October 2023, Issue 41 The Critic

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STARMER’S WOMAN PROBLEM | I WAS R APED BY THE IR A | WHY FUND OPER A?

Tory doom special October 2023 Issue 41 | £6.95 thecritic.co.uk

I’m the Prime Minister

Get me out of here!

Minister was to her enemies, then and since, a tyrant. But one whose faults, however legion, never included weakness. She was in control. However, whatever the public’s perception, she was anything but dominant. Endlessly she bemoaned her lack of good men. And as Tory leader she ran, and governed, against her own party and government. Up to the point of publicly bewailing what “the Government” did. She was, in short, oppositionalist even to what she in office was doing. The tone of Thatcherism for Thatcherites was habitually regretful — “if only!” — rather than triumphant. Yet she got more done than any other prime minister in the last century. Whoever leads the Conservative party after the next election will need to hone their skills of opposition, as that is where they shall assuredly be — and in such a minority that they will regret bitterly the failure of leading Tories to oppose what this government has done in office. All polling points to Sir Keir Starmer being in Number 10, the oldest person to enter it as occupant in half a century. Labour’s majority will be overwhelming, and — unlike the one gifted to them in 1997 after John Major’s government disintegrated in sleaze and inadequacy — it won’t come wrapped up in any supposed great narrative. Few will credibly claim that Starmer’s Labour won because the tide of history has taken it there. Labour will be in power because the British people are now firmly settled on simply booting the Tories out. The result will be negative, determined and bloody.

How did we get here? As the joke goes, the answer depends upon where you think “here” is. Rohan Watt, sometime advisor to Liz Truss, reminds us that after what had been twelve years of Conservative-led government, Truss thought that “here” was a disaster. Truss not only had a sense of the size of the problem, but also of the scale of the response needed. It is unkind to note that she, serially overpromoted by all her predecessors since 2010, was personally

not up to it. But at least she knew that conservatism was facing its greatest challenge since socialism. As Lee Reynolds, a non-Tory Brexiteer, notes, it is hardly surprising that a parliamentary party is in the state that it finds itself in, given that so many of its MPs are in the Commons chiefly thanks to the promise to “get Brexit done” even although they didn’t want todo it. Nor

have they objected that, by and large, its possibilities have been junked. Sometimes the world is just. The problems these Tories left unaddressed are social in nature as much as they are the economic ones that Truss aimed to remedy. They continue to be built up, layer upon layer, by what Reynolds calls the watchdog state — which is as unaccountable as it is ineffective. Yet Reynolds’s gravest charge is the utter Tory failure to build the things that matter: infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Of all the Brexit freedoms squandered, this is by far the most culpable, with the worst long-term problems looming in consequence. The Tory failure is, as Helen Joyce mordantly details, spiritual too. The care of souls is what Trans extremists have squarely set themselves at, and this Tory government has, in law and administration alike, conceded to them. Penny Mordaunt, Maria Miller and Caroline Nokes head a very long list of Tory MPs who have not just done the bidding of Stonewall et al, they have cheered them on and denounced their critics.

Does it have to be like this? To coin a phrase, is there no alternative? Is it our settled path to be governed by Blairism with characteristic Tories? No Westminster-model country has suffered a revolution like the one Pierre Trudeau inflicted on Canada. A man who ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ

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Labour will be in power because the British people are now firmly settled on simply booting the Conservatives out sat out the war against fascism — going to Harvard instead, after failing to get his Rhodes Scholarship — remade Canada in his own image. Symbolism, the hard stuff of law, belief in country: whatever there was to undermine, Trudeau père did so. What Tony Blair did to Britain is as nothing compared to what Canadian liberals have done to their own country. Perversely, no other (mostly) Englishspeaking country now has such poor immunities against American fads as the one the elder Trudeau left behind him. His son, Justin Trudeau, has built upon this dismal legacy. He introduced possibly the most extreme repression in the name

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of Covid security any Anglophone democracy attempted. His demonisation of mere political opponents — “the truckers” — and deployment of anti-terrorism laws against them were grotesque. Justin Trudeau’s agenda went hand in hand with eugenicist euthanasia against the old, poor and weak and reliance upon the slanderous cod history of endorsing pretended genocide and falsified mass graves. In doing so, Trudeau and his Canadian liberals have casually insulted every such real crime the twentieth century offered. Jon Kay’s piece on the falsification of Canadian history in our April issue should, though, be understood in the context that Trudeau’s Liberal party has been as dominant there as the Tories have been here. Liberals rarely lose on the strategic and society-defining issues of our Canadian future.

Except, in Pierre Poilievre, Canadian Conservatives have found a winner who polls even more handsomely than Starmer does here. The lesson that Poilievre should teach British Conservatives is to build, build, build, to know who your enemies are and do something to counter them. That a country as vast as Canada has

home ownership problems comparable to those that beset the densely-populated UK is astounding. It is a situation that Poilievre, even before he became Tory leader, has credibly promised to address. By contrast, Britain’s Tories failed to build and now pretend that in the future there will be a mega-city where once there was Cambridge, and other embarrassing fabrications. Canadian Conservatives have addressed their voters’ issues. As Mrs Thatcher would have vulgarly put it: they are intent upon looking after their people. Poilievre goes further though, fully intending to take an axe to the Canadian “blob” — most noticeably CBC. Canada’s version of the BBC is so transparently parti pris in favour of the Liberal Party that it makes the BBC look fair and detached by comparison. What have Tories at Westminster done about the blob since 2010? Talked then walked, leaving the blob as firmly in control as ever.

Might the incoming Labour government somehow tackle the problems the Tories have taken thirteen years to make worse? Perhaps they could, if they had cleaved to the Blue Labour mantra of Left on economics but Right on social issues. However, as Sebastian Milbank sets out, there is no serious prospect of Starmer adopting this approach. Indeed, armed with the vast majority that Rishi Sunak is going to hand him, but also without the money Blair in 1997 inherited, idle Labour hands will most likely revert to baleful meddling type. “By any objective measure” Milbank writes, this has been the most liberal government in British history. The Tory modernisers, “the heirs to Blair” — Cameron, Osborne, Gove — won, and this is the country they have left us: broken, bust and despairingly crying out even for stolid Labour. There’s a lot of ruin in the country, and more now thanks to this government. Opposing it will be the hard task of the next Tory opposition. O

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Contents COLUMNS Letters

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Helen Joyce The diversity trap

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Law Yuan Yi Zhu: First lady of the law

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Woman about Town Lisa Hilton: Mostra del Cinema

