December 29, 2024 - 1:00pm
What is the Starmerite governing strategy? It appears to be not to govern at all, if possible. Reports this week revealed that Labour has established a new quango every week since coming to power. This comes hot on the heels of the news that the Government has initiated 67 reviews and consultations, sparking accusations that Keir Starmer’s administration risks falling into “paralysis by analysis”.
The Prime Minister’s approach is hardly original. In fact, it’s standard New Labour strategy: what political scientist Peter Burnham has called “the politics of depoliticisation”. Burnham described this as “the process of placing at one remove the political character of decision-making”, allowing ministers to “retain arm’s-length control over crucial economic and social processes while simultaneously benefiting from the distancing effects of depoliticisation”. The use of quangos helped Labour rebuild a reputation for competence by rallying behind “evidence-based policy making”, while at the same time offering politicians plausible deniability if policies were received badly.
Since Tony Blair, there have been numerous attempts to roll back the frontiers of the quangocracy. But David Cameron’s promised “bonfire of the quangos”, over a decade ago, never really sparked, the investigation making a paltry 32 recommendations to abolish both body and function. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the quangocracy is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.
This “trim and singe” rather than “slash and burn” approach saw quangos spring back like cut roses. The cost of arm’s-length bodies tripled in the decade following the 2010 review, and former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both sought to tackle them. As the costs rose to £220 billion, Johnson ordered Jacob Rees-Mogg to lead a cost-cutting overhaul.
The failure to challenge the New Labour governing strategy was the worm boring at the heart of the last 14 years of Conservative governments. Quangos became a vital element of the Blob, and were weaponised against elected politicians. But rather than attempt to restore democracy, Starmer intends to empower bureaucrats even further. If they are to be broken, however, they must be understood.
As argued by the late Irish academic Peter Mair in Ruling the Void, the emergence of the quangocracy is the result of the decline in party democracy. Political parties used to have a crucial constitutional function. They provided a link between the rules and those subject to the rules by integrating and mobilising the public, articulating and aggregating interests, then translating these into public policy, recruiting and promoting political leaders from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in the process. But as elites distanced themselves from the governed, they sought to redefine democracy as a system centred on institutional accountability, process, and the rule of law, downplaying the role of popular sovereignty and direct public participation.
Into this void stepped “experts”, allegedly impartial technocratic specialists operating within ostensibly accountable state or semi-state institutions. This deliberately created, in Mair’s words, a “protected sphere in which policy-making can evade the constraints imposed by representative democracy”. This was accompanied by a gradual shift of power, money and authority away from democratic control.
Starmer is the perfect foil for the Blob. He is an institutionalist who governs by the default impulses of the institutions which seek ever greater insulation from the demands of the electorate. While Starmerism at first resembles grey and ineffectual managerialism, it is, in fact, an attempt to reduce politics to a process which can then be controlled or managed, rather than allowing it to exist in a state of nature as something which — deriving authority from the people — is as alive, unpredictable and demanding as we humans are.
Politics operates like a pendulum, and when the Right finds itself back in the halls of power it will have a hard time rolling back this government’s quango expansion. In many ways, the Right will have to grapple with the constitutional changes of the Blair years which paved the way for Starmer. However, it is possible that a future Conservative government will make the same mistakes as Cameron, pushing democracy yet further out of the British political system.
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SubscribeOutstanding article. And so sadly all true.
That £220bn total quango cost (which I assume to be the annual running cost) is over £3000 a year for every man, woman and child in the country. In addition to the value these bodies are destroying and all the valuable projects they are preventing or delaying.
That figure puzzled me. I think it amounts to about 25% of the budget, so I suppose it means that about 25% of public spending is controlled by quangos. Surely it can’tmean the running costs of the bodies themselves?
The cost of quangos is more than double that of the State Pension but very few people seem to complain about it.
In 2021, quangos spent £265 billion with any accountability. No doubt Starmer will make that worse.
They are just a way for politicians to reduce what they do, delegating their responsibilities to unelected,unacountable, faceless “jobs for the boys (and girls)” nomenklatura, 4,337 being on salaries over £100,000 per year..
Starmer’s response to question on the newly created quangos was
“Like any business you’ve got to understand what you’re dealing with once you’re in a position to deal with it.”
These are staggering figures. Can we have a source please?
More meat for Farage’s feast? And just how difficult is it to kill a quango?
