Is British politics just ungovernable?

0:01This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

0:30is incredibly popular in my part of the world. Why would Keir Starmer sign a piece of paper which basically says, Dear Keir Starmer, I would like your job. You're sincerely Andy Burnham. Breaking news, Andy Burnham has been blocked by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from running in the forthcoming Gorton and Denton by-election. Andy Burnham's doing a great job as the Mayor of Manchester, but having an election for the Mayor of Manchester when it's not necessary would divert our resources away from the elections that we must have. It is simply untrue to say that I was told that I would be blocked.

1:08We've just seen a week where the Labour Party leadership has almost been litigated in plain sight. There was much written about the Burnham-Starmer spectacle, much florid talk about Keir Starmer's refusal to accept Burnham being a sign of strength, the flexing of prime ministerial muscle which left him stronger. In fact, in every sense, it was a sign of profound frailty. Had Starmer felt secure in his position, had his political project been going well, he would have been indifferent to Burnham's possible return to Parliament. He might have even been able to take a risk, dare him to bet his long-standing opponent's political capital, political career, that in any mid-term by-election, Burnham might lose it, taking him out politically forever.

1:55He might even have felt able, had he won, to invite him into his cabinet. As it stood, Starmer was afraid, rightly afraid. Not that Burnham would lose, but that he would win. Afraid of an opponent whose political cachet, unlike his own, is real. A rare thing to say about a Labour politician right now. Afraid that so weak has Starmer's political position become that to allow Burnham into Parliament would be to automatically sign his own political death warrant. But there is a wider story here too. How did this come to be? How could it be that a Prime Minister elected with one of the biggest majorities in parliamentary history only 18 months ago could find himself so afraid of a man not even in Parliament?

2:44How could his political position become so parlous? There is, of course, a familiar roll call of reasons for that. We've covered them as they happened on the show. We could walk through all the mishaps, the mistakes, the moments he's been sinned against and sinning. But what if there is a deeper story here? A systemic problem where prime ministers, including Starmer, find themselves captive in their own job, unable to flex power, or rather, without the thing they need to wield that power, political authority, the ability to make people and systems do what they want them to do. Someone who thinks about power and what it means to wield power is Professor David Runciman, politics professor at Cambridge and the host of the Past, Present, Future podcast, a show about the history of political ideas.

3:35I've caught up with him to ask about Starmer's rapid political decline and get at a deeper question. Why do our prime ministers now seem so perpetually lost? Is it personal that they're all just bad politicians, bad at politics, or is it the politics that's the problem? Welcome to the News Agents.

4:01The News Agents. what David Runciman Professor Runciman I mean I think the reason for doing this or the reason I wanted to sort of talk to you about it is because you know all year certainly on newsagents in the day job we've just been talking about what feels to me basically gravitating around the same question which is how can it be that Keir Starmer a Prime Minister who comes in with such a crushing majority has ended up feeling as if his actual political authority has been so fragile and has just been sort of spent so quickly. And then that kind of got me thinking a little bit about the difference in politics between power and authority.

4:38And the fact that it feels to me that we haven't had Prime Minister with a sustained period of authority for a long time. Do you think that distinction between politics and power and authority is a useful one? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's the kind of question that academics could spend a lot longer than you've got arguing about. But yeah, it does. And I think Keir Starmer's an interesting example of it. So this is still a representative democracy. So power and authority, they derive from their traditional sources, which is winning elections and winning votes. That's the currency that we deal in. But power and authority are not the same thing.

5:13So if you win an election, it puts you in power. So it means you get to be prime minister with all the power that comes with it, not maybe as much as it used to be, but still. The reason they all want to be prime minister is not just vanity, right? This is still a system that really revolves around the central power of Downing Street and the Prime Minister. So there's just a basic sense in which power derives from winning an election. But also it gives you authority, which is something different, which is like the right to be heard, taken seriously. People really follow what you believe because they think you've claimed some kind of right.

