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| Our Westminster elite isn't up to dealing with Syria's crisis | Our Westminster elite isn't up to dealing with Syria's crisis |
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| The defeat of the government last week may well have been a shining moment for parliamentary democracy, but much of the buildup and aftermath has amounted to a case study in the grimness of modern British politics: what distances the public from Westminster showcased in all its awful glory. It has been an object lesson in why such a large majority of the public could not be persuaded of the case for an attack on the Assad regime, despite no end of voices telling them that this was exactly what the moment required. | The defeat of the government last week may well have been a shining moment for parliamentary democracy, but much of the buildup and aftermath has amounted to a case study in the grimness of modern British politics: what distances the public from Westminster showcased in all its awful glory. It has been an object lesson in why such a large majority of the public could not be persuaded of the case for an attack on the Assad regime, despite no end of voices telling them that this was exactly what the moment required. |
| If you watched last Thursday's Commons debate, you may have thought as much, as the prime minister punctuated his speech with a handful of ad-libbed jokes, and plenty of MPs indulged in the usual boyish knockabout. By that point, one Downing Street insider had already couched events in the requisite gravitas by telling a Times journalist that No 10 and the Foreign Office thought Ed Miliband was "a fucking cunt" – and, if Labour sources are to be believed, the prime minister had boiled down his view of Miliband's position to the less-than-profound accusation that he was "letting down America". Not quite the stuff of Lloyd George and Churchill, then: rather, a witless few days at the Eton tuck shop, with all decorum and statesmanship mislaid. At this week's prime minister's questions we will find out whether there has been any shift of tone: it would certainly be an idea. | If you watched last Thursday's Commons debate, you may have thought as much, as the prime minister punctuated his speech with a handful of ad-libbed jokes, and plenty of MPs indulged in the usual boyish knockabout. By that point, one Downing Street insider had already couched events in the requisite gravitas by telling a Times journalist that No 10 and the Foreign Office thought Ed Miliband was "a fucking cunt" – and, if Labour sources are to be believed, the prime minister had boiled down his view of Miliband's position to the less-than-profound accusation that he was "letting down America". Not quite the stuff of Lloyd George and Churchill, then: rather, a witless few days at the Eton tuck shop, with all decorum and statesmanship mislaid. At this week's prime minister's questions we will find out whether there has been any shift of tone: it would certainly be an idea. |
| Last week, the way that the dependably off-key Nick Clegg boiled down any push for international agreement to the banal matter of a "UN moment" hardly helped. But from the public's perspective, probably the most bamboozling moment had already come, when Tony Blair once again decided to pipe up in support of military action. Time was, a former holder of high office associated with a policy failure as howling as the Iraq war – who also oversaw Bashar al-Assad's pomp-laden visit to the UK in 2002, and even considered giving him an honorary knighthood – might have clocked such obvious echoes of his own fall from grace, and decided to stay quiet. But, as evidenced by yet another contribution over the weekend ("At some point we will realise this is one battle, it is crucial to our security and we have to take sides," he wrote in the Sunday Times, his gift for the most reductive analyses of complex problems apparently undimmed), Blair is still possessed of a terrible chutzpah. By way of a support act, Alastair Campbell last week claimed that any failure to launch missiles at Syria would be "hugely irresponsible and highly dangerous": not for the first time, satire has been proved well and truly dead. | Last week, the way that the dependably off-key Nick Clegg boiled down any push for international agreement to the banal matter of a "UN moment" hardly helped. But from the public's perspective, probably the most bamboozling moment had already come, when Tony Blair once again decided to pipe up in support of military action. Time was, a former holder of high office associated with a policy failure as howling as the Iraq war – who also oversaw Bashar al-Assad's pomp-laden visit to the UK in 2002, and even considered giving him an honorary knighthood – might have clocked such obvious echoes of his own fall from grace, and decided to stay quiet. But, as evidenced by yet another contribution over the weekend ("At some point we will realise this is one battle, it is crucial to our security and we have to take sides," he wrote in the Sunday Times, his gift for the most reductive analyses of complex problems apparently undimmed), Blair is still possessed of a terrible chutzpah. By way of a support act, Alastair Campbell last week claimed that any failure to launch missiles at Syria would be "hugely irresponsible and highly dangerous": not for the first time, satire has been proved well and truly dead. |
| The central point here is not about the merits or demerits of the case for military action, or the unimaginable suffering of ordinary Syrians. It is about whether we any longer have a political establishment that can credibly speak to the public – or even their own parties – about the gravest affairs of state, and take people with them. Certainly, among Tory MPs, Downing Street's bungling of last week's vote and Cameron's failure to put together a convincing argument have been blamed on the fact that people in government are simply too inexperienced. | The central point here is not about the merits or demerits of the case for military action, or the unimaginable suffering of ordinary Syrians. It is about whether we any longer have a political establishment that can credibly speak to the public – or even their own parties – about the gravest affairs of state, and take people with them. Certainly, among Tory MPs, Downing Street's bungling of last week's vote and Cameron's failure to put together a convincing argument have been blamed on the fact that people in government are simply too inexperienced. |
| In the states, the Washington Post has quoted Lt Gen Gregory S Newbold, director of operations for the joint chiefs of staff in the buildup to the Iraq war: "There's a broad naivety in the political class about America's obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve," he says. Replace "American" with "British", and the point sounds even stronger. | In the states, the Washington Post has quoted Lt Gen Gregory S Newbold, director of operations for the joint chiefs of staff in the buildup to the Iraq war: "There's a broad naivety in the political class about America's obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve," he says. Replace "American" with "British", and the point sounds even stronger. |