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Nova’s diary Getting change out of Rishi

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Serious business Ned: The vim of Unilever

15

Fathers of the republic Daniel Johnson welcomes a new portrait of the Victorian statesmen who did so much to forge modern Ireland 42 Why do we persist with opera? Lola Salem says it is artistically ossified and dependent on state subsidies 46 The World at War at 50 Andrea Valentino explores the landmark television documentary 48

STUDIO William Cook: Colin Watson and the lost art of figurative painting 54

My Woke World Titania McGrath: Róisín Murphy and her heinous “Hate” Parade 25 Sounding Board Marcus Walker: Clothes maketh the nation 34 Arty Types D.J. Taylor on Mairead McSweeney 44

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Don’t give a Voice to racism Tim Smith says a proposed change to the Australian constitution will enshrine inequality in law 22 Profile: Pierre Poilievre Canada’s Conservative leader has struck a chord with voters disenchanted by the gap between promise and reality 26

Economics Tim Congdon: A tired soap opera

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Romeo Coates Perfect for the part

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Adam Dant on … The Old Bailey criminal map

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The making of Sunak Alexander Larman argues the PM has the brittle self-confidence of a true Wykehamist 32

Liz Truss: What if ... ? Rohan Watt provides an insider’s guide to a premiership cut short 13

Keir’s woman problem Victoria Smith says Labour’s weak handling of the trans issue fails to instil confidence it will hold firm against sex denial extremists 35

FEATURES

How to fix Brexit Lee Reynolds says journalist Peter Foster asks some of the right questions and identifies areas for action in his new book What Went Wrong with Brexit 16 Abused by the IRA, betrayed by Britain Jo Bartosch on the disturbing case of Máiría Cahill, allegedly raped by an IRA operative and let down by a botched prosecution 18

Block votes and nutters Stephen Pollard recalls a time when the Labour conference really mattered 29

Labour’s Blues Sebastian Milbank argues that Leftish economics allied to moderate social conservatism offers a route to power for Sir Keir Starmer 37 In defence of the Dark Ages Samuel Rubinstein says the early medieval period really was “dark”, whatever its revisionist champions may say 39

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A.N. Wilson: Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Wars by Simon Heffer; Letters for the Ages: The Private and Personal Letters of Sir Winston Churchill edited by James Drake and Allen Packwood 58 Alex Middleton: Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions by Maurizio Isabella 60 Georgy Kantor: Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age by Tom Holland; Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard 62 Mateusz Stróżyński: How to Be: Lessons from the Early Greeks by Adam Nicolson 64 Daniel Miller: Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order by Mark Sedgwick 65 Christopher Silvester: Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia by Jade McGlynn 67 Sir Richard Dearlove: Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West by Calder Walton 68 Charlotte Gauthier: The Globe: How the Earth Became Round 71 by James Hannam Harry Eyres: Vines in a Cold Climate: The People Behind the English Wine Revolution by Henry Jeffreys 72 John Self: The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut; Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan; So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan 73

THE SECRET AUTHOR Meeting the Masses

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COV ER ILLUST R ATIO N B Y B A RRY FALLS /HEA RT

BOOKS

Everyday Lies Theodore Dalrymple: The BMA and income inequality 21

October 2023 | Issue 41

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THE CRITICS

Eating In Felipe Fernández-Armesto ponders the best ways to dress a salad 90

MUSIC Norman Lebrecht Is the party over for festivals?

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OPERA Robert Thicknesse The “content warnings” are the best bits 79

POP Sarah Ditum From “queer icon” to “transphobe”

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ART Michael Prodger CARTOO N B Y LEN HAW KI NS; CRI TI C FOX BY JA SO N FOR D/ H E ART

Can AI confirm a new Raphael?

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THEATRE Anne McElvoy A maverick medic provides a tonic

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CINEMA Robert Hutton The wolves of Wall Street

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TELEVISION Adam LeBor A Finnish conspiracy drama thrills

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RADIO Michael Henderson Shining a light on the Black Country

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ARCHITECTURE

Country Notes Patrick Galbraith on a new conservation role for old gamekeepers 92 Deluxe Christopher Pincher goes up country 92 Drink Henry Jeffreys quaffs a new wave of fine vintage cider 94 Turf Account Stephen Pollard looks forward to the jumps season 95 Style Hannah Betts sparkles in silver boots 96 Hot House Claudia Savage-Gore seethes with second-home envy

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IN PRAISE OF

Charles Saumarez Smith A new take on Arts and Crafts

VISIT:

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BC/AD: the dating system invented by Tiny Dennis by David Butterfield 98

TABLE TALK

THIS SPORTING LIFE

Eating Out Lisa Hilton wants to book a ticket to Sri Lanka after an exotic meal in Soho 89

Patrick Kidd: Up for the Ryder Cup Nick Timothy: The eyes of the law Boris Starling: Lucky numbers

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The diversity trap

Helen Joyce

◉◉◉ These campaign groups have infiltrated

Stonewall’s diktats create a workplace culture that scares and silences sensible people and empowers witchfinders and grievancemongers

workplaces in ways far more consequential than pass-agg mugs. Their most effective tool is the ranking scheme, by which they seek to create a gender-neutral, race-obsessed new Jerusalem. Stonewall no longer publishes the full list of participants in its “diversity champions” scheme. But three years ago more than 850 organisations were signed up, covering a quarter of the British workforce. For a few thousand quid an employer gets the privilege of having chunks of its HR policies rewritten by young graduates who think oppression means forgetting someone’s “preferred pronouns” and being kept out of the opposite sex’s toilets. These identitarians know employers’ continued subscriptions — and therefore their own jobs — depend on inventing ever more absurd instructions for self-debasement in the name of inclusion. The latest iteration marks firms down for not ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ

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having sanitary bins and tampon dispensers in the gents. Doing really well means telling customer-facing staff to wear badges proclaiming their pronouns and to ask everyone they interact with for theirs. “Gender-fluid” staff should be given email addresses and ID cards to match each of their identities. All policies should be based on the lie that human beings aren’t sexually dimorphic — to the point of absurdity; maternity-leave provisions should avoid all mention of women and mothers, speaking instead of “birthing parents”. This sort of overreach has led to a campaign to “get Stonewall out”. In August, Kemi Badenoch, the minister for women and equalities, said all government departments should leave the scheme; in the past couple of years several have done so, including the Cabinet Office. So have the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Channel 4 and the BBC. But as with Hotel California, checking out does not mean you can truly leave. All those rewritten policies will stand until you instruct someone sensible to fix them — and if you try that, you’ll quickly realise that by bowing to Stonewall’s diktats you created a workplace culture that scares and silences sensible people, and empowers witchfinders and grievance-mongers. When you imposed unpopular, reality-denying policies on your workforce and labelled dissent as bigotry, you turned the ability to avoid wrongthink into a career asset. Meanwhile those you tasked with rooting out sins against social justice will find plenty — after all, their continuing employment relies on bigotry being in endless supply. And everyone else will profess to see the bigotry, too, since confessing that you cannot is as good as saying that you are a bigot as well.

