Boris Johnson

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The Intelligence Lark

The loss of Mr Grayling to the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) puts me in mind of the old radio comedy “The Navy Lark” about the hapless crew of the Royal Navy Frigate HMS Troutbridge. In the show Ronnie Barker was the voice of Naval Intelligence and answered the phone with a gormless drawl, “This is intelligence speakin’.”

Mr Graylings involvement in government to date has not been an unqualified success. It is fortunate that the man who gave a contract for boats to a company with no boats was not around at the time of Dunkirk. This is a man who can make a mitigated disaster unmitigated with no appearance of noticing.

He remains a member of the Committee so the actions of Julian Lewis, working with the opposition parties, to take the Chair can only be seen as “damage limitation”. However the whole affair is fascinating as an insight into the approach to government of this administration.

They clearly adhere to the arithmetic, elective dictatorship view of democracy. A view which goes beyond seeing elections as giving the government the right to implement its’ policies within the framework of consent, which includes the rule of law and a whole series of checks and balances. Rather a view, most clearly exhibited by President Trump, that once elected, the whole panoply of state power must bend to the will of the executive.

The Justice and Security Act 2013 states, “A member of the ISC is to be the Chair of the ISC chosen by its members.” (my emphasis) Given it is statutorily given to the members of the Committee to decide who amongst them should be Chair one may assume the intention of the legislators at the time was not to place it within the gift of the Prime Minister.

To try and whip this decision is a clear attempt to undermine the intention of the statute and betrays, at the very least, a nonchalant attitude to the rule of law. To then withdraw the whip from a member of the Committee who had the temerity to get elected within the terms of reference of the Committee and the statute is a cack handed compounding of the offence.

It betrays an obsessive compulsion for control combined with a complete lack of political sensitivity. It has all the hall marks of Prime Minister Johnson’s chief advisor and it is worrying.

Mr Cummings seems to sacrifice politics to efficiency and confuses efficiency with what he wants, when he wants it. Unfortunately, politics is not a science or a game of chess, it is an art. The numbers do not always add up, even when you have a majority, and the chess pieces have minds of their own.

Steering the ship of state cannot be easy. It almost certainly requires constant attention. Attention to the big picture, taking the ship towards its destination, but also the instinctive attention to the details which matter.

This latest fiasco is a spectacular own goal, either of his own making or that of Chief Petty Officer Cummings. Why on earth would you risk political capital in providing Chris Grayling, of all people, with a sinecure which he is ill qualified to fill? He now looks as if he is losing control because he tried to control something he should not have done, what is more it is not even apparent that he needed to.

Worse the machinations look like an attempt to control the committee just at a time when it is about to deal with a report into Russian interference in the last election. A report the PM has been sitting on for months. This inevitably raises questions about whether there is something in the report which justifies the manipulations?

Sub Lieutenant Phillips was an amiable buffon, guiding HMS Troutbridge in to harbour with the technical precision of “Left hand down a bit” but almost always ended up crashing into the harbour wall with an “Ooh nasty!” Sadly it appears the Sub Lieutenant is at the helm again.

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New Deal Rhetoric – Call the Midwife

Both Prime Minister Johnson and Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove have evoked the transformative programme of Franklyn Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in recent days. Whilst their description of some of the challenges we face is accurate the scale, focus and depth of the response leaves something to be desired, and they do not touch the heart of the problem

We are going to “build build build” our way out of the economic collapse that is accompanying the Covid-19 virus. To achieve this we are going to bring forward £5bn of already identified expenditure. That is a lot of money and compares favourably with the $3.3bn that FDR invested in the Public Works Administration.

Except… the $3.3bn was only the first significant investment in the New Deal in 1933, which is a long time ago. The figure has been estimated as representing some 5.9% of the GDP of the US economy. The UK economy is currently approximately £2.2trn per annum, 5.9% of which is £129bn. Even allowing for currency difference the scale is significantly different and it was just the start.

