James Wright: Thanks, Ruth and Andy – but the era of managerialism is dead
Trust is earned, not demanded.
James Wright is a farmer, agri-tech entrepreneur and policy director of the Conservative Rural Forum. He stood as the parliamentary candidate at the 2024 general election.
Ruth Davidson and Andy Street are back, launching their bid to “reclaim the centre” with a new movement called Prosper UK. It is exactly what you would expect from two of the party’s most polished performers.
As seasoned politicians, their intervention is polite and professional; their pitch is aimed for the seven million voters who have rejected populism and demand a return to the “broad church” Conservatism of the 2010s. It is, in every sense, a “grown-up” intervention.
It is also exactly the wrong medicine for a patient that is fighting for its future.
Davidson was a formidable campaigner who, at the peak of her powers, looked like the only person capable of saving the Union from the SNP machine; Street was a brilliant CEO turned Mayor of the West Midlands who fought a valiant re-election campaign against the odds. But as I watch their Sunday morning interviews and listen to their vision for the future of our party, I find myself thinking: thanks, but no.
Before we accept lectures on “competence,” we must look at the scoreboard of the era they represent. The “moderate” consensus of the last 14 years oversaw a stagnation in British life. Under the stewardship of their political generation, we strayed too far from Conservative principles and didn’t deliver on the electorate’s expectations, which led to the historic 2024 election defeat.
The bigger concern should be the people cheering them on. A quick look at Twitter shows who is rushing to endorse this “new” movement: Robert Buckland, David Gauke, and Gavin Barwell, a group who seem to believe the only problem with the last decade was that we weren’t “moderate” enough. Bizarrely, even Matt Hancock is listed as a supporter.
They represent a class of MP who would rather have the applause of the lanyard class than pursue improving the living standards of families in Somerset and the Midlands. Why on earth should we retread the path that led us off the cliff?
The fundamental flaw in the Davidson/Street worldview is the assumption that the current machinery of the state works and that it just needs competent managers to run it. The reality is that whilst the spirit of Britain isn’t broken, the state is. The “neoliberal” consensus they defend relies on outsourcing power to a permanent technocracy that actively blocks Conservative policy.
We saw it with Rwanda, where the will of Parliament was entangled in endless legal knots. We see it with infrastructure, where bureaucracy stifles investment and growth. And we see it in our economy every day, where the myriad of quangos seem more interested in their own job security than the …
Trust is earned, not demanded.
James Wright is a farmer, agri-tech entrepreneur and policy director of the Conservative Rural Forum. He stood as the parliamentary candidate at the 2024 general election.
Ruth Davidson and Andy Street are back, launching their bid to “reclaim the centre” with a new movement called Prosper UK. It is exactly what you would expect from two of the party’s most polished performers.
As seasoned politicians, their intervention is polite and professional; their pitch is aimed for the seven million voters who have rejected populism and demand a return to the “broad church” Conservatism of the 2010s. It is, in every sense, a “grown-up” intervention.
It is also exactly the wrong medicine for a patient that is fighting for its future.
Davidson was a formidable campaigner who, at the peak of her powers, looked like the only person capable of saving the Union from the SNP machine; Street was a brilliant CEO turned Mayor of the West Midlands who fought a valiant re-election campaign against the odds. But as I watch their Sunday morning interviews and listen to their vision for the future of our party, I find myself thinking: thanks, but no.
Before we accept lectures on “competence,” we must look at the scoreboard of the era they represent. The “moderate” consensus of the last 14 years oversaw a stagnation in British life. Under the stewardship of their political generation, we strayed too far from Conservative principles and didn’t deliver on the electorate’s expectations, which led to the historic 2024 election defeat.
The bigger concern should be the people cheering them on. A quick look at Twitter shows who is rushing to endorse this “new” movement: Robert Buckland, David Gauke, and Gavin Barwell, a group who seem to believe the only problem with the last decade was that we weren’t “moderate” enough. Bizarrely, even Matt Hancock is listed as a supporter.
They represent a class of MP who would rather have the applause of the lanyard class than pursue improving the living standards of families in Somerset and the Midlands. Why on earth should we retread the path that led us off the cliff?
The fundamental flaw in the Davidson/Street worldview is the assumption that the current machinery of the state works and that it just needs competent managers to run it. The reality is that whilst the spirit of Britain isn’t broken, the state is. The “neoliberal” consensus they defend relies on outsourcing power to a permanent technocracy that actively blocks Conservative policy.
We saw it with Rwanda, where the will of Parliament was entangled in endless legal knots. We see it with infrastructure, where bureaucracy stifles investment and growth. And we see it in our economy every day, where the myriad of quangos seem more interested in their own job security than the …
James Wright: Thanks, Ruth and Andy – but the era of managerialism is dead
Trust is earned, not demanded.
James Wright is a farmer, agri-tech entrepreneur and policy director of the Conservative Rural Forum. He stood as the parliamentary candidate at the 2024 general election.
Ruth Davidson and Andy Street are back, launching their bid to “reclaim the centre” with a new movement called Prosper UK. It is exactly what you would expect from two of the party’s most polished performers.
As seasoned politicians, their intervention is polite and professional; their pitch is aimed for the seven million voters who have rejected populism and demand a return to the “broad church” Conservatism of the 2010s. It is, in every sense, a “grown-up” intervention.
It is also exactly the wrong medicine for a patient that is fighting for its future.
Davidson was a formidable campaigner who, at the peak of her powers, looked like the only person capable of saving the Union from the SNP machine; Street was a brilliant CEO turned Mayor of the West Midlands who fought a valiant re-election campaign against the odds. But as I watch their Sunday morning interviews and listen to their vision for the future of our party, I find myself thinking: thanks, but no.
Before we accept lectures on “competence,” we must look at the scoreboard of the era they represent. The “moderate” consensus of the last 14 years oversaw a stagnation in British life. Under the stewardship of their political generation, we strayed too far from Conservative principles and didn’t deliver on the electorate’s expectations, which led to the historic 2024 election defeat.
The bigger concern should be the people cheering them on. A quick look at Twitter shows who is rushing to endorse this “new” movement: Robert Buckland, David Gauke, and Gavin Barwell, a group who seem to believe the only problem with the last decade was that we weren’t “moderate” enough. Bizarrely, even Matt Hancock is listed as a supporter.
They represent a class of MP who would rather have the applause of the lanyard class than pursue improving the living standards of families in Somerset and the Midlands. Why on earth should we retread the path that led us off the cliff?
The fundamental flaw in the Davidson/Street worldview is the assumption that the current machinery of the state works and that it just needs competent managers to run it. The reality is that whilst the spirit of Britain isn’t broken, the state is. The “neoliberal” consensus they defend relies on outsourcing power to a permanent technocracy that actively blocks Conservative policy.
We saw it with Rwanda, where the will of Parliament was entangled in endless legal knots. We see it with infrastructure, where bureaucracy stifles investment and growth. And we see it in our economy every day, where the myriad of quangos seem more interested in their own job security than the …
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