How to make yourself very unpopular, written by the coalition!

Today's news is that the Home Office has decided to cut police pay, particularly for new recruits. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the police is suffering a huge decline in the young intake and thus the police forces are becoming older. In short, it looks like police recruitment is in for a rough time and there is no way that the current members of the police can see this scenario as anything other than they are getting screwed. A more Machiavellian outlook would be that this is a deliberate change that so happens to benefit companies such as G4s who just so happen to be significant contributors to the Conservative party coffers...

I will declare that I am not a police officer nor do I have any particular interests to defend on this issue, but I cannot help but imagine that the police feel pretty hard done by. Having covered for the Olympics thus not had much holiday, suffered pay freezes and pension cuts and worried about being on the front line at the next set of riots, I don't expect they feel particularly benevolent to the government right now. Traditionally, the Conservatives used to be able to count on a decent proportion of the police to vote for them. I doubt very much that is true any more.

In fact, I am pretty confident that the coalition has rather significantly lost of the vote of most of the civil service too. They feel pretty screwed over too. And with recent news that business leaders are worried about the anti-EU rhetoric, as is the US, and it looks like the coalition are fast running out of support from most quarters, including areas that would traditionally have been counted upon for some support. Like the Republican party in the US, they are in danger of running out of 'angry white men', or Euro-sceptics as they are otherwise known in the UK!

When they were in power Labour were terrible for making policies and promises specifically geared towards shoring up their political support rather than promoting good government. There are countless examples of this and the result were a lot of promises that were not funded. The coalition seems to have gone completely the other way and while this can be argued as possibly a good thing, if a bit politically suicidal, I would find it hard to argue that they are making good policies and winning support either. Without the support, they have almost no chance of implementing their policies, good or bad.

This behaviour from a politician is pretty hard to explain, after all, most shallow politicians are willing to sell their soul to win at politics right? Labour certainly did and it successfully kept them going for 13 years. So when one examines the behaviour of the coalition government and their apparent suicidal approach to gaining votes a rather disturbing pattern emerges. All those polices (cutting police pay, reforming the NHS, selling off national forests, privatising defence procurement, etc) all by amazing coincidence benefit significant contributors to the Conservative party. A coincidence? It is just too widespread to be written off as a conspiracy theory. If you take the view that privately the coalition knows it was left with an impossibly unpopular mess to fix, it can be easily imagined that those at the top have lost their motivation to win more votes. Thus we should ask what motivates them to shape government policy and endure the gruelling hours and criticism that results? A rather wealthy life after the general election in 2015 perhaps?

Before David Cameron became Prime Minister, he said that lobbying will be the next political scandal. That has yet to properly happen and so that particular cow will be milked for all it is worth before the game is up. Recent news coverage also states that MPs think they are not paid enough. I actually agree and I think these two issues are linked. Politicians should get a pretty generous pay from the state on the condition that they do not have second incomes or outside interests. If they are not prepared to accept this, then maybe they should accept, and the electorate should insist, that a career as an MP is not for them at that time. My sincere belief is that British politics would be in a better place when this happens. Sadly it cannot happen fast enough.

The danger of politically motivated appointments

There is an old Spanish proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Has Theresa May served up her revenge a bit too hot with the selection of Tom Winsor to become the next Chief Inspector of Constabulary? It is too easy to see this as the Government’s revenge for the Police Federation’s rough treatment of Theresa May, the Home Secretary, back in May.

Reading between the lines of various newspapers’ coverage of the story I can also imagine the comments from the various police forces, some openly expressed:

“They appointed that idiot after he wrote those crap reports?”

And

“Oh great, another bloody poodle there to do the Government’s bidding.”

The argument that it is not a bad thing to sometimes appoint someone who is independent of both the police and government to provide a fresh pair of eyes is a good one. But when working with government departments or agencies there are two vital assets that a top mandarin must have: credibility and the ability to persuade those differing departments or agencies to work together. I fear that Tom Winsor has already lost his credibility with the police before he can even start (whether rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) and so I can only question whether no matter how brilliant he may be (or not I have no knowledge of his work) how he can possibly make this role a success? He has some serious bridge building to do and needs to communicate a vision if he is not to be blocked at every turn by various vested interests. Being confrontational does not work within government, the secret to success for any politician or senior civil servant is to be perceived as neutral and having something valuable on offer. Like reputations, this perception can be easily lost and very hard to get back.

By succumbing to an emotional desire for revenge, I fear the government has just stymied its ability to push forward reforms within the police. As Andrew Lansley, the Secretary of State for Health, is finding out if the rank and file and management do not believe in you or support your reforms then you will have the devil of a job trying to get anything done. Any bets on how long Tom Winsor will last?