Category: Government

Britain isn’t broken, but Jenrick shows that politics is bust

Broken Britain flag

If you want to know what’s wrong with British politics and the media’s relationship with it, Robert Jenrick’s bumpy landing at Reform UK offers a solid starting point.

“It’s time for the truth. Britain is in decline,” he said on Thursday, after arriving late to announce his defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK from a Conservative Party he once aspired to lead.

Opportunistic, noisy, and clumsily handled, his announcement and the media reaction to it neatly sums up the Westminster bubble’s failure to look beyond personalities that increasing numbers of people can’t stand.

It farcically followed Jenrick’s sacking from the shadow cabinet after Conservative aides found a draft speech announcing his defection lying around before he had a chance to use it.

This was the ‘irrefutable evidence’ of Jenrick’s disloyalty Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch cited when confirming Jenrick’s sacking on social media.

Jenrick went silent for hours. Badenoch scuppered Farage’s plan to publicly welcome him to an ‘insurgent’ party which increasingly resembles a failed old guard that Reform’s leader eagerly sets himself against. 

And the media lapped it up.

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DP World storm highlights big questions about our economy

Investment summit backdrop with PM at conference on October 14 2024

In the end, it was little more than a storm in a tea cup.

Weekend headlines led with suggestions that £1bn in investment from Dubai-based DP World was at risk because of a minister’s comments about its operating company P&O.

The comments from Transport Secretary Louise Haigh likened P&O to a ‘rogue operator’. She added for good measure that consumers should boycott the company for laying off hundreds of employees and replacing them with agency workers in 2022.

For all the furore, the government’s set piece investment summit went off today with DP World’s investment in the London Gateway container port intact.

The funding is one of a raft of commitments outlined in a £63bn package today, which promises to create 38,000 jobs across the country.

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What? How? Where? Questions on the brownfield housing push

Aerial view directly above an industrial dumper truck or earth mover vehicle with muddy soil and tyre tracks in the construction industry on a brownfield site with copy space

‘The right homes in the right places,’ seems an innocuous, inoffensive phrase.

It straddles tense discussions about a broken housing market that’s weaponised and misunderstood in equal measure.

The Prime Minister deployed the term in the government’s latest pledge to ‘turbo-charge’ housebuilding by streamlining planning for development sites in towns and cities across England.

Although all that’s happening at this stage is another consultation (which I will return to), the statement led the news on Tuesday.

It taps into what some see as a dividing line between the government’s focus on previously developed – or ‘brownfield’ – land and Labour’s recent commitment to develop new towns. As the election draws nearer, it’s likely to spark heated debate.

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Post Office scandal highlights human cost of deceit

Post Office signage

This post first appeared in The DIstinctive Dispatch newsletter on 12 January.

As I write, Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw’s evidence to the public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal is leading the news.  

Mr Bradshaw investigated and helped convict some sub-postmasters wrongly accused of false accounting and fraud.

Terse, evasive, and lacking contrition, his testimony encapsulated the failings consistently writ large across this scandal.

It came a day after the government took the extraordinary step of confirming its intention to pass legislation to exonerate hundreds of sub-postmasters whose lives were trashed by a once-treasured institution. This is because the outcry following ITV’s four-part dramatisation of the scandal in Mr Bates vs The Post Office bounced the government into responding.

The inquiry will take until next year to get to the bottom of the issues that created this disaster. But it’s already clear that ethical, leadership and governance failings played a part alongside dodgy tech. And it’s troubling to hear about PR executives’ role in working with lawyers to create a ‘narrative’ and lines to rebut concerns, as evidence about problems with the IT system piled high.

Even today, with the scandal leading the news for more than a week, the Post Office has offered little more to address the public concerns than a limp statement saying it’s ‘very sorry’. BBC radio journalists sounded almost apologetic reading it out. Postmasters in the studio sounded incredulous hearing it.

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New slogans, same old spin: Sunak’s net zero PR problem

London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a 'Net Zero' press conference in Downing Street. Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street

Criticising sloganeering, with a campaign slogan strewn across a podium and a screen on the wall.

Lamenting ‘government by headline’ while sharing several social media posts designed to drive (no pun) the net zero narrative.

Decrying how politics is done as political aides feed MPs attack lines in readiness for battle with opponents.

As a comms professional, these inconsistencies stuck after the substance of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s net zero speech sank in.

The way politics is done today – short term, obsessed with headlines, shrouded in spin – fails the country, he said. Who, honestly, would disagree with that?

Therein lies the problem, because it made what followed Mr Sunak’s opening remarks a travesty. In setting a dividing line for Labour ahead of the general election, he can’t credibly claim to be thinking long-term at all.

More than ever, it demonstrated that the old way of communicating is alive and kicking. Labour posted a mock-up of Sunak in Liz Truss’ pocket, but hasn’t charged into battle.  

We are already seeing that the facts around the impact of these policies get lost in the noise. Few people seem persuaded as advocates and opponents double down on their views.   

Far from bringing in a new approach to politics, I fear we can expect more of this in the coming months.

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Letter to James Heappey MP: stand with parliament on Monday

Houses of Parliment in London, where James Heappey votes during the week

I’ve taken time to read the House of Commons Committee of Privileges’ partygate report into Boris Johnson’s conduct. It prompted me to write to my MP James Heappey (Conservative, Wells) to ask him to back the committee’s recommendation and stand with his parliamentary colleagues. This is my letter.

Dear James,

I write to you as a parent, small business owner and someone who has always believed that politics can be a force for good.

I have been fortunate to work with MPs and councillors from all parties throughout my professional life. Thanks to this, I know there are many decent politicians who care about the communities they represent.

As my local MP, you will represent me on Monday when voting on the Privileges Committee’s recommendation to suspend Boris Johnson’s parliamentary pass following their investigation into his conduct.

Having taken the time to read the committee’s report, I urge you to support its recommendation.

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