sign in sign up
<<
Home , Barry Gardiner, Rory Stewart, Steve Richards, Tom Bower, Tony Benn

Has the quality of British political leadership declined over the past century?1

I’d like to preface my response to this question by briefly looking at: early forms of leadership; leadership within democratic parameters; the impact of the media upon leadership requirements; and the influence of party ideologies on leadership.

Monarchical Rule: British political leadership effectively began with absolute monarchs. As with all humans,their efficacy depended on the kind of person they were and the qualities they possessed. Henry II, who reigned 1154-1189, was constantly patrolling the whole of England plus his (then) possessions in France, ruling from the saddle of his horse. Usually the royal court, comprising principal officers and advisers, traveled along with him. Monarchs varied in quality and indeed longevity: some, like Henry, were talented administrators and law-makers; others, like Henry V (1513-22), were essentially short-lived warriors, while others were weak Kings, like Edward II(1307-27), youthful tyrants, like Richard II(1377-99), or just uninterested in the responsibilities of power, like Henry VI. Perhaps the pick of our monarchs, during this ‘absolute’ phase was Elizabeth I(1558-1603) who channeled her formidable intelligence and courage into governing her domain effectively and earn the soubriquet of ‘Good Queen Bess’.

Henry VIII(1509-47), perhaps the best known of our kings, had many of the key requirements of great political leadership but allowed himself to become derailed by his own lustings and, later in his reign, by a kind of careless vindictiveness- witness his treatment of his loyal servant Thomas Cromwell: charged with treason and then beheaded. It was the defeat and beheading by parliamentary forces of Charles I(1625-49) which finally ended the era of absolute monarchs and ushered in constitutional monarchy together with, eventually, the representative democracy we now have.

Democratic Leadership: Political leadership within the democratic era was hugely different from when arbitrary power was available to monarchs- justified at the time as being divinely authorised- to do exactly as they pleased. For a start parliament required the mobilisation of substantial numbers of its members to support particular policies: debate and persuasion became the means to this end. Abrupt orders, backed up by coercive threats, had no place in parliamentary . The leadership qualities required for this more collective enterprise included eloquence, personal charm and, yes, charisma. Groups had to be formed, lead and mobilised to achieve political objectives. Britain’s first ‘prime minister’, the Whig, Robert Walpole, was the master of all these skills. The historian Frank O'Gorman says his leadership in Parliament reflected his "reasonable and persuasive oratory, his ability to move both the emotions as well as the minds of men, and,

1 For excellent sources on this huge subject I recommend three recent books: (2019) The Prime Ministers-reflections on leadership from Wilson to May, Atlantic; David Runciman(2019) Where Power Stops: the making and unmaking of presidents and prime ministers; and Archie Brown (2018) The Myth of the Strong Leader, Vintage.

1 above all, his extraordinary self-confidence"2. He pitched his appeals for support at the moderate members of parliament, offering pragmatic ways of combining royal power with the emergent authority of parliament. This was a time when the spoken word was the core element of political communication: as media technology progressed, together with the extension of the franchise so also did the requirements of political leadership.

Media Improvements: As the print medium developed, politicians learnt how to attract the attention of journalists and through them, the voting public. Gladstone cut down trees on his Hawarden estate while the public watched and collected the wood chips as souvenirs. Microphone technology enabled large groups of people to be addressed at a time: Hitler wired up whole towns with loudspeakers to achieve this. Radio, of course gave politicians like the chance to direct his ‘fireside chats’ into the home of every voter owning a radio. Churchill went even further and ‘weaponised’ his broadcasts to the nation during in a way which transformed and sustained morale during World War II. Yet Churchill proved no ‘natural’ when it came to television- this was left to subsequent political leaders like Benn, Blair and Cameron. Indeed, such is the requirement for a leader to be good on the ‘telly’, that it’s unlikely anyone without a fair amount of this skill would ever be chosen by colleagues to become PM in the first place. It’s worth noting that ’s political success owed much to his appearances on the BBC’s satirical show, .