◉◉◉ It’s bad enough that your organisation has become a hostile environment for employees who just want to get on with the job, and that time and money have been wasted on making it so. But the new culture may also infect your core business. Take the BBC, which left the diversity champions scheme in 2021, admitting in a statement that its participation had “led some to question whether the BBC can be impartial when reporting on public policy debates where Stonewall is taking an active role”. Debates such as whether gender self-

PO RTR A IT B Y VA N ESSA D ELL

You’d have to be living under a rock not to have noticed that many of the charities that used to fight real and urgent injustices now spend their time on counterproductive hectoring instead. Organisations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign and our very own Stonewall have abandoned practical policies to help the downtrodden in favour of totalising theories of free-floating oppression and claims of harm, hate and genocide. So extreme has this reinvention been that they now resemble the priestly caste of a joyless, godless neo-religion that preaches against whiteness, cisness and heteronormativity — original sins for which there is no absolution, only eternal self-flagellation. In the title of a recent book by the comedian and author Andrew Doyle, these people are “The New Puritans”. The default mode of these once-great charities is finger-wagging. They specialise in caps-lock, hand-clap, repeat-after-me, “be kind, do better” tweets about micro-aggressions, systemic racism and the sacred nature of transness. The latest offering from Stonewall is a series of mugs emblazoned with “some people are [insert identity]. get over it”. Used in the office, they guarantee that your colleagues will loathe you, but won’t dare say so for fear of being reported to hr.

ID should become law, whether to use experimental drugs to halt puberty in gender-confused children and whether to allow men who identify as women into women’s sports, presumably — on all of which the BBC’s reporting has indeed been terrible. One disgruntled BBC staffer told me in confidence about proposing a news item touching on trans issues and suggesting me as an interviewee. A colleague described me as a Nazi and made such a fuss that I was dropped. Another BBC staffer who included a brief reference to LGB Alliance in a news broadcast was told to remove the reference — and reported to HR for refusing to do so. The charity represents same-sex oriented people, you see, not people who profess attraction to self-declared gender identities, as Stonewall now does. That makes it “transphobic”. None of this should come as any surprise in a media organisation that has written gender identity into its workplace policies. Those policies signal to journalists that gender identity is real and important, sex isn’t and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot. Of course that is bound to influence the editorial line.

The photograph of a “Keep males out of women-only spaces” sticker on a trans poster that prompted a police hate crime investigation

TW IT TER

◉◉◉ This process can be described as “policy capture” — the distortion of policymaking to benefit a minority at the expense of everyone else. It has three major elements: lobbying and funding; the distortion of knowledge production and dissemination; and threats of trouble. The first of these is familiar from financial corruption, when industry groups suborn regulators to weaken rules and to turn a blind eye to infractions. But as governments grant themselves ever greater licence to prescribe citizens’ behaviour, it’s increasingly done in the name of social justice. It’s obviously not in the interests of the majority that police ignore bike theft and break-ins but question a pensioner on suspicion of committing a hate crime because she photographed a sticker saying “Keep males out of women-only spaces”, as happened in Hebden Bridge earlier this year. But it certainly suits the tiny minority who want to force ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ

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everyone to pretend that people are whatever sex they claim to be. As for knowledge production and dissemination, academics tend to leap on the latest fads from ideology entrepreneurs like Judith Butler (biological sex is a social construct) and Robin DiAngelo (all white people, everywhere, are complicit in racism). Undergraduates get good grades by saying what they know their teachers want to hear; PhD applicants write theses that flatter the biases of journals; applicants for lectureships say what they think will get them hired and go on to publish papers they think will get published — and by the time they are full professors, it’s too late to learn intellectual independence. The result is that universities are full of adults who resemble teenagers: all non-conformist in the same way.

◉◉◉ “Threats of trouble” is the term used for the many ways in which compliance is enforced, from social sanctions to workplace disciplinaries to industry blacklists. A recent example concerned Dev Mistry, a burlesque performer who goes by they/them. While he was having coffee in the lobby of Hotel Malmaison in Manchester city centre, he heard a staff member “talking to others about trans people”. The conversation “was not necessarily malicious”, he grudgingly told the Manchester Evening News, “but it was that ‘men are men’ and ‘women are women’ and there’s no in between”. Naturally, Mistry complained to the hotel’s front desk about this heresy being expressed in a public place. He then contacted head office, which assured him it had “launched an HR investigation” and accepted that it “needed more formal training around LGBTQ+ issues”. The conversation happened during Manchester Pride, in late August — and Hotel Malmaison was hosting the event’s media accreditation suite. Presumably it felt it had to take Mistry’s complaint seriously if it didn’t want to lose a lucrative contract in future years. Once you give the New Puritans a hold over you, the witchfinders will be everywhere. O

Write to The Critic by email at [email protected] including your address and telephone number selves. They have a direct economic interest in keeping housing prices artificially high and have every incentive to oppose any development, including local services, which could have a negative impact on their primary form of wealth. In short, can we please, for the love of all that is holy, start building stuff again? Elizabeth Wood

southwell, nottinghamshire

“I’m a Malcontent Provider.”

borough is still strenuously attempting to get a local Catholic school torn down. Where I am from, a much-needed cemetery wasn’t built because of concerns about traffic. NIMBYs aren’t just objecting to new housing developments, they’re objecting to the very infrastructure that Orlowski claims YIMBYs aren’t planning for. He claims the public “really want … detached and semi-detached housing”, when what he actually means is this is what middle-aged couples want. Young professionals (the primary class of YIMBYs) want to be able to buy a flat affordable enough that they can save for that suburban home. They want the option of flats large enough to start a family in, or just spacious and affordable enough to comfortably live in whilst they start a career or pursue further education. Why are these demands deemed ideological, while the desires of older homeowners are identified with the common man? Entirely missing from Orlowski’s piece was the very much not ordinary class of homeowners in the south east, granted an unearned windfall thanks to the economic success of London. Far from his vision of retirees desperate to downsize, housing wealth is disproportionately in the hands of older people and retirees, with even poorer pensioners very likely to own their own homes. The elite among this class own either multiple homes, or a very high-value property, and are often landlords them-

