Andrew Gilligan: It’s time Prosper UK and the Conservative party accurately addressed the past
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.
What we might call the central delusion of centrism is that until about 2016, or perhaps 2019, Britain’s political system and state were functional, and that they went wrong only after they were hijacked by politicians with cynical motives and populist slogans.
That, in essence, is the diagnosis of David Gauke, vice-chair of the new Conservative grouping, Prosper UK, who wrote on ConservativeHome yesterday that Tory centrists bear no blame for the electoral disaster of 2024. As he put it, “there was a debate about the future of the Conservative Party in 2019… we lost and Boris Johnson and Brexit won… Whoever was responsible for what followed… it certainly was not us.”
It was plainly also the diagnosis of Keir Starmer, who drew up no plan for government because he thought that the main change needed was simply for the bad people, the cynical populists and ideologues, to be replaced by the good people, the respecters of institutions and processes, the grown-ups in the room. Then the system would start working again.
I had thought that the obvious failure of this approach under Labour – even Starmer now appears to realise that the problems are far more fundamental – would discredit it to everyone. That may, indeed, be the most valuable service the new government has performed. But no: Gauke continues to argue for “focusing on pragmatism,” despite the mounting evidence from Starmer that managerialism isn’t remotely enough to meet the challenges we face. (Gauke is right to say that competence is necessary, but wrongly equates managerialism with competence.)
I respect many of the people in Prosper UK. Gauke, Andy Street, Ruth Davidson and others were successful at their jobs (though they were different jobs, more confined than the job that needs doing now.) The Tories are and must remain a capacious party: inclusive in the real, non-woke sense of that term. We look for points of agreement with people. The left and populists are exclusionary: they look for points of disagreement, heresies, deviations.
And as a member of Boris Johnson’s and Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street teams, I certainly don’t deny our part in the disaster that befell the Conservative Party. But it’s quite wrong to see 2019 (or 2016) as some sort of turning point. The truth is that our failure in government has deep roots in the Cameron/Osborne era and before it, too: in vast areas of bad policy, often done for performative reasons, and in the broader failure, since the financial crash, to ensure that the system was delivering for enough voters.
This isn’t “re-fighting old battles,” of which Gauke is rightly wary. It’s highly relevant to now.
Because to recover, the Conservative Party needs to do at least three things. First, …
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.
What we might call the central delusion of centrism is that until about 2016, or perhaps 2019, Britain’s political system and state were functional, and that they went wrong only after they were hijacked by politicians with cynical motives and populist slogans.
That, in essence, is the diagnosis of David Gauke, vice-chair of the new Conservative grouping, Prosper UK, who wrote on ConservativeHome yesterday that Tory centrists bear no blame for the electoral disaster of 2024. As he put it, “there was a debate about the future of the Conservative Party in 2019… we lost and Boris Johnson and Brexit won… Whoever was responsible for what followed… it certainly was not us.”
It was plainly also the diagnosis of Keir Starmer, who drew up no plan for government because he thought that the main change needed was simply for the bad people, the cynical populists and ideologues, to be replaced by the good people, the respecters of institutions and processes, the grown-ups in the room. Then the system would start working again.
I had thought that the obvious failure of this approach under Labour – even Starmer now appears to realise that the problems are far more fundamental – would discredit it to everyone. That may, indeed, be the most valuable service the new government has performed. But no: Gauke continues to argue for “focusing on pragmatism,” despite the mounting evidence from Starmer that managerialism isn’t remotely enough to meet the challenges we face. (Gauke is right to say that competence is necessary, but wrongly equates managerialism with competence.)
I respect many of the people in Prosper UK. Gauke, Andy Street, Ruth Davidson and others were successful at their jobs (though they were different jobs, more confined than the job that needs doing now.) The Tories are and must remain a capacious party: inclusive in the real, non-woke sense of that term. We look for points of agreement with people. The left and populists are exclusionary: they look for points of disagreement, heresies, deviations.
And as a member of Boris Johnson’s and Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street teams, I certainly don’t deny our part in the disaster that befell the Conservative Party. But it’s quite wrong to see 2019 (or 2016) as some sort of turning point. The truth is that our failure in government has deep roots in the Cameron/Osborne era and before it, too: in vast areas of bad policy, often done for performative reasons, and in the broader failure, since the financial crash, to ensure that the system was delivering for enough voters.
This isn’t “re-fighting old battles,” of which Gauke is rightly wary. It’s highly relevant to now.
Because to recover, the Conservative Party needs to do at least three things. First, …
Andrew Gilligan: It’s time Prosper UK and the Conservative party accurately addressed the past
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.
What we might call the central delusion of centrism is that until about 2016, or perhaps 2019, Britain’s political system and state were functional, and that they went wrong only after they were hijacked by politicians with cynical motives and populist slogans.
That, in essence, is the diagnosis of David Gauke, vice-chair of the new Conservative grouping, Prosper UK, who wrote on ConservativeHome yesterday that Tory centrists bear no blame for the electoral disaster of 2024. As he put it, “there was a debate about the future of the Conservative Party in 2019… we lost and Boris Johnson and Brexit won… Whoever was responsible for what followed… it certainly was not us.”
It was plainly also the diagnosis of Keir Starmer, who drew up no plan for government because he thought that the main change needed was simply for the bad people, the cynical populists and ideologues, to be replaced by the good people, the respecters of institutions and processes, the grown-ups in the room. Then the system would start working again.
I had thought that the obvious failure of this approach under Labour – even Starmer now appears to realise that the problems are far more fundamental – would discredit it to everyone. That may, indeed, be the most valuable service the new government has performed. But no: Gauke continues to argue for “focusing on pragmatism,” despite the mounting evidence from Starmer that managerialism isn’t remotely enough to meet the challenges we face. (Gauke is right to say that competence is necessary, but wrongly equates managerialism with competence.)
I respect many of the people in Prosper UK. Gauke, Andy Street, Ruth Davidson and others were successful at their jobs (though they were different jobs, more confined than the job that needs doing now.) The Tories are and must remain a capacious party: inclusive in the real, non-woke sense of that term. We look for points of agreement with people. The left and populists are exclusionary: they look for points of disagreement, heresies, deviations.
And as a member of Boris Johnson’s and Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street teams, I certainly don’t deny our part in the disaster that befell the Conservative Party. But it’s quite wrong to see 2019 (or 2016) as some sort of turning point. The truth is that our failure in government has deep roots in the Cameron/Osborne era and before it, too: in vast areas of bad policy, often done for performative reasons, and in the broader failure, since the financial crash, to ensure that the system was delivering for enough voters.
This isn’t “re-fighting old battles,” of which Gauke is rightly wary. It’s highly relevant to now.
Because to recover, the Conservative Party needs to do at least three things. First, …
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