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Here's an Idea: Managed Change

A radical idea for crisis governance from guest poster Chris Cook

Guest contributor, Chris Cook, is writing in a personal capacity

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Norway's biggest daily – Dagbladet - sums up the UK election better than anyone: "The Country has Spoken: we just don't know what they've said”.

I disagree, I think that as the dust clears and the final results trickle in it's immediately obvious that no party has a mandate to govern the UK and that the public have effectively said: “Time for a Change.

And yet as the financial storm clouds gather over Greece, Portugal and Spain, and the US financial market shows all the stability of a Roll On Roll Off ferry with water swilling about the car deck, there is a need for a Unity government of all the best talent UK politics has to offer.

Gordon Brown's task now is to appoint a 'trusted third party' as a steward or custodian to the post of Prime Minister, and with that done, for the parties to agree among themselves a protocol for a temporary Unity government's constitution and an agreed programme for government. He will then be free to take on the international role as financial statesman to which his aptitude and experience suits him.

In the UK Partnership model I propose, Nick Clegg – who is the obvious candidate – would act as a non-executive senior partner. In my view, David Cameron should take the powerful role that Lord Mandelson created, and essentially thereby become Senior Managing Partner, while Alastair Darling would remain – being streets ahead of the competition – as the other Managing Partner and Chancellor.

Then it's a matter of dividing up the other Cabinet jobs, proportionally to seats/votes, and my only suggestions there are firstly that the Foreign Secretary post is uniquely suited for Lord Mandelson, who is one of the few genuinely world class diplomats, with skills that will be needed when the UK acts on the global stage. Secondly, I do not believe that either Labour or the Tories can be trusted with the Home Secretary post, and it should go to a Lib Dem.

The proposed structure is not actually the UK Plc we hear so much about – which I believe to be a flawed and conflicted form of enterprise model and responsible, with deficit-based money, for the problems we are in – but a UK Partnership, achievable simply by a transparent agreement between the Parties.

Clegg's role as a non-executive 'steward' PM - sharing Number 10's facilities with the Managing Partners - would be to reach consensus, bang heads together, referee disputes, and generally ensure that the clearly failed ideologies which got us into this mess are put behind us, and that our government actually governs in the people's interests, rather than in the interests of corporates; of the UK's baroque management overlay and consultocracy; or their own post-politics career.

So perhaps no mandate IS a mandate for a partnership approach to UK government which might even set an example for others: certainly the UK people think it's Time for a Change. Perhaps a UK Partnership government could be it?

Comments on: Here's an Idea: Managed Change

Gravatar Chris Cook 09 May 2010
Good points.

The first point is that this would be a transitional model - hence the title (which was Asheem's not mine, but very appropriate).

It would not be the end-game. Networked government will look very different to the existing adversarial model: it will IMHO be a participative and collaborative democracy rather than the dysfunctional representative adversarial democracy we have now.

Re the economy, its actual state is irrelevant because none of the parties have the first idea what caused the problem still less how to solve it.

New Labour adopted with enthusiasm the Washington Consensus ideology that has brought us to a position where 90% of the UK population is in debt to the other 10% and 0.3% of the population own two thirds of the land.

Unless this wealth inequality, and its sister, income inequality, is addressed there will be no solution. At the moment it does not matter who gets in - they have no clue because they share the same ideological economic assumptions - which are diametrically wrong.

At least Darling got to QE by a process of trial and error, but neither he nor the Bank of England still have any real idea WHY it works, and of course it was anathema to the Cameroonian monetarists and still is to the even dryer Austrian tendency waiting in the wings to apply leeches to a patient with internal bleeding.

At best, Darling's Keynesian policies will lead to Japanese-style Zombie economy. But that is a better outcome than the Cameroonian and Austrian-style monetarist solutions which will lead to recession, and insurrection British-style, respectively.

Phillip Blond has actually identified this problem and rhetorically addressed it through his advocacy of the remoralisation of markets; relocalisation of the economy and the recapitalisation of the poor.

His difficulty is that the Tories have always been the party of privileged Property rights, and will never countenance the necessary policies which would share the fruits of privilege more widely through a shift in taxation from earned income to unearned income. Neither will Labour, but for different ideological reasons.

This means that the necessary policies must come from outside parliament, and in my view that is exactly what will happen, the community-led 'Living Wage' campaign being a harbinger.

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Gravatar Alan Fraser 09 May 2010
Er no, 'fraid not. Whilst there is much criticism of our adversarial model of government the thing that a 'loyal opposition' does do is hold the executive to account. In your proposed model there is no party that can hold the partnership to account and therefore government risks becoming a cosy, Westminster club.

The answer to the problems of democracy is always MORE democracy - not less. I am therefore quite happy with a Tory-Lib Dem coalition because it gives people change, reflects the wishes of the majority of the electorate, whilst also providing a role for a constructive opposition who will rigorously hold them to account.

I also don't accept your analysis of Clegg, and Darling. Whilst Darling has been better than Lamont was in less difficult circumstances, there is every possibility that the public finances are in a worse state than GB has divulged. We need to have a clean slate, with no-one about who is going to try and defend and/or cover up the past. The public need confidence in our government and they won't have whilst elements of the old, discredited regime are about.
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Date Published
08 May 2010

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Chris Cook