Leadership Requirements of Different Ideologies

Conservatism as an ideology, despite the awarding of so much authority by its followers to the office of leader, does not ostensibly at least require an especially strong style of leadership.3 In the famous words of Tory philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, Conservatism is:

“....is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”

Such a view implies a ‘steady as she goes’, ‘don‘t rock the boat’ approach but philosophies change with circumstances. decided the economic situation Britain found itself in when she came to power in 1979 required something close to a revolution. The ‘New Right’ believed in shrinking the state and slashing public expenditure but to achieve such major changes any PM would need to be more than just a little assertive. As those of us who lived through those years discovered, Thatcher, for good or ill, certainly gave us assertive leadership.

Labour’s leadership styles in theory should be strong as the party, according to its aims anyway, seeks to reform the economic and political system and this would entail an almighty conflict with the established vested interests. In practice however Labour PMs- Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, even Corbyn - have been consensus builders rather than revolutionaries. Given the coalition of different labour movement elements-unions, MPs, party groupings in the Commons and country plus of course the leadership selecting party membership- any leader of the party has had to seek internal agreement before seeking to introduce radical change in the country. Leftwing critics claim Labour leaders

2 W. A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England 1714–1760 (1977) p. 203 3 Howard Elcock (2001), Political Leadership, Edward Elgar, pp5-16.

2 have tended to compromise and edge towards ‘Establishment’ positions: thus explaining why the party has done virtually nothing about reforming private education or the banking system or inequality when in power. Indeed, , who urged acceptance of aspects of Thatcherism but was condemned by some on the left as virtually a ‘Tory’ within Labour from the outset and intent on preserving the status quo. ‘Moderate’ MPs who supported Blair argue the need to build a national pro-Labour consensus requires recognising the realities of public opinion.

Elements of good leadership: Politics watchers will argue for ever over these criteria but, accepting a very strong physical constitution as a given requirement, I would offer those listed below as the core qualities of a successful politician- ‘greatness’ is a much more subjective judgement of course:

Persuasiveness,

Good Judgement,

Courage and Resilience,

Intellectual Ability and ‘hinterland’

Administrative Ability.

Charisma

Looking more closely at these criteria, how do our present crop of political ‘leaders’ –e.g. May, Johnson, Hunt, Grayling, Rory Stewart, - compare with the likes of Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George, Churchill, Macmillan, Jenkins, Healey, Thatcher and Blair?

Persuasiveness: This skill is the core skill in a political system requiring the constant mobilisation of a consensus, through debate, consultation and compromise. Successful politicians have the ability to persuade their party in parliament, their followers in the country and ultimately a majority of voters nationwide. Political advancement is dependent, even today, on the quality of a politician’s performance on the floor of the House of Commons rather than the managerial skills of running a department. Mastery of the detail and fluency of speech are therefore both essential skills. It was during the 19th century, before the print press had fully emerged, that the spoken word still reigned supreme. Gladstone’s first speech of ‘compelling power’, according to his biographer was in May 1831 when, as a then Tory he opposed the 1932 Great Reform Bill. After he had spoken for 45 minutes Francis Doyle, who was present wrote. ‘we all felt that an epoch in our lives had occurred.’4 Later in his life, during the late 1870s the Grand Old Man of Liberalism charged back out of retirement- he’d had two stints as PM- to startle the political class with his coruscating Midlothian Campaign speeches against the Bulgarian atrocities. He went on to serve as PM on two more occasions. Disraeli’s maiden speech was hooted and hissed by his MP audience: he waspishly commented, ‘I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.’ He was right. This hugely

4 (1995), Gladstone, Papermac, p23.

3 colourful, very theatrical politician thrilled, amused and entertained MPs with his brilliant oratory until he stood down as PM in 1880. But perhaps the most brilliantly witty speaker of them all was the ‘Welsh Wizard’, . Not only was he a spell binding speech maker but he had the gift of making sound-bites long before the term entered the language; these two examples illustrate: “Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite, who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?

“A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and Dukes are just as great a terror, and they last longer.”

However, judged by the impact of his persuasive powers, must be judged to be foremost. His wartime speeches, at the nation’s most critical moment in its history, raised morale and were worth many battalions of soldiers, many squadrons of aircraft. His own take on his role was, famously: ‘It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion’s heart: I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.’ His written achievements were also formidable: in 1953 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature as the citation said "for his mastery of historical and biographical descriptions as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."