No doubt those ’employed’ at enormous public expense within them will have solid contracts which will need terminating, but if a party stood for election with a clearly defined plan on how they’d go about doing this from day one, whilst being plain about what this might entail (i.e. initial disruption to the process of government in several areas), such a mandate would receive a great deal of popular support.
It would. So Vote Reform whenever you can.
And this is a key to how Socialism wins long term.
I am, philosophically, a small state conservative. No matter who is in power in Parliament it is virtually impossible to roll back on the growth of the state once it has been implemented.
Blair massively increased the size of the state and the so called austerity of Cameron and Osborne had little if any effect on the size of the state, sure budgets were cut but these resulted (in the main) in a reduction of services but no reduction in size.
Passing decisions to non-elected bodies is a brilliant way to get away with doing things without any democratic mandate. The “idea” is that an apolitical “expert” control will stop political interference but (in my view) all that happens is that those with influence get their way and the rest of us can go hang!
What a mess.
Bureaucracy is a ratchet. There will always be a call for more regulation/control/standards and calls for more people to work in them.
However if we were to ‘do a Trump schedule F’ and make every QUANGO chairman (or president etc) a ‘political’ appointee subject to immediate termination then some of the QUANGO armour plating is removed and some democratic control re-established. But as long as QUANGO jobs are part of the patronage of the ruling party they will remain.
The biggest quango of all for Starmer is the Chinese Communist Party for whom this Labour government work tirelessly every day.
An excellent example of how difficult reducing the size and grip of the quangocracy will be is the much touted but ultimately failed ” bonfire” of needless and irrelevant eu laws and directives.
A blob faced man. In a suit someone else paid for. Expands on the blob even further. And in the process distances himself from the job of actually making decisions.
I’m beginning to really hate this man. He is the embodiment of where the west has gone astray.
With the election of Trump in the states, the Starmers of the world now look oddly out of time. Old fashioned even. We can only hope this blob of a man doesn’t do too much damage while in control.
Starmer has already wrecked this country: it’s already well past being in a repairable state.
The modern politician’s motto: a quango a day keeps the blame away.
We now have to make a swift and meaningful change to governance. Having considered many options.and the dynamics of power I have concluded our best option is the Singoporean principle: small number of highly paid, first rate politicians (currently being siphoned into finance and tech), and zero corruption (these 2 being somewhat reinforcing). All other options will take too long and the opportunity cost is too high (eg repeal of HRA, streamlining of quangos, etc). Let the cream of the elite do the job for us. Better ideas?
How do you ensure politicians are first rate in a representative democracy?
Tell the existing politicians they are made of less durable material of inferior quality than generations which fought in WW2.
The decline in the opportunity for undertaking dangerous, life threatening activities, being tempered by adversity, of developing fortitude, ingenuity, have massively declined. Modern politicians are likely battery reared chickens plenty of flesh but weak bones, muscles and tendons compared to say a wild goose which are as tough as old boots.
Two hundred and twenty five years, boys as young as twelve years went to sea and became officers. By the age of fourteen they were leading boarding parties. A midshipmen had to undertake all the activities of a rating. A Sir John Harvey Jones said the RN up to 1815 was the finest management training regime which ever existed. A recently as WW2 Britain produced leaders of the quality of Tony Ditchum DSC
A. G. F. Ditcham
A Ditcham | U.S. Naval Institute
“a future Conservative government will make the same mistakes as Cameron”
Er, there won’t be another one. In fact, Cameron’s wasn’t one either. We had fake Tories for 14 years – and they still are. Vote Reform.
Where does Unherd get these writers from?
“The Right… the next Conservative government?”
It’s comical.
Unherd (stupid name) stop making a fool of yourself!
And review Downfall.
Get Cummings to do it.
It is preposterous to put “the Right” and “the Conservatives” in the same sentence.
Doesn’t Unherd have a copy editor?
Or is it just a political tool of the Left and as a point of strategy avoids talking sensibly about the Right? so gaslighting the Right? This will be in its (true, but well hidden) Mission Statement?
In Britain they represent the centre right party, Labour being the centre left. Whether you believe they’re right wing enough (or left wing enough in the case of Labour) is a seperate debate to this one
These terms are meaningless. Both parties represent the suburban graduate class that lives – to a greater or lesser degree – off the state. What divides them is the relative extent of their voters’ state dependency.
The need to feed this class with endlessly rising house prices, bloated public sector and corporate salaries and steadily increasing – and usually unfunded – pensions in return for their votes, is the root cause of the country’s difficulties.
