Another day, another u-turn by the Government. I don't have a problem with u-turns providing there is a good reason to do so. Good policy is not made by stating publicly what will be done only to find out later the unintended consequences are too great to be acceptable. Good policy is made by quietly suggesting something should be done and then asking other people to look at that suggestion from all angles and then to reach a conclusion on whether it can and should be done and what should be done to reduce unintended consequences. I refer back to my earlier statement in this blog, "No decision is black and white", embrace this concept and seek to confront it and you are halfway there to producing a good policy!
Sadly, this is a case against the adversarial politics as practised in the UK. Standing up and shouting in parliament makes for good TV, but does not necessarily lead to good policies. Good policy is boring and painstaking work. It is detailed cost-benefit analysis backed by the best available information at the time. Sometimes this is not enough because in a democracy, not only should a policy make logical sense, it must be seen to make logical sense by those outside of government. U-turning on what appears to be a large chunk of the policies set out in your last budget (pasty tax, charity caps etc) and indeed on some much bigger policies made in the last two years (which aircraft for the aircraft carriers, the NHS and security reforms etc) is not exactly confidence inspiring!
No doubt many people might say that this is a consequence of coalition government and such debate and scrutiny is healthy. This is a point I would agree with, but there is a world of difference between exploring what is the right policy and that of stating what is the correct policy. To be fair to the coalition, they have tried to show that they are 'consulting' on policy formulation. Sadly this has been clumsy and too often the media has reported that these policies were firm policies and done deals. UK politics is all about shouting loudly and pretending unwarranted confidence on what are complex issues. True democratic leadership is not about dictating to people what will happen, but by convincing them that it will happen that way because it must happen that way to get the best result. True leadership in a democracy also about having the confidence to set out a broad objective which you then expose to scrutiny, including by people opposed to you, which you can then constructively harness to implement your stated objective.
In short, far too often those who comment on government policies are badly informed and do not understand the complex issues behind those policies. They are not helped by government refusing or unable to expose those facts. Sadly, those at the top of government also don't understand the issues and complexities behind their decisions leading to more u-turns, more criticisms and more defensive behaviours thus reducing confidence in them further. It is a vicious circle in which Ministers, parliamentarians, the media and senior civil servants are all complicit. Fixing this problem is not easy and unfortunately there is no sign of the political will to do so.
I leave you with a final point, politics is the only profession where you do not need formal qualifications or demonstrated competence in the subject matter to practice it! Should maybe the Prime Minister (or a delegated panel) conduct proper job interviews before appointing their Ministers? No other profession or business thinks this should not be done so why is politics different and yet our expectations of the political process so high?
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