There have, of course, been other masterful speakers among previous generations of speakers- , , (on his day) and Ian McLeod (who died tragically young, at 54). But what of recent generations? Margaret Thatcher was initially not a great speaker- her voice sounded shrill and scolding- but she consulted voice therapists and worked hard at performing well in broadcast interviews until she became highly competent. Tony Blair must rank highly as an orator. Maybe his ‘Peoples’ Princess’ speech was scripted for him by Alastair Campbell (though he denies it) but its delivery was masterful. At his height he had a magical ability to make his words sing and fly. His worst mistake, of course, was his decision to invade along with USA but his speech to the Commons recommending such a course was one of the best I’ve ever heard. Cameron too was a highly skilled and effective parliamentarian, on top of the detail and good on his feet at PMQs- ‘You were the future once’ he quipped to Blair at his first encounter. His ‘no notes’ speech at the 2005 Tory conference effectively won him the leadership and set a trend others have followed. But it has to be said, there are none of his speeches which stand out in the memory: he won’t be remembered in history for his oratory.

Indeed, compared with the above the present political elite, across the gamut of the parties, compares rather pathetically. Circumstances matter of course- Churchill’s speeches would not have been so famous without the war but the Brexit crisis is of great importance and nobody has made a truly memorable speech about it that I have heard, whether for Leave or Remain. seemed incapable of engaging with a national audience through television or any other medium when her party strategists aimed to make her the focus of a presidential campaign in 2017. Of the rest only Rory Stewart, with his dogged, imaginative leadership campaign showed any verbal flair whatsoever. In the first TV debate he so outshone his rivals it was embarrassing. Boris Johnson makes very popular speeches, packed with jokes- most of them feeble in my view- and classical references which his disciples appear to love and consider evidence of his great intellect (see below). I always think his speeches lack any key insights and not very fluently delivered.

4

Good judgement: when the key questions arise the key politician is the one who understands the situation best and proceeds to judge the best course of action. What constitutes ‘best’ is always controversial and often remains so among historians for all time. This test is subject to many subjective factors but I think I’d say Gladstone was wrong about the Great Reform Act but right about Ireland and much else besides. Disraeli was wrong to oppose the Repeal of the Corn Laws but right to support the extension of the franchise. Lloyd George was right to oppose the Boer War, right to force his People’s Budget through the Lords and to back himself rather than his PM Asquith to prosecute the war energetically to victory. Churchill, whose World war I Gallipoli decision was disastrous was later faced with a daunting choice in 1940: whether to make peace with Hitler after he had smashed every opponent including France, the Low Countries and Norway and only just failed to destroy totally the British forces at Dunkirk- or to fight on regardless.

Any rational decision-maker, I suggest, would have opted for the former choice. But Churchill, calculating that, on past behaviour, any ‘deal’ with Hitler would only be followed by eventual invasion, occupation and the destruction of the British way of life, plus a genocidal policy regarding our Jewish population, decided the ‘life or death’ option was preferable. The film and book ‘Darkest Hour’ dramatised this dilemma with some aplomb and perhaps suggests that the greatest judgements are those which are counter intuitive but ultimately proven correct.5

As for later PMs, Eden’s judgement over Suez was a mega mistake; Macmillan’s decision to join the EEC has caused us much divisive grief over the past decade, though I have to say, I think it was a wise decision which should not have been overturned in 2016. Thatcher’s decision to ram through the poll tax proved a huge misjudgement; Blair’s Iraq decision exiled him to the fringes of our political life, probably for ever; and the same might be said about Cameron’s referendum decision and subsequent failure to win it for Remain. Theresa May’s misjudgements are legion but her erratic swings from hard Brexit (Lancaster House speech 2017) to soft Brexit (Chequers July 2018) alienated in turn both wings of her party and much of the electorate. More recently Boris Johnson’s proroguing of parliament, 3rd September 2019 was another misjudgement- some attribute it to his adviser Dominic Cummings- in that it horrified some MPs on his own side and united the disparate forces of opposition: Labour, SNP, Lib Dems Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

