Thread by @ifgevents

🚨 Live in 5 mins! Bronwen Maddox valedictory lecture

After six years as IfG director, @bronwenmaddox will reflect on what is wrong with British government – and what needs to change to make it better.

Join us live at 6pm: app.sli.do/event/fcLF3ZT9…

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox Online viewers can submit questions via Slido

app.sli.do/event/fcLF3ZT9…

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox IfG Deputy Director Hannah White introduces the event, welcoming our audience in person and online to BM's valedictory lecture as Director of the IfG

@bronwenmaddox BM: delighted to be here, except for the sadness in this being my final talk at the IfG, moving to Chatham House in Sept

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: thanks to PM for making this speech easier – not just for illustrating some of the things that are wrong but for resigning in time to let me to take a clear look back at this exceptionally turbulent period in British public life

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: One of the things wrong with British government in the past few years has been Boris Johnson. There is no code or constitution that can immediately stop someone who is prepared to lie and break the fundamental rules and conventions

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Had he chosen to try to call a general election, appealing to voters over the head of his elected MPs, we could have been in a constitutional crisis, which people have rightly compared to the one Trump caused in the US.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: BJ would have been defying the ability of parliament to sack the prime minister if he loses MPs’ confidence, and angling for the presidential system that Jacob Rees-Mogg asserts that we already essentially have, where voters elect someone directly to the top job.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Johnson didn't get the big calls right, despite vaccine rollout. The cost of Brexit is now becoming evident. OECD projects that the UK will have the lowest growth in the G20 - apart from Russia. Peace in Northern Ireland is strained.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: also going to talk about the more ordinary reasons why government just doesn’t work well – and how that too strains the bond with British people. E.g. Passports. Driving licences. Tax returns and rebates. Smart motorways where it takes too long to close a lane.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: positive point is that people are very exercised by the question of how they are governed. As we saw in the pandemic, people are prepared to accept enormous intrusion by it into their lives. People trusted the government when it exhorted them to get vaccinated
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: And a lot does work well, I should also say at the start. There are terrific people in the civil service and in politics – a tough, tough, line of work which in my experience most people enter out of desire to make other people’s lives better.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: But many aspects of British government and its constitution do need urgent repair. This is the IfG’s mission. I’ve picked here four problems which seem to me at the heart of it

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: start with cronyism - pervasive in UK government. In practice, it is indistinguishable from corruption. E.g. Jenrick’s rush to approve for Richard Desmond’s development in Tower Hamlets, Johnson’s appointment of Peter Cruddas to the House of Lords, Owen Paterson
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: How is this different from corruption? It’s not obvious to me – or the rest of the world. It appears to be the simple trading of favours for cash. Johnson made this the breath of everyday life in No.10. Cash for honours still hangs over Tony Blair’s premiership
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: These cases hurt Britain’s reputation. It is delusional to think they don’t. Those in British government like to bask in imagined compliments for good government when that isn’t what others see. Joke about Britain in Italy is that at least Berlusconi bought his own wallpaper

@bronwenmaddox BM: It isn’t as if there aren’t ethics panels and advisers. There are. There is the ministerial code, too. But there are no teeth to these – and none that can get purchase on the prime minister when he is the offender. We urgently need to correct that
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: 2nd theme of Lying, bending the truth and self delusion. Again, Johnson took this to characteristic lengths. Look at Chris Pincher lie, misleading statements from the Downing Street press office, false statements on employment and Brexit

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Again, Johnson was not the first. Of all Tony Blair’s mistakes over Iraq, one of the most egregious was the “sexed up” dossier about Iraq’s supposed WMD. Brown did a lot to destroy confidence in spending claims from the govt, a reputation for dressing up old money as new.

@bronwenmaddox BM: It also leads to self-delusion, one of the pernicious problems of British government. Delusions of grandeur, certainly, about Britain’s place in the world, underpinned by a lack of understanding of the basis for other countries’ success, such as that of Germany and Japan.

