In 1924 when faced by a critic who accused him of changing him mind too often, the leading economist, John Maynard Keynes riposted: “When events change, I change my mind. What do you do? When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir? When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do sir? When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?” I do not believe he was posing the questions rhetorically. So how should they be answered.?
The demagogue, the ideologue and the stubborn would, I am sure, answer that they would plough on because their ideological straitjacket allowed them to do nothing other. The populist would (in today’s world) survey their social media feeds and answer in a way that met the approval of their self-endorsing echo chamber irrespective of where logic might actually take them. Some people, I am sure, would declare that they could never be wrong. The pragmatist, the rational and those comfortable with their intellectual capacity would do as Keynes did – change one’s mind as the facts and circumstances change. To do so, is not to be a flip flopper, nor is it to be of flaccid principles nor should it be a sign of weakness to perform a change of direction to arrive at the same destination but via a different route. Recently we have seen in the media the car driver who wedged his car into a narrow pedestrian path in West Wales only because, while he knew the dimensions of car and entrance did not match, their SatNav told them to do so. That car driver is the ultimate anti-Keynesian.
Some of my Party’s critics are always keen to paint us as an ideological Party. While we have some ideologues the vast majority of the Tory Tribe is deeply rooted in commonsense and pragmatic solutions to difficult, contemporary problems. When Covid began the then Chancellor (now PM) unveiled a raft of interventionist supports to sustain business and individuals at a time when the ideologue would have allowed free rein to the Market and the survival of the fittest. The PM remains wedded to achieving Net Zero by 2050. That is set in Law and the Law is not going to be changed. The facts which set the pathway to 2050 have altered. The destination remains the same it is merely the route we are travelling which has been altered. Not ideology. Not populism. It is a pragmatic Keynesian response. The same applies for HS2. The policy destination was to improve the speeds of linking London to the Midlands and then to increase connectivity across the North (one key benefit of which is to ease the pressures of economic and housing development in the South/SE/SW). We are going to see that policy delivered but again by a different ‘route’. The change announced recently by the PM also means that we in Dorset will see extra monies available to deal with road maintenance, including potholes. This seems to me a perfectly sensible change of policy as it delivered wider benefits to more people across a larger geography. As a One Nation Tory I warmly support this.