Courage and resilience: physical courage in a democracy is always necessary. Those stepping up to be MPs- and even that act takes some courage- have to be aware of the risk of assassination by unbalanced assailants as illustrated by the tragic murder of Jo Cox MP. I was always impressed by the way Blair never seemed to worry about his person al safety when it must have been in danger most of his time in office. I’m more concerned, here though, with the moral courage to pursue a course which may be unpopular but which a politician believes either to be morally right and best for the country. Again debates on which decisions fit either category will be endless. Resilience- the determination to persist is closely related but can prove counter-productive when politicians fail to judge the battle has been properly lost. Again many will reject my arguments –eg ascribing any examples of courage by Margaret Thatcher) but, as always,

5 See Anthony McCarten (2017), Darkest Hour, Harper Collins

5 I offer up my thoughts as purely personal suggestions. Gladstone showed great courage in backing Irish Home Rule, and, maybe dedicating much of his spare time to rescuing ‘fallen women’; Disraeli, an ‘alien’ within the ruling elite, in always supporting measures designed to help his Jewish fellow citizens6; Lloyd George in fearlessly fighting the most powerful vested interest in the country; Churchill’s determination to fight in the trenches 7; Thatcher’s determination to challenge Heath for leadership of her party (countless other examples of her political courage); and Blair’s decision to fight Clause IV in Labour’s constitution. Theresa May’s journey as the second Tory woman in a man’s world must have taken a consistent amount of courage, though, it has to be said, not enough to make her period in office a successful one.

Intellectual ability and ‘hinterland’: It’s fairly obvious that being a prime minister en tails responsibility for seeking solutions to the most difficult problems of the day: economic, foreign policy and indeed cultural and moral. To absorb all the relevant factors and details in a bafflingly technical world requires a mind of great capacity and ingenuity. Every holder of this office has reported on the daily avalanche of seemingly intractable questions which filled their in trays. High intellectual ability is perhaps not essential but it certainly helps if it’s there. It’s by no means a given that intellectual ability translates into governing expertise- Ivor Crewe’s book on major mistakes made by UK governments were often made by people of the highest possible intellect8- but most of us probably would prefer someone in a position of authority over us to have proved in some way they are up to the job. Accordingly we’d all hope the surgeon about to operate on us is properly trained and qualified. Gladstone, writes his biographer, Roy Jenkins, had a mind which ‘fully deserved his two Oxford firsts and which retained its vigour for nearly seventy years’; and ranks ‘well in the half dozen cleverest Prime Ministers’.9 In addition he was a voracious reader, writer of thousands of letters on weighty matters, translator of classical text and author of several books in his own right. His lifelong rival Disraeli, whilst perhaps lacking in Gladstone’s brilliant formal education, was clearly hugely gifted, becoming a best selling novelist as well as authoring several books and scores of articles.10 Herbert Asquith also was awarded a double first at Oxford and was elected a prize fellow to Balliol College. Arthur Balfour was less a shooting star at university but , never a Tory, offered this flattering judgement on him:

“A man of extraordinary grace of mind and body, delighting in all that is beautiful and distinguished––music, literature, philosophy, religious feeling and moral disinterestedness, aloof from all the greed and crying of common human nature.”

Lloyd George, came from humble Welsh beginnings having English as his second language. He never attended university, though passed his final law exams with honours. Perhaps he proves that lacking any formal traditional British educational background is no barrier to the highest political achievement. John Major, who famously achieved only four O levels is another example of how a plentiful intelligence married to an ethic of hard work and a warm and friendly manner can project anyone to the highest offices in the land, should their ambition beckon. The multi-talented Dennis Healey,

6 Robert Blake(1998) Disraeli, Prion, pp 258-60. 7 Roy Jenkins (2002) Churchill, Pan, ch 16. 8 Ivor Crewe and Anthony King(2013) The Blunders of British Government, One World. , 9 Ibid, p402. 10 Blake, op.cit. pp772-8.

6 however, a first class Balliol man, fluent in eight languages and someone with a hugely impressive ‘hinterland’ (see his book ‘My Secret Planet’11) failed to achieve the top job- hence the oft quoted quip that he was ‘the best PM we never had’. .