@bronwenmaddox BM: I saw officials in Iraq and Afghanistan too happy to court compliments for peace making in NI, and ignorant about historic defeats in Afghanistan.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Delusions of intellect; unspoken beliefs in the civil service that Britain is really good at policy making, just bad at delivery. Actually, it often falls short at both
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Politicians and civil servants both need to resist this. Civil servants have done their best and their impartiality and the strength of that principle and the culture that upholds it has come through – as in that letter from Simon McDonald
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: But there are no sanctions that can really enforce this if public and parliamentary opprobrium is not enough, which is why upholding a culture of truth telling rests on everyone in public life
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: third theme of the lack of skill and knowledge of many officials and ministers, one of the main reasons why things “just don’t work”

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: IfG has championed that modern government needs professional functions such as HR, digital standards and finance. But there is still a lack of the right skills and specialist knowledge in the civil service and among ministers
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: That is mainly the result of the speed with which people move between jobs. There is a huge turnover of officials and ministers – and prime ministers. It leaves other countries incredulous

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Modern government is complicated. It is impossible to master these subjects quickly. You still run into people in the civil service who defend the principle of the bright “generalist”

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Delivery always takes patience and skill but sometimes the problem is with the policy itself, which is undeliverable. E.g. NI border since Brexit - there is a lack of real understanding of NI across Whitehall which means it is often left out of the discussion entirely

@bronwenmaddox BM: very verbal nature of this country lies behind this weakness. A facility with words is one of Britain’s luminous strengths – looks at ministerial team resignations and say the country doesn’t do a good resignation letter!

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: But it sometimes seems that people think that words in government are a substitute for action. You couldn’t make that confusion in business. Things work or they don’t, in business; customers are persuaded to stay or they go

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: John Kingman has pointed out, it is hard to recruit scientists into government. often the words people who go into government. The numbers people go elsewhere – for more money. Including to other countries

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: finally on accountability. DVLA and the Passport Office seem detached from any sense of accountability to the ministries that supervise them. There is too often an attitude of “get this off my desk, and then I don’t care”

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: a palpable defensiveness when things go wrong in govt. At IfG requests from two departments to scrap the projects we had done on problems within them. Both had refused to talk to us formally (although many officials still did so)

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Much of it, though, stems from lack of leadership right at the top. Those in Rishi Sunak’s campaign team now ask why, having given the NHS more money, the prime minister’s team did not stay on the case with meetings constantly asking where the 40 hospitals he promised were

@bronwenmaddox BM: FAC produced a more scathing verdict than any committee verdict I can remember. It blamed the Foreign Office, National Security Adviser and ministers for a fundamental lack of planning, grip or leadership which led to Britain abandoning its allies and damaging its interests

@bronwenmaddox BM: result of all these problems is that it is harder for governments to persuade voters of the need to make uncomfortable choices. More that mistrust grows, more our politics will be vulnerable to politicians who over promise

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: what should we do? IfG has a lot of recommendations. Many are technical. Such as changing rules of promotion in the civil service so that officials don’t switch job so often. More authority for the cabinet secretary to set standards.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: But these don’t answer all these points. So my recommendations go wider than these.
The culture at the top of government does need to change but exhortation is not enough. We need to formalise what has been informal

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: need to be clear rules about awarding of contracts and public appointments. There needs to be a truly independent ethics adviser with the ability to initiate investigations. More powers for standards scrutiny in parliament
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: Even more transparency about party funding, and probably, more restrictions. That is a staple of political science courses but the outrage about it is well-founded
Hard to do without changes to the powers of parliament and other checks on the power of an over-weening PM

@bronwenmaddox BM: need to look again at the voting system and at the legitimacy of the 2nd chamber. FPTP and the adversarial system it produces is running out of use in a big complex country of many different people where cross-party agreement on policies that persists for years is needed

@bronwenmaddox BM: more devolution – a desirable goal - would help a bit in providing a check on Westminster. But not a panacea unless it is itself subject more accountability in turn. Too little scrutiny of DAs, which have only one chamber of parliament, and even less for local councils.