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PASTURES NEW ? David Butterfield (A TALE OF TWO GLASTOS, AUG/SEPT) writes about how the Glastonbury Festival “has strayed far from its countercultural roots” but that “a genuinely countercultural, performance-driven, people-powered festival can be resurrected”. Or perhaps it must be erected elsewhere? Glastonbury is the culture. It has existed for more than 50 years. One might as well expect Private Eye to become scathingly satirical or Ian McEwan to lead to the next wave in experimental literature. Martin James BRISTOL ANOTHER FINE MESS ... “Camus saw bourgeois Europe as possessed of a death-wish,” writes John Ritzema (OUR TRUE EUROPEAN HOME, AUG/SEPT), “wallowing in nihilism. He prescribed a values-driven cadre of European intellectuals and writers to ‘leaven the mix’.” And what a fine job such intellectuals and writers did. Bourgeois Europe in the age of Camus was only ankle-deep in nihilism compared to our times. Perhaps we should have listened to values-driven intellectuals and writers a little less. Paul Weber london X-RATED “The best way to make Twitter less toxic is to make it clear that online tantrums no longer work,” writes Helen Joyce (HOW TO SURVIVE TWITTER, AUG/SEPT). Without online tantrums, what is Twitter for? Mary Harrison leeds, west yorkshire

CA RTO ON S B Y RI CHA R D JO LLEY A N D C HR IS MA DDEN

BUILDING CONSENSUS I read with interest Andrew Orlowski’s “Don’t bulldoze the bungalows” (AUG/ SEPT) which skilfully punctures the dream of consensual “Yes In My Backyard” advocates — YIMBYism. He is of course right, and anyone who doubts him can get near-daily reminders in the form of the escalating costs and dwindling length of HS2, which may not reach Manchester (or central London). There is no magic solution to the opposed interests of those who need homes but cannot afford them, and those who control the housing supply. Where Orlowski comes off the rails is his casual assumption of the intuitive correctness of one side of the argument — the NIMBYs. We’re told that YIMBYs are sneering metropolitans who despise good honest Barrett home-dwelling Middle Englanders. Housing supply, we are informed, is no issue — “we’re enjoying a 30-year housing boom”. And that the problem is housing demand, which is primarily a consequence of immigration. He also complains that YIMBYs envisage doubling the size of villages without additional infrastructure. But what this account misses is the degree to which policy is weighted towards inertia and against development. It’s not only housing that gets blocked by NIMBYs, as the HS2 example shows. Taxpayers are milked for the high price of building schools, roads, hospitals, rail and other vital services. Cambridge recently spent £2.4 million on a roundabout. Thanks to local busybodies, one London

YUAN YI ZHU ON LAW

First lady of the law The new Lord Chief Justice inherits a role with a rich and varied history

P O R T R A I T B Y VA N E S S A D E L L ; R O R Y L I N D S AY / . J U D I C I A R Y. U K

B

y the time you read this, Dame Sue Carr will have

assumed office as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, or Lady Chief Justice, should it be decided to alter the venerable title. As is the modern public sector custom, the job was advertised online by the Judicial Appointments Commission, along with a candidate information pack (among the selection criteria: “Ability to preside over both Divisions of the Court of Appeal”). Two candidates were shortlisted and interviewed, following which Dame Sue’s name was sent to the Lord Chancellor. The other shortlisted candidate was Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the King’s Bench Division and the long-time favourite for the post. But a legal commentator’s euphemistic remark that her rival had a more “outwardly confident personality” may explain her failure to secure the prize. The modernday LCJ is, after all, as much of a manager as she is a judge. In theory any lawyer with seven years’ experience was welcome to apply, but in practice only senior judges had any chance. This was not always the case. Well into Harold Macmillan’s premiership, there was a hazy but nevertheless real understanding that the attorney general had a reversionary right to the lord chief justiceship if it became vacant during his tenure (the solicitor general had similar claims, usually to lesser judgships).

The convention seemed to have been invented by the indefatigable job-seeker Sir Francis Bacon, who as solicitor general in 1612 shamelessly asked King James I for the chief justiceship of the King’s Bench or of the Common Pleas, as one of “the places of rest after the

A tender for a seat-warmextreme painful places ing lord chief justice was put wherein we serve” for “else out. Darling wrote a truly we [the Law Officers] shall be pathetic letter to the Prime like Noah’s dove, not Minister begging for the top knowing where to rest our job “even for ten minutes”, feet”. As he probably but was beaten by the even expected, the attorney generless distinguished Mr Justice al was promoted instead, A.T. Lawrence, aged 77. whereupon Bacon succeedDarling remarked that he lost ed his colleague as attorney. out for not being old enough. Dozens of attorneys Dame Sue Carr: As part of the transaction, general were subsequently The new Lord Lawrence had to sign an promoted to one of the two undated letter of resignation, chief justiceships until 1873, Chief Justice was thought unethical when Gladstone obtained will be as much which even by the standards of from the Cabinet a ruling a manager as Lloyd George. Incensed, the that promotion to the highest a judge judges made a point of judicial posts would be boycotting Lord Reading’s based on merit alone and farewell ceremony. not on the claims of the law officers. The Eleven months later, Lawrence (now ruling was promptly ignored. Lord Trevethin) learned of his resignation and of Hewart’s consequent elevation in The old system produced The Times. Hewart served on the bench outstanding judges such as Sir George until 1940, when he received a phonecall Jessel, appointed Master of the Rolls from from Downing Street asking him to resign the Treasury bench by Gladstone the same to make way for a minister recently purged year Cabinet passed its resolution by Churchill. He meekly complied. condemning the practice. But it also led to truly disreputable appointments. In 1913, attorney general Sir Rufus Such things no longer happen. Isaacs accepted the lord chief justiceship Parliamentary experience is today widely against his will because he had been viewed as a hindrance to judicial preferrecently involved in a corruption scandal, ment. Sir Ross Cranston, solicitor general and refusing the office to which he had an under Tony Blair, is the last former MP to automatic claim would have suggested have been appointed to one of the superior that he had been tainted. A few years later, courts, and he had to fill out the applicain the middle of the First World War, Isaacs tion form like everyone else. Increasing (by then Lord Reading) was appointed parliamentary duties and “family-friendly” British ambassador to the United States. sitting hours mean that keeping up a legal Charles Darling, the senior King’s Bench practice as an MP, once commonplace, is puisne famous for his authorship of an now all but impossible. allegedly funny book of legal satire, Even the inveterate reformer Lord did his work instead. Bingham of Cornhill came to regret this Reading returned to the Royal trend, writing shortly before his death that Courts of Justice and finally “the absence of experience in public resigned in 1921 to become administration among the members of the Viceroy of India, vowing never to highest tribunal must be regretted: its read another law report as long as he deliberations would be enriched if some of lived. The attorney general, Sir its members had direct personal experiGordon Hewart, wanted to ence of the democratic and bureaucratic claim his reversion rights, process as of the civil and criminal trial.” but Lloyd George could not But on current trends, his wish is unlikely spare him in the Commons. to be fulfilled any time soon. O

