Rachael’s blog – A time for growth – and grit

Every Thursday night I try to stay awake to watch Andrew Neil’s programme “This Week” on BBC 1 at 11.35pm – just after Question Time (why can’t they put these programmes on earlier?). Last week a comment by Michael Portillo on the future of the Coalition Government stayed with me. He said it needed a clearly defined (and communicated) vision, if it was to survive. It had to be a strategic direction that drew recognition and understanding, not necessarily agreement.

I thought about this assessment today as news broke of the British economy’s sluggish growth of just 0.2% for the quarter to June, half the level predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). It was also revealed that Jeremy Heywood, the Prime Minister’s permanent secretary, had called a meeting with the Treasury to order a new “urgency” in tackling the problem.

Wasn’t that what the Government’s “Plan for Growth”, published in March this year, was all about? In the foreword, signed by both George Osborne and Vince Cable, it said:

“We now have to step up a gear. Our economy now has to become much more dynamic, less burdened by pointless barriers, and retooled for a high tech future, if we are going to create the jobs and prosperity we need for the next generation.”

Five months later, the Chancellor is floating the idea of tax cuts and Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has called for an extension of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme, effectively printing money.

Meanwhile Mr. Cameron has said neither can be afforded.

This is not a clear vision. And today’s economic news, following on from a series of policy u-turns this year, reminds me of something else Michael Portillo said in a Sunday Times article back in February 2010 before the general election:

“Voters today have little expectation of a bright new morning. Their unhappiness with Gordon Brown, though substantial, does not overpower their worries about the Tories, which today centre on their competence rather than their radicalism. For an electorate that weakly wills change, a hung parliament is a rational outcome.

Yet it certainly is a result to be feared. The public finances are in a calamitous state. Almost every action taken so far — the printing of money, higher public spending and borrowing, the slashing of interest rates — has been a further dose of the policies that brought us to this crisis. A strong new government confident of a five-year term is needed, one that can announce the timetable for reversing those policies.”

And while he had sympathy for the economic chaos the next government would inherit from Labour, he added tellingly:

“The most damaging aspect of the Conservatives’ recent performance is inconsistency….. It is not just that indecision raises doubts about competence. It is more that the next government must possess extraordinary grit, because the situation really is worse than that faced by Thatcher. The Conservatives are failing the grit test.”

In fact the Coalition Government is failing the grit test, and maybe that’s not surprising given the inevitable policy compromises needed to keep it afloat.

But, David Cameron, irrespective of his judgement over the Andy Coulson/phone hacking scandal (or maybe because of it) now has to show grit.

If you read through the FEdS Summer Stocktake on Education and Skills (and I recommend you do!) you will see at a glance the pace and scale of Coalition Government reform.

The Government’s overarching philosophy is clear: to let the customer make the decision and, where that’s not possible, pay on outcomes; to let markets drive down cost and drive up quality; to focus funding where money wouldn’t otherwise be spent and to encourage local rather than central accountability.

There’s no doubt that these reforms are bold and radical – but they feel like a jungle of cross-connecting policies and data that we have to work through for ourselves, rather than a clear strategic direction that we can follow.

I agree with Michael Portillo that the electorate had a “weak will” for change last year and while it is, so far, largely behind the urgent need to cut deficit, it is being battered by a torrent of reforms which appear to have few support mechanisms in place. The big society concept, which interestingly gets only one mention in the Government’s white paper on modernising public services, is not strong enough to hold things together. Certainly not in the way it is being communicated at the moment.

It has unleashed debate and a sense of potential but not a vision that ignites a collective sense of purpose.

So we live in uncertain times, with an uncertain Government – and Opposition.

It is unlikely, given the economic crisis, that the Government will have much time to recharge its batteries this summer, but it does need to think through its strategic vision and deal with doubts about its competence.

It needs more grit and consistency – and, I think, much more growth and maturity in political, as well as in economic, terms.

More sleepless nights ahead, then; particularly on Thursdays from September. That’s when  Question Time and This Week start again after the summer break. Can’t wait…..