Answers to Questions: 1000 Subscribers Edition
Thank you to everyone who submitted questions to the Ask me Anything - and to all the other readers waiting to see the answers! This time - perhaps appropriately due to the upcoming local elections - we got some quite politically focused questions, so here goes.
Who are the best ex-spad writers on Substack? (Jonathan Nankivell)
A great chance to recommend former colleagues! I’ll start with two writing on education, David Thomas at What David Thinks and Patrick Spencer1 at Patrick’s Substack, who both put out good stuff - with Patrick sometimes crossing into broader areas.
Not a former colleague2, but Sam Freedman3 at Comment is Freed is deservedly the most read UK politics substack, covering a wide range of topics centred on government, politics and public policy. He represents the Centrist Dad strain of thought at its very best - which means that while I often disagree with some of his conclusions and value judgements, the analysis and detail is spot on. As an added bonus, he alternates writing with his Dad, Lawrence Freedman, an academic specialising in foreign policy and international relations, who writes excellent (and usually unpaywalled) pieces about the war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
I enjoy Tim Leunig’s Policy Substack, where he writes about economic policy solutions - always thought-provoking and out there. I can’t help feeling 3 out of 4 would fail - but the 25% that remain would make our country a lot better.
Finally, I don’t really get much out of Dominic Cummings’ more recent writings, but some of what’s on his former blog remains very thought-provoking and worth reading.
What are some effective ways to influence government policy from your experience?4 (Akhila Jayaram)
“Remember, these are going to be real decisions…there won’t be many of them, they’re only too real. People like you, sitting outside, can influence them a bit, but you can’t make them. Your scientists can’t make them. Civil servants can’t make them. So far as that goes, as a Junior Minister, I can’t make them.” - Roger Quaife, character in Corridors of Power (C. P. Snow).
As the quote above rightly says, influencing Government policy is hard - entire industries try for years sometimes, without success. So what can one do as an individual?
Starting from lowest effort and working up, writing to your MP is surprisingly effective. MPs genuinely do notice what letters they get and care about them. It’s probably best not to bombard them (a few times a year maybe?) but if you have friends, colleagues or neighbours, encouraging them to write too on matters you care about could make a difference - an MP will notice if they get a couple of dozen letters on a subject.
If you care about a particular issue, then working with or volunteering with a single issue charity or campaign group could be worthwhile - though some are more effective than others.
Every MP and councillor needs volunteers to deliver leaflets and go door-knocking (and this can give you a chance to get to know them and raise the issues that are important to you).
I’m personally sceptical about most protest, other than as a way to build camaraderie and morale (though if that helps you do other things, go for it).
Finally, if you are able to, almost everyone needs more money. People always think of parties - but charities, campaign groups and similar may have small budgets. And one of the most effective means for influencing change in recent years is crowdfunding court cases (though really do check whether they have a track record of winning - some groups appear to care more about the headlines, and a lost case can genuinely set a cause back).
All of these are pretty small scale, but the reality is there are 68 million people in the UK and it’s hard for any individual person to have much of an impact. But in aggregate we can all make a difference.
Is Britain on a downward path, having had its glory days, or can our fortunes recover? (Cathy Garcia)
The Two-Power Standard and the days when a quarter of the map was painted pink are gone for good - and probably for the best - but ongoing decline is far from inevitable. Though right now things seem dismal on all fronts, I’m genuinely optimistic that we can recover the growth, progress and optimism of the ‘Little Golden Age’ (1992 - 2008)5 again, if we make the right decisions as a country.
Fifteen years ago Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal seemed like economic basket cases, deeply in debt and facing very difficult decisions. Now, the interest rate they’re paying to borrow money is lower than the UK.6 Poland, coming out of the horrendous conditions of Communism and Soviet dominance has performed an economic miracle, with a GDP per capita now only a little below that of Western European countries such as the UK.
These countries all faced tougher conditions than the UK does now - so although we face a lot headwinds, doom and decline are not inevitable. We just have to make the right choices.
It is August 2038 and, as forecast, your blog is now subscribed to by the entire global population! Disappointingly, though, the immutable rules of the blogosphere somehow limit you to just one last post. In one to three paragraphs, what is your final message to humanity? (Firestone)
I would curse the immutable rules of the blogosphere until the web-gods relented and granted me more posts!
More seriously, this gives me a perfect opportunity to say that I have always disagreed with Feynman7 that the single sentence you should preserve - if all other scientific knowledge was destroyed, was this one: “All things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.”8
I just don’t think this would make much difference. Democritus came up with the idea of atoms - and how much did it help the Ancient Greeks?
In contrast, I would go for - and use my final broadcast - to emphasise the importance of the core principles of the Enlightenment.9
Firstly, the scientific method and observation as the best means of determining truth. As Feynman put it elsewhere in that lecture, ‘The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific "truth."‘10 Not intellectual philosophising, not ‘lived’ experience - but experiment and observation.
Secondly, the fundamental importance of free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion as the means of preserving a society worth living in and maintaining progress in all the things that matter. Handing over this power to authorities and gatekeepers never ends well - even if you think they are temporarily on your side.
Thirdly, the supremacy of representative democracy as the means of running our affairs - as Churchill put it, the worst form of Government other than all the other ones we have tried.