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wrong with celebrating women’s achievements, DVF-style congrat-fests are hardly radically affecting a status quo where power remains a concession accorded by men to women which can be rescinded at any moment. From the withdrawal of women’s reproductive rights in the United States to that of practically every right in Afghanistan, feminism perhaps has a more urgent agenda than posturing in the cause of either shame or praise.

Venice airport during the Film Festival: the Hollywood strikes by actors and writers left them with barely a sleb to snap. Thank goodness for those hardy perennials the Clooneys

Aside from Mrs Clooney, one of this year’s Extraordinary Women was Helena Gualinga, a member of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku, Ecuador. Ms Gualinga was honoured for her years of activism against big oil. Presumably no one at the party mentioned the two million-plus dollars spent annually by Ms von Furstenberg’s husband Barry Diller on his private jet.

whom the city has adopted as its own since they celebrated their wedding here in 2014. One of the saddest sights on the Grand Canal remains the gondoliers who point out the gloriously Tiepoloed Palazzo Papadopoli as no more than the site where “il Clooney” tied the knot.

*** Monsters ink The festival may have lacked movie stars, but

P

not controversy. Mostri in Mostra (Monsters on Show) was the slogan sprayed all over the Lido by the French activist group TRCR (Tapis rouge colère noire) in protest at the invitations extended to directors Luc Besson, Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, all of whom have been involved in contentious allegations of sexual abuse. The protests are only visible online, since in a rare spurt of energy the Comune of Venice managed to clean off the graffiti overnight. Leaving aside the question as to why they can spare the resources to protect the feelings of three elderly has-beens when much of the city has remained disfigured by tags for years, the outrage sat awkwardly alongside the gala given on the island of San Giorgio by Diane von Furstenberg to honour a series of “Extraordinary Women”. It’s hard to know which is more irksome, the screeching or the sycophancy. Whilst Polanski’s 1977 conviction for sex with a minor remains controversial, Besson and Allen, neither of whom have been convicted of criminal

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•••

erhaps it was the self-righteousness, perhaps

it was the shag of crossing the lagoon, but the jeunesse dorée of Venice could very much not be bothered with the Extraordinary Women and went to the Cartier event at the Ca’ Giustinian instead. Gorgeous girls were spied hiding their flat-soled velvet furlane — the chic essential for walking in the city — in the potted plants before sliding on their heels for a brilliant set from La La Land and Babylon conducted by the films’ composer Justin Hurwitz. Diamonds and dancing make for a much better night out. Whatever gilt I may have possessed having long since tarnished, I retired sensibly if reluctantly at 11pm. Not so my Film Festival houseguests, who were on the Charlie Chaplin cocktails until dawn. I don’t miss hangovers, but I do wish I was still brave enough to risk them.

*** Cake out in the rain Venetian social life is whizzing at this time of year, with everyone back in town for a concert at the Guggenheim hosted by director Karole Vail to commemorate

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NOVA’S DIARY We are in Manchester, where all the people who think Rishi should be prime minister have come to have a meeting in a big hall. A lot of other people have come too. On Wednesday, Rishi has to make a big speech all about who he is and what he thinks. Akshata and I have dropped in on him while he’s writing it, to see if he’s worked it out yet. He’s sitting with his friend James, who is explaining what his message should be. “We need to hit the idea that this government is a work in progress. Yes, people know there are problems, but they can see us getting to grips with them.” ŏ%ULWDLQLVEURNHQŐUHSOLHV5LVKLŏ/HWXVƓQLVKWKH job.” “Not exactly,” says James. Just then, our friend Isaac comes crashing in. His hair is a mess, and for some reason his clothes smell like the bathroom at Number 10 does after Govey has been in. ŏ*X\V,ōYHƓJXUHGLWRXWŐ,VDDFVKRXWV7KHQKH giggles, and whispers: “I’ve been on a wild trip!” “Where did you go?” Akshata asks. “Selby?” “No, man, I went within,” Isaac says, putting his hands to his forehead. “Deep within. And I’ve seen things.” He goes quiet for a moment, and everyone stares at him. “People want change, you know. And you … ” he looks DURXQGIRUDPRPHQWEHIRUHƓQGLQJ5LVKLDQG stumbling over to him. “You’re going to be the change.” He moves his face really close to Rishi’s and stares straight into his eyes. “I’ve seen it, man. It’s all clear to me. Labour can’t be the change, because they’re always saying different things. How can you trust people who keep changing to deliver change? Only you can be the change, man, because you always stay the same.” +LVH\HVJOD]HRYHUDQGKHIDOOVWRWKHŴRRU After Isaac’s people have carried him out, leaving behind an invoice, another of Rishi’s friends, Liam, speaks up. “What if we unveiled the Real Rishi? Let people see the man beneath the slick exterior?” “I like that. Lay it all out there. Explain my core beliefs.” “Exactly.” “Great,” Rishi grabs a notepad. “So … what are they?” O

O Peggy’s birthday. Shostakovich, Mozart and a composer no one had ever heard of but of whom the great lady was apparently “fond”. Then a wonderful birthday party out on the island of Mazzorbo which involved a fleet of boats decorated with hand-embroidered monogrammed flags, a giant pink French fancy and a tremendous thunderstorm. Restaurateur Russell Norman, who had flown in for the occasion was not complimentary about the fancy, which had been baked in my kitchen and then transported through the tempest on a very precarious boat. Somehow my attempts to go into Society always end up with carting food around …