5:45They do it not just because they have to do it, which is power. They do it because they want to do it. They feel they must do it. So if you're Prime Minister, you can hire and fire people. If you're fired, you have to leave the room. But if you want the person in the room to think, I want to follow this man through fire, that's not power, that's authority. And what's interesting about Starmer is he won an election which on conventional measures gave him a lot of power in that it gave him a huge parliamentary majority. And there was a divided opposition. This looks like the field is clear, but it didn't give him a lot of authority because it was a weak election win.

6:19And one of the features of it is, I think it was a default win in the sense that, I mean, you can tell me if you think I'm wrong here, but I think almost any Labour leader would have won that election. I think Rebecca Long-Bailey, his rival for the leadership back in the day, if she'd held her party together, the party might have split, but say she'd won in 2020 and hung around, she would be Prime Minister. Would Corbyn have won? I mean, that's an interesting counterfactual. Yeah, so that one's difficult because we sort of know what happened to Corbyn in 2019. And also he wouldn't have held his party together.

6:53But a shrewd Corbynite could have won that election. And Starmer's problem, I think, is that he wants to assert his authority by pointing to the fact he won this election and the kind of basics of his power. And it's not enough because there are odds with each other. The power and the authority feel like they're pulling in different directions. So when he, as we're told, he sits around the cabinet table and says to his cabinet colleagues, you're only here because of me and Morgan, that's asserting authority, not power. You owe it to us. You have to listen to us. You may not like us, but we're asserting who we are.

7:29It's just not true. And I think that's the difference between authority and power. He still has the power. He could fire all of them tomorrow. He still has that power. But the authority doesn't come from that power. And for him, that difference is really acute. I suppose the other thing is he doesn't have the kind of political authority, which, as you say, may have come with a sense that they're there. his MPs are there because of him, which most other landslide prime ministers have, right? Like Blair could say that, Thatcher could say that, Johnson could say that, right? After 2019, not that it lasted that long.

7:59They could all say that. But likewise as well, he doesn't have intellectual authority, right? He doesn't have a kind of prospectus or a programme or sort of strong kind of ballast of ideas that he can then draw upon and say, you're with me because you agree with me about these things. And I think, so I thought this before he became prime minister, he and Rachel Reeves both, actually, as they laid out their vision. And I thought one of the questions you have to ask with this kind of vision is, when it goes wrong, which it will, I mean, it just will, it's a fact of politics. This is what you say when you're in opposition.

8:29But when things are falling apart, what's the thing that you're going to cling to in the wreckage? And I couldn't tell you what it was. I still don't think I could tell you what it was. And that's one of the think the test of political authority. So you've got to get these people, It's really bad now for them. It's a bad time to be in government. You've got to hold these people together. So you have to have the thing that makes them want to stick with you. And I don't know what that thing is. I know someone who, it's kind of people I know, this is what they do, who's just been watching video of Margaret Thatcher in 1980 and 81, when she was really in trouble, really unpopular.

9:08She didn't have anything like a majority that Starmer had. Her party was really divided. There were people who wanted her out, no question. And in some ways, the circumstances were worse. Unemployment was rampant. There were riots in inner cities. And the person who watched these videos said, the thing that sort of defined her political authority is that even in the midst of this, she was absolutely clear what the bedrock of what she stood for was. This is the non-negotiable bit. So if you ask me, what's the non-negotiable bit with Starmer? The bit that he wouldn't throw out the window if he had to.

9:42I just couldn't tell you. And that's a failure of political authority. Do you think that, again, sort of Johnson's interesting kind of counter-example, isn't it? Because here was a guy who he did, at least for a period of time, have a great deal of authority, partly because of the circumstances in which he was governing around the pandemic, partly because of the election win that he'd just had, partly because he was associated with a clear kind of set of prospectus, even if it was one that he was a bit of a chameleon sort of around. But even he, that was exhausted quite quickly. And I suppose, who was the last Prime Minister to exert authority for a long period?