More significantly however is the fact that at the core of FDR’s vision was a concern about power. The fact that power had been monopolised by the monopolists. This left the vast majority of American citizens on the outside and impoverished with 25% unemployment, collapsing businesses, and agricultural chaos.

He certainly wanted to “level up” those languishing in the depression economy, to provide them with relief, establishing the first basic social security system in the US. He transformed agricultural finance and implemented a public works programme on an immense scale.

He understood the benefits of public ownership setting up Tennessee Valley Act which created a publicly owned electricity company generating cheap electricity for the residents of the Tennessee Valley.

However, FDR was not content to just provide relief to level up the dispossessed he also wanted to “level down” some of those, business and financial monopolists, speculators, reckless bankers and others who he saw as largely responsible for the economic collapse and enemies of peace. Speaking of this group he said, “They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”

That “levelling down” involved addressing income inequalities with the Revenue Act in 1935 which imposed a top rate of 75% on incomes over $1m. It also involved measures to support the growth of independent trade unions to redress the balance of power between employers and workers.

Roosevelt also introduced measures to curb the finance industry, notably the Glass-Steagall Banking Act which, amongst other things, separated retail from investment banking, the repeal of which in 1999 opened the way for some of the excesses which led to the 2007/08 credit crunch.

In his first 100 days FDR introduced legislative and administrative changes which transformed the US. Not just providing much needed support to the unemployed, small businesses and family farms but much more significantly reducing the power of the economic elite. He paved the way for a almost half a century of recalibration of inequality in favour of the poor and middle classes. His actions can be seen as having both saved the US economy and more profoundly reconciling capitalism with democracy.

On the positive side much that he changed stands as a testament to his vision and determination even today. However, the conflict between capitalism and democracy faces the same challenge as it did when FDR came to power. A conflict generated by a return to similar levels of inequality and concentration of power.

It is difficult to see nationalistic bluster and a “reform” of the civil service which havers between a rehash of proposals made over decades and a desire to inspire its performance by making senior appointments political, as having anything like the impact FDR had.

If the Tory party are looking to history for something that rhymes with what they are doing now, they have alighted on the wrong person. FDR’s New Deal was short on rhetoric and long on action.

Mr Gove’s Ditchley lecture begins with a quote from Antonio Gramci analysing the problems of his time saying, “the inherited is dying – and the new cannot be born;”. I fear we need to call the midwife as neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Gove look up to the job.

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The distance between the Prime Minister and the President

So the PM, the Health Secretary and the Chief Medical officer are confined to quarters. We do not know whether they practiced what they preached when off-screen, however,  what this does demonstrate is that if you continue working the chance of avoiding infection is low. The multiple infections are perhaps not surprising amongst a group of people who have had to work intensively and closely together for some time however it is unfortunate in terms of the governments messaging.

To date I think I would give the Prime Minister 7 out of 10 for his handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Due account has to be given to the sheer scale and multi-dimensional nature of the problem and the speed at which it has evolved. It is one thing to hear descriptions of the spread and see graphs it is another to live it. On the positive side, he has taken the issue seriously and, has deferred to the science or at the very least taken serious account of it. He has “pivoted” when necessary, albeit a touch abruptly.

Overall I think, from the distance of the North, he has done as good or bad a job as many of the other West European leaders have. The leaders of countries in the East, like South Korea and Japan have had much more recent experience of what a national epidemic can do and might have been expected to be better prepared both logistically and mentally to respond with more appropriate alacrity and concern.

There are of course questions to be asked. The timing of lockdown looked more a like a response to mounting political and external scientific pressure than the next step in a carefully crafted, strategic timeline. It would be interesting to see what mortality rates were attached to the herd immunity strategy which was disavowed as soon as the Imperial College Report was in the public domain.

Communication has been and continues to be a problem. The daily press briefing, meant to reassure the public by demonstrating a transparent approach to keeping the nation informed, was a good idea. Its very existence communicated a sense of urgency. The professional and business like way they were conducted and the presence of subject experts transmitted seriousness but also reassuring competence. Unfortunately the message was not clear enough.