Of the present generation of politicians we have the almost obligatory cohort of privately educated politicians who occupy senior political positions. , Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg were all educated at Eton and Oxford- Johnson annoyed that his degree was only an upper second while Cameron’s was a first.12 Once again the judgements are subjective but I’d say Cameron and Stewart impress as highly educated but with ultimately little to show to date for it in terms of major achievements- the latter however at 46 years, still has a political career in front of him. Theresa May, an Oxford graduate in geography, has not impressed intellectually. Tim Shipman’s books on her governments paint a picture of an intellectually insecure woman who depends on others for policy making ideas and seems to lack anything like a Healey style ‘hinterland’. 13 On the Labour side , after private prep school, left school with two poor A levels and then dropped out of his degree course at North Polytechnic in his second year when he disagreed with his tutors. Tom Bower’s biography suggested Corbyn is not a book reader but Bower’s books are usually hatchet jobs and should be treated with caution. Is Corbyn not clever enough to be a prime minister? There’s no real benchmark for such a judgement but my own feeling is he lacks the intellectual ability of his colleague Kier Starmer- former Director of Public Prosecutions and one of the country’s leading lawyers, who is the most impressive member of the Shadow Cabinet. Probably the most highly educated Labour MP is Barry Gardiner, who has degrees from St Andrews, Harvard and . Here again these things are subjective but I’ve found his arguments lack consistency and persuasiveness. Perhaps the most intellectually impressive member of May’s cabinet was , who proved a fecund source of ideas at education, Justice and Environment. Yet this was the man who advised the nation in 2016 that ‘Britain has had enough of experts’.

Administrative ability: it is usually possible to tell how well a minister understands his or her brief by the way it is explained and defended. But the reality of being an effective minister, destined for upward promotion, maybe even into Downing St, is the ability to get things done. Moving up from cabinet member to PM is a huge leap when a plethora of hitherto insoluble problems constantly sit and are replaced every day, on the PM’s desk. Keeping calm and focused in this post, yet still moving forward, is perhaps the ultimate test of a prime minister’s quality. Lord Castlereagh as Foreign secretary managed to organise all the financial and diplomatic aspects of an alliance against Napoleon and managed to do so with a staff of less than two dozen. Given the lack of rapid communication, this has to be judged a miracle of administrative achievement for that era. Gladstone too was a prodigiously hard working politician who reorganised the Treasury and introduced far reaching changes to British government and society. But the genuine administrative dynamo was Lloyd George who transformed the Munitions Dept during the Great War and introduced the Cabinet Secretariat, a key element ever since

11 Dennis Healey, (1994) My Secret Planet, Penguin. 12 See Bagehot’s Economist column, ‘The Plato Test’ 22nd June, 2019. 13 See Tim Shipman (2017) All Out War: the full story of Brexit, Harper Collins and (2018) Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem, Harper Collins.

7 in our government machinery. Churchill, by all accounts was not a great administrator, able to speak thrillingly at Cabinet meetings but lacking an eye for detail and too taken with his own voice to work systematically through the agenda. This function was performed masterfully instead by , who often substituted for Winston when he was away at diplomatic meetings. Attlee, a shy, unimpressive speaker, continued this impressive progress through Labour’s agenda when prime minister of Labour’s historic period in office. Macmillan too clearly had business experience and plenty of administrative flair, when minister for housing overseeing the building 300,000 houses in an astonishing one year. Nye Bevan, who inaugurated the NHS was another Labour Cabinet member who’s dynamism created Britain’s best loved national institution.