10:17It feels to me that the answer is none of them really have since 2008, probably, since the crash. And so then that makes me wonder whether, is it just that we've had in this quite contingent way a series of Prime Ministers who have been below par and not like a Thatcher or Blair, whoever it happens to be, or is there something structurally going on which makes it harder to exert authority or just to govern for a prolonged period? So I think it's too many of them for it just to be a coincidence. We happen to have had a run of six or seven who lack authority relative to... Because those aren't stupid or, you know, they've...

10:50Yeah, so it's just... Their tenures are too short and the circumstances are too different. So we're talking about prime ministers who lack authority. So Theresa May lacked authority. She had a lot of authority for a short period, but after the 2017 election, because she was trying to cobble together a government with the DUP. but Johnson quickly came to lack authority with a big majority. I think Cameron had some authority during the coalition years. But actually, I more think, we look back to Blair and Thatcher, and we think sort of that's how it's meant to be, or how it used to be. They're the outliers.

11:25Now, in British politics, if you take a 200-year perspective, the kind of politics we have now is more normal. It's more like it was in the first half of the 20th century. It's more like it was in the 19th century, parties are hard to hold together. The party system is quite sort of fragile. Politics of the 1920s is actually more similar to ours in some ways than the 1990s. The 1930s as well, more stable in some ways, but also a complete nightmare to become. You don't want to be Ramsay MacDonald, right? And that period, I mean, the post-Second World War period, but particularly maybe the last third of the 20th century, that looks to me like an outlier.

12:03And And it's possible the kind of politics that we have now is more like the way this system has worked for most of its history. And we've slightly been misled by the thought that a Thatcher or a Blair is kind of how it's meant to be. And I increasingly think that sort of golden period for the kind of democracy that we have was much briefer than we realised. And it coincided with all sorts of things that worked in the age of Thatcher and Blair. This is the age of mass circulation newspapers and broadcast technology. technology relative even you know during the thatcher period relative economic stability a certain kind of international authority on the world stage a cold war or post-cold war scenario in which the issues were clear it's incredibly rare and like you say the 1920s more chaotic world environment more chaotic media environment more chaotic party system more different kinds of people in politics.

12:59The other thing about the Thatcher-Blair years, that was the sweet spot of the professionalisation of this system. The people in your party in Parliament, you could pretty much rely on them to think of this as a career and something in which they wanted advancement and you could control them in those ways. The problem that Starmer has, one of the many problems he has, is he's got a parliamentary majority made up of people who are nothing like him, many of whom know they're not in politics for a career, many of whom know they're going to lose at the next election anyway many of whom have come into politics from another world the sort of ngo charity world they see it more as a kind of certain kind of performance than a career thing they're on a hundred different whatsapp groups i mean someone you're going to know it's better than me but the whatsappification of parliamentary government it's more like the 19th century in the 19th century they were all in different clubs you know like around london they were all gossiping in different clubs.

13:55And neither the prime minister nor the whips nor anyone else kind of knew what they were up to. And also you have, in a way that does remind me a lot of the modern media environment, the fragmented media environment. You know, you have newspapers, specifically, not just for your party, but, you know, for your tribe of the party. And, you know, you have, particularly in the US, I mean, that was even more profoundly so. And it was vicious as well, profoundly. And appearing two or three times a day, all of that. It was, so that, almost think of it as sort of Bernard Ingham period where... Thatcher's press secretary.

14:21Yeah. Yeah, a Graf Yorkshireman could kind of browbeat certain people. Even Alistair Campbell could browbeat certain people had access to the levers of communication. That period is really rare. So I don't think we should just think we've had a succession of fairly useless prime ministers who weren't up to it like the ones who were up to it when I was young. Actually, we've had a succession of prime ministers who found this system as hard to manage as people found it to manage in the 1920s or the 1890s or the 1870s or god you know the 1840s you just try it's impossible i mean that's i think the the idea of the return to kind of normality or normalcy as americans would say feels to me like one of the most kind of misleading concepts in contemporary politics right because and it's one that i and i sort of understand it people kind of yearn for because we imagine, I think mainly they're thinking of the 1990s rather than the 1980s, because the 1980s is obviously just so much more divisive, but the 1990s and sort of early 2000s.