This may have been that the strategy was evolving from mitigation to suppression however the social distancing message was just not strong enough. Details about what it involved keeping 2 meters apart, staying at home etc. was undermined by a failure to communicate the need for rigid adherence. The Prime Minister talking about continuing to shake hands and hoping to visit his mother on mothers day weakening and confusing the message.

As the potentially catastrophic consequences of the disease began to sink in, driven it would seem by the Imperial College Report the Prime Minister stiill appeared to be struggling with either his libertarian instincts, his concern for the economic consequences or fear that stricter controls would be ignored. He started out by “asking”,  then moved to “telling”, but then in very short order he moved to  “instructing” as emergency legislation was put in place. It may be argued that the language followed the legislation or that it was part of a strategy to take the population on a journey, however, a pandemic is not a time to be “nudging” people. It is a time for decisiveness and clear, consistent, simple messages. Days mattered.

Unfortunately as time has gone by the communication strategy has become more problematic. If you start out claiming you want to be transparent and that you are following the science you set yourself up to fail if you start to obfuscate. As the media have asked increasingly specific questions about, how many ITU bed spaces are available – now, how many ventilators the NHS have – now, and where the PEP is – now, the vagueness of the answers has become a source of concern and, for front line staff, anger.

Nadhim Zahawi, Minister for Business and Industry, was writhing like a fish on a line when being pushed to provide detailed figures on this and dates when more of all of these items would be available. It looked as if at one point he would crack and shout out, “You can’t handle the truth.” He would have been wrong. People prefer truth, however unpalatable, to obviously untrue platitudes about “ramping up”.

It is obvious to all that the requirement for rigid social distancing is absolutely critical and that anything less will mean the NHS is overwhelmed. It does not have the equipment or staff it would need to address anything other than a limited spread of the virus. False reassurance will come back to bite when reality tragically contradicts it as the infection rate accelerates and peaks.

Having said all this, I still hold to my 7 out of 10 for the Prime Minister. He may not have acted as decisively and early as he should  to implement rigid social distancing and he may not have been clear enough in the initial messaging, however, he appears to be someone doing the best he can in a fast moving crisis. He remains courteous to the media, even in the face of difficult questioning, he respects the views of the scientific advisors and at least seems to understand what it is, and he is trying to communicate that medical advice to the public.

By comparison,… a picture is worth a thousand words, and here are two.

However effectively implemented by the PM and his team there is a real attempt to communicate the social distancing message.

If you watch the two briefings the contrast could not be greater. In the US version, depicted here, three advisors stood like lemons on the stage of the press briefing  room waiting for the President. There was an awkward, nay embarrassing silence. Eventually, presumably when the time had built up enough tension for a grand entrance, the President appeared.

There was then a rambling, incoherent presentation by the President, talking mainly about what a terrific job his administration and he personally was doing. His one strength is consistency, whenever he speaks he is saying something which is either a lie or stupid or both. Firing on all four cylinders he managed the double on most of what he had to say.

His overriding concern to ensure re-election tempered his concerns for the thousands who may die from this virus. His view is that we must ensure the “cure is not worse than the disease”. He talked about the 50k people who die each year from flu and those involved in road traffic accidents to reassure the American people he had their welfare at heart.

He probably struggles with numbers (other than $ bills) but if the US do not get a grip on Covid-19 the fatalities could be in the hundreds of thousands not, the clearly more acceptable to the President, tens of thousands. From the start the President has treated Covid-19 as an annoying distraction from the main business of getting reelected for another four years of self aggrandisement and national corruption. Variously he has referred to Covid-19 as a “hoax”, the “Chinese virus”, only affecting 15 Americans, something where the “cure cannot be worse than the virus”, and which is likely to be pretty much over “by Easter”.

I had been thinking a suitable sobriquet for President Trump might be, “The President that Broke America.” Sadly, if the individual States don’t save him and their citizens I think a more appropriate one may be, “The President that Killed America.” At least the distance between him and the Prime Minister is reassuringly large.

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Covid-19 “Another day another $300bn.”