Just since the start of the pandemic this class has accumulated an additional £1.5 trillion in unearned property wealth, yet when a (fictitious) ‘black hole’ needs to be filled, it’s once again working people, small businesses and farmers who are called upon.
We need a public discourse that deals in reality, not the fictional narratives of ‘left’ and ‘right’.
I’ve heard a rumour that Cummings is going to review Nadine Dorries’ Downfall (aka the sabotaging of the Right) in the excellent Unherd!
Can anyone confirm this good news?
Housing – £Bn quangopoly with huge staffs and obligatory well paid CEOs ‘charities’ ; ‘non profits’ and ‘for profit’ providers funded by statutory bodies :
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/registered-providers-of-social-housing/f286ec52-b234-415d-88d4-d8322fd24896
We no longer have elites. Elites comprise those who have inspired people to control their fear and lead people into danger. Who can make life or death decisions when others are paralysed by fear or exhaustion.
Of those who survived WW2 , Odette Hallows GC, Gp Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, OM ,Barnes Wallis FRs, Frank Whittle FRS ,Stanley Hooker FRs would be examples of elites.
What we have is a large herd of upper middle class clerks who have spent years studying humanities degrees. They consider themselves morally and intellectually superior to others and are entitled to a secure job with high status and salary yet they lack the spirit. The lack of spirit means they have not been tempered by adversity , they have not passed the test, they lack imagination, initiative ingenuity , the pioneering, buccaneering and adventurous spirit which gladly accepts the burden of responsibility and enables people to delight in risking life and limb.
Therefore. they cannot construct the beautiful such as St Peters, St Pauls, a tea clipper, The Spitfire, The E Type Jaguar, The Severn Suspension Bridge or a haut couture dress.
Genius recognises talent but mediocrity only sees itself and wishes to bring genius down to it’s level.
To summarise, the West is run by resentful embittered dull mediocre clerks, spiteful towards the bright spark of genius . Regulation enables the resentful embittered dull clerk to cloak the bright spark of genius. As Robert Michels stated “ All organisations become bureaucratic ligarchies run for the benefit who control them “ Which are embittered resentful dull clerks spiteful towards genius.
Nailed it. You can see this in every walk of life – politics and commerce.
Thank you.
Excellent piece. We have the same problem.
The Conservatives’ failure was a double one. They neither abolished the quangos nor took control of them. Instead, they continued to allow the Public Appointments Commission to put up shortlists for quango CEOs, boards of trustees etc. made up entirely of left-leaning blobocrats. They deserved everything they got last July.
Two existential dangers come to mind.
The ratchet effect of a quango led State expansion will steadily increase the demand for taxation and impoverish the private sector of the much needed research and development to sustain the private sector.
Institutional inertia of the quangocracy means innovative dynamism becomes a threat to the status quo of internal power dynamics.
Together, innovation and ingenuity is driven out from both the public and private sector leading to systemic decline and collapse.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4352765
It is natural for politicians to want a layer of insulation to protect them from the consequences of decisions gone wrong. The post office scandal is a good example. Nigel Farage should be talking about the exact percentage of quango fat he will cut from the permanent bureaucracy when he is elected.
Britain has respected politeness and good manners but we have also produced tough adventures whether the archers of the Hundred Years war, the sailors who served in the Royal Navy, Drake, Nelson, Shackleton, Worsley, T Crean, Reg Seekings, Douglas Pomford, Paddy Maine , Bill Hudson, Florence Nightingale, Gertrude Bell, Ursula Graham- Bowyer, Freya Stark plus others .
If one looks at those who have controlled public opinion since 1945; politicians, civil servants, academics, teachers, journalists ,lawyers, writers like Philip Toynbee, most trade union leaders, they have attacked, sneered and undermined the British tradition of adventure, pioneering and buccaneering because they lack these qualities. The polite well mannered middle class have lacked the Drake, Nelson, Maine, Ursula Graham Bowyer and Hudson who could have scoffed and derided the spinelessness of the sneerers.
Polite well mannered tax payers now pay for people to sneer at our history and order us what to think, feel, say and do which is absurd.
The thing about quangos is that they are a jobs program for the educated class.
Quangos will go away when the current educated ruling class is replaced by ordinary commoners and white van men.
If thinking (policy generation) has been outsourced to think tanks and foundations and doing (service delivery/target setting) is handled by quangos and the civil service, what exactly are we paying MP’s and the cabinet for?
It’s New Year’s Eve, so here’s hoping that Natural England and Historic England get binned before they wreck even more sensible plans.