15:21You know, in the run-up to the 2024 election, so many people would sort of say to me, particularly if you're talking at things, at whatever, this is going to be it, isn't it? This is going to be the moment we can almost have a kind of breath and return to something. And it feels to me, in a way, when we're talking about Starmer, however unimpressive he might be in different ways. It was that expectation in some ways that I think weighed most problematically. And it is one that he slightly fed into as well, because he talked about a politics which would intrude less or tread lightly on your lives.

15:50Insane thing to say, to be honest. It's probably something he could never actually deliver. I mean, he lived through the Brexit years, right? He knows what this politics is like. It's not going to get any lighter. But I think he and those around him almost also bought into that analysis as well, that But basically, the fundamental problem with British politics was that the Tory party was riven and feckless and useless. And if you just take them out, then it's a sufficient condition to basically improve the whole system. And something they're realising is that's not true. And that is a fallacy.

16:22So if he believed that, that was just a mistake. I think it's a mistake for any politician to think the problem with our politics is that the people on the other side are not serious people. And we are serious people. I think he profoundly believed that. So if he did believe that, the people around him should have disabused him of that unless they believed it too. And part of the problem that he finds himself in now is if he does believe it, he's got to unbelieve it pretty quickly. And he's struggling. I mean, you can almost see him physically struggling to unbelieve it because he comes across in many ways more and more serious.

16:52And it sounds flat, empty, dead, because actually what he's done is sort of hollow it out. I suppose the other way as well of sort of thinking about the bigger problems with that democratic politics, right, is that I suppose you could also argue that this maybe collapse of authority is too strong a word, but the sort of lack of ability to wield authority in a significant way is, it's not confined to Britain, right? I mean, if you look at most other, you know, Western European democracies, whether it's Macron or, you know, Schultz had it and so on. Even Biden, even Trump. I mean, Trump like felt hegemonic at the start of this year.

17:24He was wielding both power, absolute power and complete authority. And yet now at the end of the year, even that started to collapse. So gravity of politics seems to be exerting itself on him. So is it more systemic? Is there something else going on? So it's quicker for sure. Political time has sped up. Political time has sped up. It's much quicker. It is systemic. It's not universal. There are, I think Maloney in Italy still has power and authority. These politicians who've been hollowed out in this way can cling on for a long time. But yeah, it is. And yet you look at Trump and you feel like Trump.

17:58So there are sort of fundamentals which aren't new to our time. If there's a cost of living crisis, inflation is the great killer of political authority. In the 1970s, every democratically elected government around the world fell during the period of the highest inflation in the early 70s. So it didn't matter whether you were charismatic, technocratic, big majority, small majority. It's kind of kryptonite. And Trump's problems at the moment, his promise that he shouldn't have made, was that he would bring down the cost of living. So it's not like it's systemic, but we shouldn't think it's systemic in the sense that it's this sort of new media environment.

18:35and there's a kind of culture that is eating political authority. It's almost reassuring that, in a way. I mean, I find it in a sense that, like, when Trump's going on about the price of eggs, which again is something that he, you know, he highlighted, it's that, it is the price of eggs. And the price of eggs has been an issue in politics for a long, long, long time. But if you compare, say, Starmer to Trump, with Trump, I don't think he knows how to sort out Medicare, Medicaid, rising health costs, the price of eggs. and so that could do for him. But the way he communicates, the language he has, his ability to use anti-political language as a politician gives him a kind of out in this environment.

19:14What do you mean by that? So, you know, one of the biggest problems that Starmer has is he tries to assert his authority, his seriousness, the grown-ups are back, he's sensible, by sounding like a politician. And this is, one of the differences is this is a very anti-political age. So the reason it has sped up in part, People's patience is shorter. They are willing to give politicians far less time than they used to give them. There are many more outlets for their anger. And I think if you're Starmer, and Starmer's particular problem, I think, is that he's chosen to fix himself and says he can't get rid of her to another politician, Rachel Reeves, who has exactly the same problem.