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•••

rinks with actor Rupert Everett on

IL LUST RAT IO NS BY JOHN MONTGOMERY

the terrace at Palazzo Persico and a debate on Byron, who lived across the canal at the Palazzo Mocenigo. Rupert was avoiding the festival crowds on the Lido as he was preparing his role in Richard Eyre’s production of John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father. Another party with a Seventies theme involved a Demis Roussos playlist and more retro cake; a Black Forest gateau to follow the prawn cocktails and chicken à la king. Then the vernissage for In Laguna, a group show curated at the Experimental Hotel by Yasmine Helou with works including painting by Roger de Montebello, the owner of Palazzo Polignac, who gave a concert and dinner in the rooms once lived in by Winnaretta Singer, patron of Debussy and Ravel. Alma Zevi launched her new book on artist Not Vital

at the Palazzo Grassi and the glorious Venice Music Project began its new season of Baroque works at the Scuola Grande dei Carmini. Venice Glass Week opened its week-long festival with an exhibition of international artists at Palazzo Loredan and a reception including a floating glass furnace across the campo at Palazzo Franchetti. After a summer spent holed-up with my head in a history book it was hard to keep track of all the palazzi but, given that the international press coverage on Venice is often so bleak, it was delightful to feel part of a community which is still exuberant and flourishing. O ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ

As told to Robert Hutton

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Rohan Watt offers an insider’s guide to a premiership cut short

the 45 per cent tax rate, or could contextualise its impact for the Prime Minister, did us all a disservice. Not only does the rate bring in a tiny proportion of income taxation revenue — less than £10 billion — it was directly at odds with the narrative that fairness in taxation meant giving everyone a similar tax cut. We were already dealing with the bankers’ bonus issue that had only just begun to be understood by the public as an EU hangover that was hammering London as companies and capital flocked to New York.

Liz Truss: what if ... ?

In this case, Truss was let down by her people. here’s a door that separates

No one in any strategic role, save for those in her “economics unit”, saw the mini-budget until hours before its release. As a major announcement from a new PM, not running a political filter over it was disastrous. That morning, I read the words “additional tax rate” in the Treasury-produced briefing document, looked up at my colleague, and rushed to a side room knowing it was probably already too late to do anything about it. Not that it was particularly bad policy — rather, that it would become the distraction that defined the whole show. The announcement was in three hours. Whether Liz Truss would have remained Prime Minister beyond Christmas but for the abolition of the 45 per cent tax rate is up for debate. It allowed the Sunak-backing Michael Gove to coin the “holiday from reality” tag and resulted in the embarrassing U-turn at In Liz Truss, Party Conference, where many outside the bubble first saw Britain lost a the cracks. leader who

the Cabinet Office from Number 10. A few days after Liz Truss gave her farewell speech, those of us still left in the building were shoved through it: feeling a little bruised, quietly resentful, leaving behind unrealised plans. Sir Humphrey would have been proud. Yet just seven weeks earlier we were thrilled. Liz Truss had just won the Conservative leadership campaign. She promised to be the low tax, freedom-loving, “go for growth” prime minister we believed could shake Britain out of stagnation. It was because of her ideological consistency that she quickly drew in a team. Throughout her career, Truss pursued an agenda that was unapologetically free-market and socially liberal. Developing her platform was straightforward, driven by policy rather than polling. When I knew she was entering the race, I called one of her special advisers and joined the campaign on day one. My job? Write the manifesto, please. Early on, a hodge-podge of us worked from a kitchen table in Lord North Street. Sunak’s team were in a much grander building around the corner, on our route to Pret. Truss, of course, won and as a member of the team drafted in to a “streamlined” Number 10 under her, I am often asked: what went wrong?

sought the reforms the country needs

J EF F J MI TCHELL/G ETTY I MAG ES

Cutting the number of appointed officials, which

bungle was not a necessary condition for the other key moments that led to her resignation — such as Suella Braverman’s resignation as Home Secretary for a ministerial code infringement, the Energy and Net Zero minister Graham Stuart’s confusing directions over the fracking bill which caused Commons chaos, or the hopeless whips led by Wendy Morton. But what is clear is that Britain lost a leader who, for the first time since perhaps Tony Blair or certainly Margaret Thatcher, was less concerned with upsetting entrenched interests than seeking the reforms that the country desperately needs. One year on, pundits are focused on the Tory party chaos that Truss has come to represent. This is a shame. The country would be richer, taxes would be lower, and we would have a prime minister with a clearer sense of purpose. Like any alternate history, a “what if” is fraught with danger and

she promised during the campaign, was a mistake. SpAds — largely derided by the civil service, resented as self-serving gatekeepers — are an essential part of modern government. Good SpAds keep the sludge moving though ministers’ boxes, focus the Government’s agenda, and serve as lookouts for political bombshells in labyrinthine departments. Truss has been criticised for being too top-down on policy. Her Policy Unit, which did not include her separate economics team, was staffed by experienced policy operatives who were largely respected and effective in triaging political issues and implementing her campaign promises. Yet the process that produced the medium-term fiscal plan — the mini-budget — was held extremely tightly by Truss, the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and a handful of hand-picked economic advisers. That no one appeared to understand the political landmine left by Gordon Brown in the proposed cut to ƭơƞƜƫƢƭƢƜ

Maybe the tax bracket

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speculation: but where might we be, if we were now 12 months into a Truss administration? For a start, April’s rise in corporation tax would have been scrapped. At 19 per cent, the United Kingdom’s corporate tax rate stood at a respectable equal 8th among the 38 OECD countries. At 25 per cent, we are now at the back of the pack — equal 25th with Spain and Belgium. Interestingly, the tax rate in Poland, which is on course to be wealthier than the UK by 2030, remains at 19 per cent. Correlation isn’t causation, of course, but Poland seized the opportunity to go for growth 20 years ago by slashing corporation tax from 27 to 19 per cent. It has become a European success story.

Its population is increasingly moving into the middle classes and its elites are targeted by China and other authoritarian interests. Truss was upfront that trade represented a cornerstone of her efforts to counter China’s economic coercion and interference abroad.

At home, Truss would have focused on slashing red tape in agriculture, housing, tourism, and finance. Another challenge was her “bonfire” of EU regulation, which survived in the form of Kemi Badenoch’s watered-down plans to remove around 600 pieces of regulation. Truss planned to draft in experts to steer reform. Her intended triage was simple: does this EU-derived law support UK growth? If not, on the pile it goes, and we’ll work with industry to draft a better approach. Other regulatory reform would have focused on supply-side issues like Solvency II and MiFID regulations. She saw these as huge barriers to investment in British business and City competitiveness. Trussonomics was bigger than tax cuts. She spoke passionately about unlocking the ability of pension funds to invest and generate greater returns and we would by now be seeing the first steps to reassess the oversight role of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Another pet project was the re-introduction of VAT refunds for tourists spending on goods in British stores. Scrapped while Rishi Sunak was Chancellor, it saved about £400 million in tax receipts, but by some estimates sent billions in lost tourism revenue abroad and dented the high-end fashion industry.