The Chancellors announcement of a £300bn support package for business to address the impact of the Corona Virus epidemic should ring loud alarm bells. When this is presented as a starter for ten then you know we are in trouble. A Tory government, lately of austerity fame, has discovered the money tree, in fact has found a forest of them.

There are two things that make the current situation stand out. Firstly, daily briefings from the PM setting out the state of play with the spread of the virus and the actions the government is taking to address its health, social and economic consequences.

Secondly, the scale of resources being talked about which, outside of war time, are unprecedented.

Given all this it seems strange that the government seems loath to move from an exhortatory strategy of mitigation, please do not go to the pub, to a much more aggressive strategy of suppression by shutting the pubs. At the moment there seems to be a dissonance between on the one hand the rhetoric about the seriousness of the situation and  importance of social distancing actions and on the other hand the advisory nature of the steps to achieve the appropriate social distancing.

In the PM’s press conference yesterday the public were thanked for the way they were following the advice. Perhaps if your only experience is the drive from 10 Downing Street to Parliament you may be impressed by how quiet the Capital is. However, you do not have to go far to see reduced but brisk trade in bars, pubs and restaurants.

Maybe there is some legal impediment to his issuing closure notices to Britains hospitality industry. Maybe that will be corrected next week when the Corona Virus Bill is enacted. This contains a whole range of enabling powers to: allow the health work force to be expanded; the effective management of the disposal of bodies; and the power to regulate the access to premises.

Given the speed of the current virus, if there was ever a case for acting now and legislating later this is it. Or indeed, getting Parliament to sit over the weekend to put the legislation in place if that is what is needed.The legislation could have a 6 month sunset clause to enable Parliament to review, amend and improve in the light of experience. Days matter.

My concern on this is driven partly, but far from wholly, by the article I referenced in my last post on this by Tomas Pueyo entitled: “Coronavirus: why you must act now“. It made a strong argument for urgent action.  Mr Pueyo has written a follow up article, (Coronavirus The hammer and the Dance) on the importance of early adoption of an aggressive suppression strategy as opposed to a mitigation strategy.

Ordinarily CEO’s of $billion businesses are not my favourite source of information. However, the logic of Mr Pueyo’s argument seems reasonable and the numbers he quotes are consistent with information from other public sources. Further, his logic is certainly no weaker than that which says – it is vitally important that you don’t go to pubs, but we are not going to force them to close. The latter message undermines the former.

Whilst Mr Pueyo’s articles are at best sobering the latter one provides some hope about the period of social isolation we might face.

If these articles are wrong in their estimation of what strategy the government needs to be pursuing and when, they at least provide a framework of questions which seem to me to be very relevant. If you are interested in a very accessible introduction to the epidemiological issues around Corona Virus,  then these articles are the best I have seen so far.

But, to be clear, my concern about the current situation is not based on a single article however well illustrated with graphs. In the past we have heard about Ebola, SARS and MERS as things that happen over there, to other people, far away. This is here and now. We can see what it has done to those that have gone before us. Italy is a peacetime war zone with the health system all but overwhelmed. What all the experience to date points to is the urgency of action and the cost of delay.

We are told we are about three weeks behind Italy and that we have a finely graduated response which will minimise the impact on our social end economic lives. I am sure there are some very clever people looking at this with some very sophisticated models. However, if ever there was a time for the adoption of the precautionary principle this is it.

The advisory position at the moment is logically lockdown. Businesses are closing left, right and centre. Serious economic damage has been done. But lock down is not complete. People think if the pub is open why can’t I go?

If lock down would get us on top of this virus why would we not enforce it now. If, they manage to calibrate the perfect flight path we may save some economic and social dislocation and some lives. If they act too early it could cost us more social and economic dislocation. but save more lives. If they are just too late, the consequences are much worse. The economic and social loss will be greater than either of the two other options. But, more critically, we will face an overwhelmed NHS, thousands of deaths and scenes which will live with people for the rest of their lives. 

I think I am in the camp of those who feel the government needs to act now to aggressively suppress the virus with all that goes with that.

Be Safe.