@bronwenmaddox BM: media is essential in all this – and local media is far weaker than it used to be

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox final point addresses some of the over-fluent culture of words-as-sufficient. David Sainsbury has devoted a lot of passion to the cause of technical, scientific and indeed business education. It needs to be part of the culture of the country.

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox BM: I took this job as director of the Institute for Government because I had seen, as a foreign correspondent and editor, how in many troubled countries there really is such a thing as wasting all the effort for improvement and all the money if there is no good government

@bronwenmaddox BM: My only reservation in accepting David Sainsbury’s invitation to be the next Director is that I thought Britain’s problems weren’t as serious
I was wrong. These are my thoughts on what is most urgently wrong with Britain’s government, and what needs to be done
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox We move to questions
Q: what do you wish you had known when you started?
BM: practical things - size of the Cabinet Office and what it does!

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox Q from @_peterriddell: 3 priorities for next PM?
BM: stop civil servants moving around, increase authority of cabinet secretary to reset standards, conventions and standards important (keeping PM in line if they disrespect convention)

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell Q from Tony Travers from LSE: how do we find a way to make a reasonable comparison with recent period and say Lloyd-George or Walpole. How bad is this? Compared to past
BM: good question - debate about how to use history. Take in current context
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell BM: Johnson not first to disrupt conventions. Question is what that means and the strain he was placed on parl system - more serious than for a long time and what happens if you remove conventions
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell Q: is this just a lament from a certain age that previous PMs were surrounded by people with intellect & int'l experience? If not, why is that? Are there are areas beyond systemic (cultural?) that is beyond body politic and disregard for serious govt?

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell BM: yes a change in culture - directness of relationships, ministers change jobs regularly, ministers feel weak in their positions
Agree with 1st question - quality is lower, harder to get people to go into politics now
Length of political careers doesn't foster knowledge now

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell BM: find longevity and greater awareness of historical context in military (compared to political and civil service)

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell Q from @SimonMcDonaldUK: did I make it harder to stand up for the blob?

BM: no, I agree you did the right thing

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK Q: govt is ignorant of important things, e.g. during covid. IfG hasn't called this out clearly - govt flying blind. Do we need a rethink of how we have more informed govt?

BM: IfG neutral on size of govt - a political question. But do call out things like informed govt

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK Q from @anandMenon1 - do we spend enough time looking across countries and comparing ourselves critically. Compare with US too much - e.g. Trump/Johnson is not accurate?

BM: not saying this is superiority. Not int'l enough - we look at wrong things and make wrong comparisons

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK @anandMenon1 BM: seduction of US comparison because of shared language, but otherwise such a different country
Johnson calling an election last week would've put HMTQ in a difficult position - bolstering Privy Council interesting idea if this challenge comes up
Trump/Johnson not analogous

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK @anandMenon1 Q: after a couple of years in Lords, find big beasts not as big as you think they are!
BM: Lords does do good scrutiny work but structure impossible to defend these days, need at least more rigorous appointments or perhaps opp for a regionally based house
#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK @anandMenon1 Q from online: your talk was rather depressing, what can you say that is positive?

BM: living in an extraordinary revolution: tech, science, creative arts - we are very good at it and they are supported by govt in some way
Verbal creative gifts of this country - remember this

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK @anandMenon1 BM: govt has its difficulties - but much more severe in other countries (although not sure that is grounds for optimisim!)

HW thanks BM on behalf of IfG staff and closes the event

#IfGMaddox

@bronwenmaddox @_peterriddell @SimonMcDonaldUK @anandMenon1 A video and audio recording of this event will be on our website within 24 hours

instituteforgovernment.org.uk/events/bronwen…

#IfGMaddox