Truss assumed the public understood the dire state of the British economy and what that would mean for services in the future if drastic changes weren’t made quickly. We would have seen greater emphasis on building trade deals with like-minded countries. It was thanks to Truss that deals with Australia, Japan, and New Zealand were signed so soon. On her watch, the UK was seeking deals with the United States on a state-by-state basis. She was committed to these deals having an impact for business and everyday people. Trade for Truss meant better value food in shops and lower barriers for businesses looking for new markets or sources of talent. She singled out fastgrowing regions and countries such as India, the Gulf states, and Indonesia as key targets. Her mooted New Commonwealth Deal would have created a trade template for Commonwealth countries without existing deals to fast-track the development of tailored bilateral agreements and increase this figure dramatically. Strengthening the rules-based international order and building a “Global Britain” was a baked-in priority to her trade ambitions. It was not lost on Truss that the Commonwealth controls about 30 per cent of votes at the United Nations and is home to 30 per cent of the world’s population.

Delivering low-tax low-regulation Investment Zones, scrapping Whitehall-imposed housing targets, and seeing through transport projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail were key to her levelling-up agenda. Some of her policy initiatives have survived. But instead of all this, the Truss premiership will be associated for years to come with chaos. You can’t deny her government’s impact on pensions and the acceleration of the Conservative Party’s decline. But while Rishi Sunak tinkers at the edges, Truss had a clear vision for Britain. Lower taxes and a forward-looking economy where growth “lifts all boats”. That was the plan. Shame about the execution. O Rohan Watt was Senior Political Adviser to Liz Truss’s leadership campaign and Special Adviser in the Number 10 Policy Unit

“Honestly, Dave — read the room.”

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CA RTO O N BY RI CH AR D J OLLEY; LEON N EA L/GETTY I MAG ES

Truss had a clear vision for Britain. This was the plan, shame about the execution

SERIOUS BUSINESS

Hellmann’s, humbug and chutzpah Three cheers for hypocrisy in the Unilever boardroom

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ho will stand up

for the red-blooded, blue-water capitalists who put the “Great” in Great Britain? I speak, of course, of those vigorous heirs to Walter Raleigh, Robert Clive and Messrs Jardine and Matheson — the board of Unilever plc. In the gloomy post-pandemic City — its narrow streets scarred by boarded-up tailors and unread, wind-blown copies of the Evening Standard — this global consumer goods company, headquartered on Blackfriars Bridge, is a rare bright spot. Now fully British after its (albeit reluctant) decision in 2020 to abandon its historic Anglo-Dutch structure — Unilever refreshes billions with indulgent ice lollies and helps homemakers across the globe with trusted cleaning products. At the same time, the firm pays more than £4 billion a year in dividends, much of which flows into our anaemic pension funds.

UNILEVER

Yet the leaders of this great company have been the subject of intemperate attacks from newspaper commentators, politicians and City pundits for their dogged refusal (at the time of writing) to follow the crowd and withdraw from Russia in protest against its invasion of Ukraine. “Unilever’s bleach won’t clean its Russia stain,” screamed the headline of a column by Dominic Lawson, whose father sat in a cabinet that endorsed trade with apartheid South Africa and Pinochet’s Chile. Bob Seely, a never-knowingly-underquoted Tory MP, said the firm represented a “moral void”. Media-conscious fund manager Terry Smith attacked Unilever for its practice of imbuing its most humdrum brands with a higher moral purpose. “A company which feels it has

buccaneering forefathers to define the purpose of As native transformed lucrative piracy Hellmann’s mayonnaise has speakers of into Protestant patriotism. in our view clearly lost the Eighteenth-century directors plot,” he wrote. the world’s of the East India Company Unilever is far from the business sanitised tax farming through only British multinational to language, we the bloodless idioms of continue trading in Putin’s have an ability double-entry book keeping. Russia. British American And the nineteenth-cenTobacco still peddles its to manipulate Lucky Strikes, while GSK has tury founders of Hong Kong meaning to get cited the “essential” role of its laundered their narco-terrorone over on wares to defend its decision ism with the clinical freecompetitors not to exit the country. market principles of Adam However, none of these Smith. other companies have been subjected to We may not wish to admit this, but our the snarky commentary and personal reputation for duplicity continues. As vitriol faced by Unilever’s leadership. What native speakers of the world’s business seems to rile the critics is the company’s language, we have an ability to manipulate supposed hypocrisy. meaning to get one over on those for whom English is a second tongue. Witness how we can make the simple Unilever has never wasted an word “sorry” mean almost anything even opportunity to trumpet its environmental though mostly, of course, it means nothing credentials and its top people have often at all. As a German colleague once told me sounded more like charity bosses — or ruefully: “The world loves doing business even priests — than leaders of a packaged in English. We just hate doing business goods conglomerate. “We have to bring this with the English.” world back to sanity and put the greater In this context, Unilever’s co-opting of good ahead of self-interest,” is typical of the fashionable green nostrums to make their sort of quotes you find online from Paul plastic world of packaged goods more Polman, the CEO from 2009 to 2019 and socially acceptable is merely the latest the architect of this distinctive approach. incarnation of a long and lucrative tradition. That decision to lead with a very long chin means critics have been queueing to give the company’s leaders a smack in the Similarly, Terry Smith and the chops at the first sign of failure to live up to other haters should cut some slack to the their own high moral standards. Hellmann’s marketing team. The whole I believe we shouldn’t criticise point about brands is that they are a form Unilever for hypocrisy, but instead of alchemy — in this case taking the base applaud its sheer chutzpah. elements of vegetable oil and pasteurised Saying one thing and doing anotheggs and turning them into tuna sandwich gold. If the guys behind this mayonnaise er is not just a necessary feature of magic occasionally lurch into purple business life. Done with convicprose, so be it. tion, doublethink is an important It will be understandable if Unilever’s competitive advantage. new CEO, Hein Schumacher, were to We business folk are not decide belatedly to lower the flag in philosophers or theologians with Moscow. Dealing with volatile Russian their tidy, internally consistent goons and the pompous British mediaworldviews. Instead, we have a City establishment has no doubt become a simple duty, which is to protect time-consuming distraction for senior the licence to operate our management. But Hein, whatever you businesses by borrowing from the choose to do, don’t ever lose the Vim that’s best ideas available at the time. put your business on the map. O— Ned In the sixteenth century, our

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A flawed book by a Remainer asks some of the right questions and even suggests ...

would be a Brexiteer monologue written from a Remain perspective. All other participants would be no more than rare offstage voices. Yet the 2017 election made the entire process akin to three dimensional Chinese chequers, not solitaire. It adopts an almost Year Zero approach to history. Little before 2016 matters: it was all a groundless populist aberration that appeared from nowhere. It is fundamentally Eurocentric and for Foster the EU is simply the Single Market and present circumstances are treated as perpetual. It’s a vision that is deeply frustrated that neither rejoining the EU, nor Single Market or Customs Union membership is a realistic options. The straw is clutched that a Starmer government seeks everything short of these objectives in the 2026 renegotiation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) whilst admitting that there is no identifiable reason for the EU — with its own problems to surmount — to be interested. However Foster asks the right questions and identifies legitimate areas for future action: focus on specific Brexit freedoms; better negotiation preparations; civil service reform; the science superpower opportunity; and concentrating on the core issues of lacklustre growth and poor productivity.

