Winston Churchill had a stamp on his office desk reading ‘Action this day’ with which he marked documents demanding immediate attention from his officials and ministers. It seems that Rishi Sunak has exchanged this stamp for one reading ‘Inaction this day’ to judge by his government’s paralysed inactivity in the face of pressing events.
His answer to the multiple strikes, walkouts and disputes plaguing Britain is, erm, carrying out a mini-ministerial reshuffle of the same tired old faces. Such a massive irrelevancy is unlikely to impress public opinion or do anything to close the Tories’ 20 point lag behind Labour in the opinion polls.
Nor are many of the appointments so far exactly ‘new’. Grant Shapps, who becomes the first Secretary of State for the ‘Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’, has been in the cabinet for years; while Greg Hands, who replaces the sacked Nadhim Zahawi as party chairman, is, as his name implies, a safe pair of hands who won’t set the Thames alight. But equally, Hands is unlikely to fire up a discontented party membership – still grumbling about the departure of Johnson and Truss – for the uphill struggle to win a general election.
It’s true that Lee Anderson has been announced as the new deputy chairman of the Conservative party. Another promotion, for Kemi Badenoch, a darling of the Tory right, may also be to party members’ taste. But Badenoch – as with Michelle Donelan and Lucy Frazer, who have also been shuffled about – has held ministerial posts before. Sunak’s reshuffle so far is a damp squib; there is little taste of new blood in the PM’s typically cautious and unadventurous merry-go round.
Greg Hands is unlikely to fire up a discontented party membership
With nurses and ambulance staff on strike, let alone other public service workers, the Prime Minister seems unable to understand the basic PR imperative to be seen to be doing something – anything – to resolve a dispute that is impacting health care across the country, rather than merely moving ministers in a game of musical chairs.
Sitting down for a cosy interview with Piers Morgan or reshuffling a few ministerial deckchairs on the Tory Titanic as it steams heedlessly on towards the iceberg of the next election simply does not meet the level of the multiple crises confronting the nation.
Even if he is determined not to grant the striking unions’ demands for inflation-busting pay hikes, Sunak should at least keep inviting their leaders in to Downing Street to explain his stance.
His present attitude of icy indifference to the misery that so many are experiencing merely smacks of arrogance. It reinforces perceptions that the PM is a distant, over privileged and wealthy figure who will never need to use the health services on which most of us depend.
It is all very well to beef up a government department to put Britain on the road to a smart, techno-nimble innovative future in distant years to come. But what Britain badly needs is a plan of action to address the current emergency. The Prime Minister seems either unable, or unwilling, to provide one.
Comments