| So yes, all this is about the legacy of Iraq, but it runs wider and deeper. People are not daft. They surely sense that syndrome whereby wan career politicians get far too excited about a new world of Cobra meetings, intelligence briefings and the like, and mislay most of their judgment. They well understand one of the central tensions of modern politics: the fact that as everything has become more and more presidential, the people at the top have become less and less convincing. Not for nothing do they buy into the idea of brave and noble service personnel being serially let down by the people in charge, something now so firmly built into the culture as to be immovable. | So yes, all this is about the legacy of Iraq, but it runs wider and deeper. People are not daft. They surely sense that syndrome whereby wan career politicians get far too excited about a new world of Cobra meetings, intelligence briefings and the like, and mislay most of their judgment. They well understand one of the central tensions of modern politics: the fact that as everything has become more and more presidential, the people at the top have become less and less convincing. Not for nothing do they buy into the idea of brave and noble service personnel being serially let down by the people in charge, something now so firmly built into the culture as to be immovable. |
| The problem is that all this threatens an eventual tragedy – because even if the approach to Syria that the UK has so messily adopted turns out to have been the right one, sooner or later another crisis is going to heave into view, and policy may well be messed up by a problem that will not go away: an inadequate Westminster elite facing a public split between hostility and indifference. | The problem is that all this threatens an eventual tragedy – because even if the approach to Syria that the UK has so messily adopted turns out to have been the right one, sooner or later another crisis is going to heave into view, and policy may well be messed up by a problem that will not go away: an inadequate Westminster elite facing a public split between hostility and indifference. |
| Some of this is about the absence from frontline politics of age and experience, a point crisply dramatised by the moment last week when fortysomething frontbenchers were frantically making the case for a strike, while greying former military chiefs expressed their opposition. It is telling that the list of 30 Tories who rebelled against the government are full of MPs whose backgrounds are very different from the usual stuff of Westminster CVs (witness the high-profile involvement of the GP-turned-Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston, perhaps the Commons' most impressive backbencher). | Some of this is about the absence from frontline politics of age and experience, a point crisply dramatised by the moment last week when fortysomething frontbenchers were frantically making the case for a strike, while greying former military chiefs expressed their opposition. It is telling that the list of 30 Tories who rebelled against the government are full of MPs whose backgrounds are very different from the usual stuff of Westminster CVs (witness the high-profile involvement of the GP-turned-Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston, perhaps the Commons' most impressive backbencher). |
| But this story is also about a Westminster culture that has long since run its course: so-called sofa government, endless briefings by potty-mouthed advisers, the idea that being prime minister often amounts to either completely ignoring your party or defining yourself against it, and supposedly communicating directly with the public. Recent history suggests that this course tends to result in something rather different: sooner or later, speaking for no one but yourself. | But this story is also about a Westminster culture that has long since run its course: so-called sofa government, endless briefings by potty-mouthed advisers, the idea that being prime minister often amounts to either completely ignoring your party or defining yourself against it, and supposedly communicating directly with the public. Recent history suggests that this course tends to result in something rather different: sooner or later, speaking for no one but yourself. |
| This is what Tony Blair bequeathed to British politics, and it needs to be binned for good. His style of leadership was once neatly encapsulated by the SNP leader Alex Salmond as a thirst for "the great crusade, the last battle: he needs to be at the centre of events, where he's risking all – one crusader on his horse, charging into the enemy". That's what Cameron tried to approximate last week, without Blair's awful gifts, and the result was a thin re-enactment of New Labour's worst aspects, staged to no one's benefit. | This is what Tony Blair bequeathed to British politics, and it needs to be binned for good. His style of leadership was once neatly encapsulated by the SNP leader Alex Salmond as a thirst for "the great crusade, the last battle: he needs to be at the centre of events, where he's risking all – one crusader on his horse, charging into the enemy". That's what Cameron tried to approximate last week, without Blair's awful gifts, and the result was a thin re-enactment of New Labour's worst aspects, staged to no one's benefit. |
| Which brings us to Miliband. As well as the insults hurled at him last week, government sources have now accused the Labour leader of "buggering about", and "flip-flopping", while his own people have insisted that he never put a deal on the table involving support for an attack on Syria, and consistently tried to remind Cameron of the importance of the UN and international law. Another interpretation is that if he was even tentatively in favour of a military strike, he acknowledged the views of both his party and the public, soon warning against the dangers of what he calls "reckless and impulsive" approaches. | Which brings us to Miliband. As well as the insults hurled at him last week, government sources have now accused the Labour leader of "buggering about", and "flip-flopping", while his own people have insisted that he never put a deal on the table involving support for an attack on Syria, and consistently tried to remind Cameron of the importance of the UN and international law. Another interpretation is that if he was even tentatively in favour of a military strike, he acknowledged the views of both his party and the public, soon warning against the dangers of what he calls "reckless and impulsive" approaches. |
| We know his view of the Blair legacy is sceptical, at best; it's also pretty obvious that presidential grandstanding simply wouldn't suit him. But for such an archetypal product of the New Labour era, whose frontbench team hardly departs from the same stereotype, convincingly pushing towards any new kind of political leadership will be an onerous task. Still, herein lies a hint of what might start to repair the chasm between politics and the public, and actually make foreign policy immeasurably more effective – not pretend messiahs astride white chargers, but humility, caution and the ability to listen. | We know his view of the Blair legacy is sceptical, at best; it's also pretty obvious that presidential grandstanding simply wouldn't suit him. But for such an archetypal product of the New Labour era, whose frontbench team hardly departs from the same stereotype, convincingly pushing towards any new kind of political leadership will be an onerous task. Still, herein lies a hint of what might start to repair the chasm between politics and the public, and actually make foreign policy immeasurably more effective – not pretend messiahs astride white chargers, but humility, caution and the ability to listen. |
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