The government has U-turned 12 times so far this summer.
At Prime Minister’s Questions this week – the first since the summer recess – opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the Prime Minister Boris Johnson of having effected 12 changes in policy (in recent months).
The government, said Starmer, has “lurched from crisis to crisis, to correct one error or two might make sense, but … the government has knocked up 12 U-turns and rising”. He went on to say that the prime minister is “making it up as he goes along”; to chide Johnson for having “lurched from crisis to crisis, U-turn to U-turn” and, in case this scathing attack failed to sufficiently summarise Sir Keir’s views: “the only conclusion is serial incompetence”.
The great British nation is counting the government’s “U-turns” with more fervour than daily steps, speeding points, calories and alcohol units.
It is true to say that UK policy in recent weeks and months has at times seemed as choppy as the Barents Sea. The revised and re-revised and re-re-revised guidelines have left us very confused. Most recently, the government has shown indecision on whether or not Bolton and Trafford ought to be subjected to localised lockdown due to rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in the area. There have been too many policy changes to list here – as Sir Keir says, 12 “and rising” but, in brief: track and tracing, how much help is given to children from low-income families (Marcus Rashford for Prime Minister, please), tenants protected by a rental eviction ban, pupils and students and whether or not they wear masks in schools, A-Level and GCSE results and requirements for MPs’ voting practices have all been subject to political interferences. Among others.
And now the great British nation is counting the government’s “U-turns” with more fervour than daily steps, speeding points, calories and alcohol units. Acute changes in policy have been weaponised by Johnson’s detractors, and so we find ourselves in a country in which changing direction or revising opinion is now a great sin.
It is claimed that John Maynard Keynes once said, “when my information changes, I change my mind”. This is sensible. Imagine a world in which we cannot change our minds. In very recent history, or to consider the examples listed above, this would mean that schools would remain shut into the autumn term, tenants would be vulnerable to homelessness and children from low-income families would be starving. The scene here described is even less pretty than the horizons we currently survey.
Admittance of wrongdoing is not a sign of weakness.
Changing opinion, or admittance of wrongdoing is not a sign of weakness: on the contrary, it can be an indication of strength. None of us likes to accept our own failings – doing so opens a Pandora’s Box of hideous ills; therefore we avoid it. Such admissions are unnerving in our leaders, which is why they are so religiously avoided. (In response to Sir Keir’s berating, Johnson deflected: “actually what has happened so far is we have succeeded in turning the tide of this pandemic … in spite of the negativity and the constant sniping of the opposition”.) But acknowledgments of error can, in fact, be a force for progress.
There has been no mea culpa from the government. No one has said anything along the lines of “we’ve got this wrong”, “it’s all a big mess”, “we thought we were right in denying hungry children meal tokens in the summer holidays but we see now that we were short-sighted and of course they need to eat”. As a result, the fug of pretence that we are navigating the waters with purpose and (scientific) knowledge has propelled the electorate into new galaxies of mistrust in and distaste for Johnson and his ministry.
We are sea-sick. And very bored of counting U-turns. Furthermore, if we continue to do so, we will not sail forth on calmer waters any time soon.
Constance Watson is assistant editor of the Catholic Herald. She also contributes to The Spectator, Standpoint, The Oldie, Literary Review and The Daily Telegraph.
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