19:52So they both sound like when things get tough, our way out of it is to sound more and more like politicians. And they share, like Tanya, but something I thought about quite a lot as well is precise that, which is there were actually, even in historical terms, a relatively unusual prime minister-chancellor partnership in that they quite often, not always, but quite often the chancellor-prime minister, they complement each other in some way or they balance each other. You know, Blair and Brown, obviously most famously, Cameron Osborne did it as well. Whereas actually, they're both almost versions of each other.

20:21And they're both the straight man. They're both the stooge. It's like a double act in which the thing that would give the double act life, which is the other one, is missing. Whereas Trump, you feel... I was sort of thinking about this. Rob Reiner was murdered. And Trump comes out and he, of a man who's just been murdered, it turns out, it seems like by his son, says he had it coming. Trump derangement syndrome explains why no one should mourn for this guy. And then when there's outrage, he doubles down on it. and he says, this guy is bad for the country. And there's a little part of me always that thinks, oh my God, he's finally gone too far.

20:57But he's done the thing that he does, which is he hasn't just changed the narrative. I mean, he's totally happy. And Johnson had some of this too. He's totally happy to provoke that response. He really doesn't sound like a politician when he said that. He sounds like a lunatic and he sounds like a cruel man. I mean, a really - Malicious. Malicious. There's something chilling about that. but he does not sound like a politician. And it's not just that that sort of cuts through, but it's like a sort of breaking out of this thing that Starmer and Reeves are trapped in, which is the circumstances are really hard for governing.

21:36It is systemic. And their default is to kind of get deeper into the system. And it's sort of like Trump is, he's sort of brushing it off he's he's disdaining it i don't think it's gonna save him but it's different i mean i don't know if you saw starmul was at the liaison committee and i thought it was a very very revealing moment where he talked about how difficult it was to enact change and he said you know i pull on these levers and i pull on this other lever and then different arms length bodies and different regulatory bodies come back and they say you can't do that prime minister you can't do that.

22:14And I just thought, God, this really is profoundly problematic for him in a sense that, you know, if you're a technocrat, if you come in as a technocrat and you ground your politics and your authority in basically making the system work, and then you basically sit there and you sort of put your hands up and you go, God, I can't make the system work, then you really have nothing. And I just thought that sort of embodied his problems in so many ways. And even that way of describing it sounds like a technocrat, a technocratic politician slightly moaning about his lot. And that's also, I think, fatal for this kind of politics.

22:49This kind of politics needs something that sounds like it comes from another space and Starmer hasn't got it. He's shrinking all the time because the space he occupies feels like it's getting narrower and narrower. Does he remind you of anyone historically? Can I get something that I've thought about? Like in terms of other leaders, he's, because he's unusual. He's unusual within the Labour Party tradition. I mean, there haven't been that many Labour Prime Ministers, so it's hard to sort of compare. But is he, are there any sort of parallels? Does he make... So in some ways, bits of him remind me of lots of people.

23:20Some of his tone deafness is actually a little bit like Theresa May, I think. When he came in, my wife, it annoys her when I remind her of this, but when people were really excited that the grown-ups were back in the room, people who'd voted Labour. And I said his first week reminded me to a T of Gordon Brown's first week. If you remember, people were thrilled. Even after Blair, they thought the grown-ups were back in the room the government of all the talents. Brown gave that speech on the steps of Downing Street, this sort of dignified speech. Staking your colours to wear the grown-ups mask doesn't work the second you do something a bit childish, which in Brown's case was not called an election.

23:57And in Starmer's case, there's been a whole series of U-turns and turnarounds that were flailings about. So he's a bit of all of these things. He's not the first lawyer to be Prime Minister. Blair was a lawyer. But to me, the odd thing about Starmer is that mismatch between, He's got sort of little bits of the faults of all of them. And I may be wrong about this. I don't know him at all. But it seems to me like he lacks self-knowledge or at least a sense of his own sort of unusual vulnerabilities. So the really big mismatch actually feels to me a bit like vanity. There's a kind of... I don't think Gordon Brown had it.