The crucial point about all of these is not that they never make mistakes - but they are much better at rectifying them than any of the alternatives.
If you have local elections in May, how are you voting and why? (Rachael)
So I’m a low information voter when it comes to local elections - which gives me an interesting insight into how many people approach the general ones. I don’t follow local issues that closely and tend to be only aware of a few things - and the national situation.
My default starting point would be to vote Conservative. Given my political views are generally on the right, it doesn’t make sense to start with my prior as a blank slate (though it could for someone whose views are more centrist). In general, a Conservative politician is most likely to be one who I’d agree with on more things than any other parties.11
In this case, I broadly think the Conservative run county council (who are up for election) have been doing a good job at preserving the services I care about, particularly libraries, and the Green and Lib Dem run district council are doing annoying things with bins and telling me that new housing is bad. Also, the Conservative candidate standing is currently our local town councillor and seems good.12
On the national level13, I’m broadly happy with what the Leader of the Opposition is doing and the stances she is taking - so there’s no reason to shift or do a protest vote there.
All of which is a long way of saying I’ll be voting Conservative.
When did you first start supporting the Conservative Party and what was it that attracted you to them? (Neil)
There’s a prosaic and a poetic answer to that.
The prosaic one is that I was naturally predisposed to support them because my parents did, so probably picked up a number of basic values and assumptions from them. Although I didn’t read the paper or watch the news regularly before I was 15, when I did start, we got the Daily Mail (though switched to the Telegraph at some point). By this point New Labour were doing things like Stealth Taxes(TM), attacking grammar schools14 and wasting money on the Millennium Dome, so my predilections were confirmed.
I didn’t get involved in or talk much about politics throughout university15, though looked into it enough to confirm that I did actually generally support the Conservatives more than the other two main parties on things such as tax and economics, education policies, patriotism and the nation and their approach to justice and fairness, so I voted for them in 2005, the first General Election in which I was eligible to vote.
I was still pretty apolitical though, and joined the Civil Service, very comfortable working for a Labour government and adamant that I would never want to be involved in politics in any way.16
I continued happily as a civil servant for almost ten years, and was very happy with the Coalition Government17. However, as I often put it, I became radicalised by a combination of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn:
Brexit put a chink in the armour when I entered and won a 100,000 euro essay competition for the best blueprint for Britain after Brexit - and then intensified in the referendum campaign itself, when I found sitting silent much harder than in any normal election.
At the same time, Corbyn made me think hard for the first time about whether I would genuinely be happy to work for a Corbyn-led Labour Government - and when the answer was ‘no’, had to face the consequences that impartiality was perhaps no longer for me.
I decided I wanted to leave the civil service and be more directly active in politics in Autumn 2016, shortly after the Referendum and when Theresa May still seemed inspiring.18 Being someone who is still fairly Lawful,19 that meant joining a mainstream political party rather than going into single-issue protest or similar. It took me another 18 months to do it - I was working for a Minister I liked and admired and on a project I cared about - but I ultimately left in March 2018, and joined the Conservative Party the same month.
Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong…
The poetic - but perhaps equally truthful - answer is that for as long as I’ve been old enough to take notice, it seems that everything that is right and good and true in the world has been under assault by the left, usually in the name of ‘equality’, or ‘inclusiveness’, or opposing ‘elitism’ or ‘nationalism’. So while I have no problem working with people or parties on the left on specific issues, I could never give my heart or loyalty to those who seek to tear down and destroy every institution or tradition I have ever loved.
John Betjeman’s The Planster’s Vision continues to say it best:
Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,
Pouring their music through the branches bare,
From moon-white church-towers down the windy air
Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong.
Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!
Too many babies have been born in there,
Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,
Carried the old their garden paths along.
I have a Vision of The Future, chum,
The worker's flats in fields of soya beans
Tower up like silver pencils, score on score:
And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come
From microphones in communal canteens
"No Right! No wrong! All's perfect, evermore."John Betjeman
Now Patrick Spencer MP!
Before my time
Sam would at this point jump up to point out he was actually a PAD, not a SpAd (i.e. doing a similar role but not political).
The question asked about both private individual angles and my work - but I will keep work out of it to focus on the former.
Globally, the Little Golden Age clearly starts in 1989. But from a British perspective it doesn’t make sense to start it until after Black Wednesday has occurred.
And no, this isn’t just because the UK has got worse - though we have.
Heresy!
Feynman Lectures in Physics, Volume One
Which I fear will be even more desperately under siege in 2038 than they are today.
Maths excepted.
And I think a politician’s overall values and beliefs are at least as important as anything they put in their manifesto - perhaps even more so at local level.
Also I have been delivering leaflets for him.
Voting in a local election to send a message to national party leaders is absolutely a valid thing to do - though it shouldn’t be the only factor you consider.
Though - with hindsight, probably deliberately - very ineffectively.
Arguing about religion, rather than politics, was my debate of choice, as you know!
Ha ha ha.
Under which I worked most closely for Liberal Democrat Ministers.
For the longer version of the story, see On Leaving the Civil Service.
Albeit less so than 20 years ago.
Congratulations on reaching this milestone! Particularly enjoyed the questions and the candid and considered answers. Glad to see these posts flourish - and offer such a stimulus to thinking- whether one agrees or disagrees.
Very kind of you to recommend Iain - thank you!