How to fix Brexit Lee Reynolds

eter Foster and I first met in a Belfast coffee shop. It was to play a minor role in Brexit history. Managing to combine Remainer sympathies with being the Daily Telegraph’s Europe editor, he kindly set out Theresa May’s three-point plan to get the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — of which I was director of policy — to support the first sea border inside the UK, the backstop. First, Northern Irish business organisations were to bully the DUP and cut off their donations (that they were scarcely donors at all immediately sets the scene for how politically well-informed May’s team was). Second, our mouths would be filled with gold in return for the confidence and supply (C&S) terms with which the DUP helped sustain May’s minority government at Westminster. But, I wearily explained, there were no core principles compromised by C&S, whereas creating a border inside the UK was a big deal for unionism. Was this really so hard to understand? Finally, the dread spectre was raised of Jeremy Corbyn — but May’s policy flip would make the Provo coat-tailer’s stated position in parliament more Unionist than hers. Our quick coffee turned into a couple of hours. The DUP leadership was immediately informed of the plan and in the subsequent months each of the three approaches was deployed. My prediction to Peter that it would fail, because of its basic political ineptitude, proved accurate.

< Throughout our contact we each knew one another’s leanings. I was the former Director of Vote Leave in Northern Ireland while he was, and still is, a chief stenographer for the Remain establishment. He gained a middle management source. I got a contact outside of my bubble. Bubbles make for poor analysis and poorer advice. So, each got something from the relationship. In keeping with my anti-bubble tendencies, I read his book What Went Wrong With Brexit And What Can We Do About It? with interest. As an analysis it has several key flaws. It tells essentially a single-actor story. If it were a play, it

< he rightly refers to Brexit as a revolution. It was a

twenty-first century version of the Disraeliesque alliance of the working and upper classes against the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are always well-placed to launch a counter-revolution. Politically, support for Brexit was a public mainstream position but a minority position within the political establishment. It could win a referendum, but faced immediate problems of lacking a vehicle within the party system to deliver it. The Conservative Party offered to become that vehicle, but the 2017-19 parliament broke the party. The 2019 general election result did not heal internal wounds. Numerically, the right should have been predominant, but the Tory intake shattered into a collection of single-issue groups and a gaggle of leadership candidates. When the natural party of government is fully dysfunctional, you get a fully dysfunctional government. The stark reality is that unless the Tory right unites and regains control then Brexit will lack a party political vehicle within the parliamentary system. The drift to rejoining will speed up. The referendum victory coincided with the collapse of the “consent of the defeated” in Western democracies; this notion in modern American politics Foster pines that an opponent’s victory can’t be legitimate for various nefarious reasons. At first, Brexiteers for a rethought the old rules applied and a delivery vehicle engagement had been found, only to discover this was not so. The nature of politics had changed too. Securing with the EU the political mandate for governance became aland points most a daily battle. So Brexiteers need to identify out areas for specific opportunities and campaign for them to be implemented. What can Brexit do for someone’s action everyday life and what could rejoining threaten?

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VAT reduction campaigns seem an obvious place to start. Northern Ireland was a prime example of the failure of the UK's negotiation preparations. The founding basis of the EU is recognition of the territorial integrity of a state. This principle was ignored by the EU. Irish myths about what the Belfast Agreement mandated were embedded in European capitals before the UK’s negotiators had started. Northern Ireland was the EU’s chosen pound of flesh for Brexit, but it was also sold the lie that the abolition of Northern Ireland was imminent. This assumption is why Brussels sees little need to be flexible; it wrongly believes there will be a full border with Great Britain soon enough. The civil service needs reform. Too many civil servants were used to a system of waiting for the email from Brussels. Policy implementation is one part of government getting in the way of another. We shouldn’t create — as Foster promotes — yet another board or body further embedding the watchdog state that spends all its time marking each other’s homework. The Institute for Government is not a source of answers on civil service reform; it is part of the politicisation problem.

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< The purpose of taking back control was not for a greater inertia but for a new bureaucratic and political impetus to use the full range of powers that the UK has regained. The bruises of the Brexit battles contributed to a deep level of paranoia. Hence the Brexiteer rush to embed as much change as quickly as possible. However, the attempt to do everything was undermined internally. In less frenetic times a more focused and sectoral approach would have been sensible. So Brexit is a process not an event. Anyone who hears retired civil servants boasting about how they cried over the Leave vote — while still serving bureaucrats — and pretends this didn’t matter should be ignored. It’s simply intellectually unserious. Actions have consequences. The most obvious place where we need a sea-change is national infrastructure. A stronger nation is built by building it. It is the prime example of how we govern against ourselves. In 2000, Norway built the world’s longest road tunnel for £100m. Just the planning application for the far smaller Lower Thames Crossing has cost £267 million so far,without it being constructed, thanks to a watchdog system perpetuating and spreading itself to sustain bureaucratic and middle-class grift. At one point, Foster states, “this isn’t first and foremost about undercutting the EU, it’s about fixing problems at home”. An arch-Remainer has managed to sum up why I supported Leave — not to simply regain sovereignty but to do something with it. What was achieved in the last seven years was the removal of the external barriers and potential impediments. Next should be ending the sense of permanent entitlement exercised by those who have presided over the maze of our own weed-strewn state. Foster pines for a re-engagement between the EU and UK. A successful UK will achieve that more than any TCA renegotiation. The EU respects strength: so should we. Economic power is the real diplomatic power: let us get on with creating it. O

Waist: 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52" Colours: Red, Black, Sand, Burgundy, Moss, Emerald, Royal Blue, Toffee, Navy, Burnt Orange, Corn, Purple, Conker

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