Looking at the modern political class at the highest level, it’s hard to celebrate any real administrative ability. Theresa May had proved her work ethic during six years as Cameron’s but proved much less impressive when translated into Downing St where the pressure of being PM is so much greater than a government department. As PM she proved insecure, allowing her No 10 aides far too much influence across Whitehall and, ultimately, failing to deliver her mission of leaving the EU. Her Cabinet colleague damningly commented:, ‘She has many great qualities but a leader she was not. She had no persuasive skills nor any ability to communicate effectively.’ A former aide observed what to many was an obvious truth, ‘The tragedy is that she was elected to deliver Brexit and she didn’t have the skills that were required.14

Boris Johnson, endlessly spoke up his time as London mayor when competing for the top job but even this dubious argument could not over-rule memories of his undistinguished time as Foreign Secretary. might earn some points for serving as Health Secretary for five years and keeping the area relatively free of major political problems. As for , we see consequences of political incompetence. The succession of mistakes, oversights and gaffes made during his time as a Cabinet minister were astonishing - his biggest mistake was probably selling off the Probation Service to private contractors in 2013. This virtually destroyed the whole service to the extent that it had to be ‘renationalised’ in 2019, with untold harm incurred by offenders and their families as a result.

Charisma: This is a quality very hard to define but easy to recognise: its that peculiar almost animal-like quality of attractiveness which can exist, independent of appearance, but which can inspire admiration and often disciple like devotion. The great figures of the 19th century, Gladstone, Disraeli, certainly owned it, so did Lloyd George in spades and Churchill, despite his rather unusual appearance. Since 1945 it’s easier to say who lacked it: Attlee, Wilson, Heath, than who had it but Thatcher did, Blair too but of current cohort? Nobody except (and I say ‘possibly’), Boris Johnson.

Honesty? Readers might question the omission of ‘honesty’ from the above list? It’s certainly important to be totally honest most of the time but sometimes in politics and its sub-category, diplomacy, it’s wise to conceal the truth or at least some of it. The totally honest politician would be dangerously and recklessly tactless. Tony Blair’s conduct of the Good Friday negotiations entailed a fair amount of concealing what the two sides

14 Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thompson, , 15th June, 2019

8 were thinking or saying about each other. Moreover, during wartime some information is best withheld for fear of damaging morale or giving advantage to the enemy. So honesty is a highly important but perhaps not quintessential element in the make-up of great politicians: all probably need the ability to dissemble when it is wise to do so. Perhaps the key ability here is to know when to be totally honest- Churchill’s ‘blood tears and sweat’ speech and when to withhold it in part or full - as his government did on many occasions.

Luck? This element in political success is so obvious it’s often overlooked but it surely deserves a mention. Often random interactions of events create the situations in which success is achievable: Charles I’s crude absolutism provided the opportunity for Cromwell to lead the fight against him; the threat of Hitler for Churchill for example and the fact that moderate Labour MPs, like , chose to nominate a colleague they did not support as a candidate in the 2015 contest for the Labour leadership. Some left-wingers lamented the fact that Tony Benn had been born a generation too early for his messages to be enthusiastically received by Labour.

Conclusion: As I’ve said before, this is a subjective area of discussion and personal prejudices inevitably play a large part in determining judgements. But if I’m stating my own judgement after applying my five criteria analysis, I’d confirm the widely held view that the current crop of politicians, on both sides of the political divide, are not especially talented and appear dwarf-like in comparison to politicians mentioned above from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Over the centuries when crises has emerged, Britain has been fortunate to had had politicians and military leaders who measured up to the challenges presented. Even the Queen seems to agree: led with a headline: ‘Queen: Our Politicians can’t govern’.15 These would include Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Drake, Marlborough in the Wars of Spanish Succession, The Younger Pitt, Nelson and Wellington in the Napoleonic wars, Lloyd George in World War I and Churchill in World War II.

Sadly no such powerful and talented politician has emerged to deal with Brexit. Some think Boris Johnson, like Churchill perceived initially as a maverick, will emerge as the nation’s saviour. Personally I don’t believe he has anything like the potential, nor do I think he’ll succeed in this task to any degree. Moreover, the sight of many Conservative politicians abandoning critical views of Johnson for enthusiastic endorsement with a view to later preferment was not in any way edifying.

How come great leaders are in such short supply? To be honest I have no idea but it might be that we’ve just been unlucky. High quality political leaders are rare, they come along maybe once in a generation; so far the Brexit generation has yet to see one.

‘The current lot are not up to the job.’ Jack Straw,16

15 Sunday Times 1st August, 2019. 16 Sunday Times, 14th July 2019.

9