is apparently suffering from amnesia. Ministers can make all the grandiose pledge they like but if there is no monitoring of delivering then it is doomed before the first step is taken. People are also not fools. We no longer fall for the Emperor’s New Clothes stuff. Ministers can tell us one thing but if we are experiencing or feeling something different or the complete reverse then we know who to believe (a clue – it’s not the Minister). We see a slowing economy, rising costs, collapsing business confidence, inflation on the up, taxes entering the stratosphere and yet Ministers tell us we are privileged to be living in some sort of Labour Nirvana. Saying something over and over again does not make it true or any more believable if it is entirely counterintuitive to the daily lived experience. Some Ministers appear to have taken political advocacy classes from Iraq’s Chemical Ali: there are no allied tanks on Iraq’s soil when they were plainly visible in the background.
The disappointment in my Party when in Government and the growing despair of Labour now is of course fuelling the popularity of Reform. This is understandable but will prove to be unsustainable. The only thing Mr Farage has ever delivered is speeches. He has delivered, by his own hand, nothing. His easy, headline grabbing slogans shouted as he jumps on yet another passing bandwagon, have no substance to them. Delivering in politics is not about the what but more about the how. Farage has drunk too deeply of the Trump coolade. He is giddy on the thought of some kind of UK presidential executive power. In a Parliamentary democracy executive power does not rest in one pair of hands. Farage’s idea of appointing a cabinet of people outside Parliament is a nonsense as Ministers must be accountable to Parliament. His random plan for deportations is not deliverable by the click of a PM’s fingers.
So, there is a clear challenge to both Government and Opposition if we are to deflate the Farage ego. Government must deliver. We in Opposition must work up credible, deliverable alternatives. The why, what and how needs to be stark. In short, we must both ‘check against delivery’.
