Norman Lamb on his time as a minister... and Danny Alexander

Norman Lamb has been interviewed by the Institute for Government for its Ministers Reflect series.

You can see a short clip from it above and read the full transcript on the IfG website. (The interview took place in March 2020.)

As the Liberal Democrats could find themselves part of a coalition government after the next election, it's important that we learn from our unhappy experience between 2010 and 2015. So this interview makes useful reading.

But it may not make happy reading for Danny Alexander, who does not come out of it well.

Here, for instance, is Norman Lamb talking about his role as Nick Clegg's parliamentary private secretary, which he took on after the offer of a ministerial role was clumsily withdrawn:

I found it to be a fairly hollow role. I was involved in central discussions and I became part of the core team around Nick, but I was also conscious that the power lay with Nick and Danny - Nick primarily went to Danny and not anyone else - which caused, I think, some frustration amongst many people. A lot of people felt that Danny wasn't necessarily the best influence on Nick, and I still feel that strongly.

And when asked by the interviewer to expand on this point, Lamb says:

I think that Danny was hopeless on the health reforms, he passed it all and didn’t really understand the issues, in my view. In my view, the great sadness was David Laws falling early as the chief secretary .... The caricature of David was as right wing, as a sort of Tory in disguise, but actually, internally, he wasn’t. He was the one who was fighting against ending the indexing of benefits, he was fighting for a real terms increase in education spend and a real value to the pupil premium. 

His fall from the Treasury meant that we lost an intellectually coherent Liberal in the Treasury. We ended up with someone who was trying to convince Tories that he could be trusted doing this vital role of chief secretary to the Treasury. It was a case of overcompensating, which you quite often see.

That overcompensation was pretty much official Liberal Democrat strategy after 2010 - you can learn that from an article written by Nick Clegg's then political adviser, Richard Reeves, in 2012.

Reeves thought the Liberal Democrats had first to prove they were mature enough to be in government, but it is hard to imagine any other party burdening itself with this demand when it had just won a share of power through the ballot box.

A better model, Norman Lamb suggests, was that offered by Norman Baker as a transport minister. Lamb recalls that Philip Hammond (then the transport secretary) complaining to him that Baker was difficult to work with and did not comply with the protocols:

Norman, who I’ve got a lot of time for, was a press junkie who was just going off and actually doing what he ought to be doing, I think getting the message out there about what a Lib Dem minister was achieving. 

Lamb goes on to add:

The interesting thing was that the two of them ended up getting on quite well in transport and having a degree of mutual respect, I think because they were both assiduous - I think the dynamic ended up working quite well.

So next time we Liberal Democrats find ourselves in coalition, we need to have more confidence in ourselves and in the approach to the country's problems that we have just fought an election on.

And we need to make sure  we have someone at the treasury with the intellectual equipment and confidence to stand up for themselves.

In 2010 our front bench had as much expertise on economics, if not more, as those of the two larger parties. Think Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, David Laws and Steve Webb. We should have drawn on that pool of talent and used Danny Alexander's talents differently.

You can explore all the Ministers Reflect interviews on the Institute for Government website.

Six of the Best 827

"Hammond presented a narrative that explained who the Tories were, what they had done and where they were going that was fathomable and even a little compelling to the objective viewer." Nick Tyrone finds Philip Hammond a more impressive politician than his leader.

Silkie Carlo explains why we should be worried about the mass surveillance of shoppers.

"As the years went by the idea of a confident working class taking its destiny into its own hands - either collectively or through some individual expression of rebellion such as Arthur’s - gradually went out of fashion." James Bloodworth debates the meaning of Alan Sillitoe's novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 60 years after its publication

"To this day the sacrifice of thousands of watermen who worked on Britain’s canals before serving on the front line has yet to be commemorated." Phil Hoad has news of plans to put that right.

Parul Sehgal explains the persistence of the ghost story in American literature: "In the modern ghost story, especially the American kind, something different occurs. Ghosts protest norms - slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration - the norms that killed them."

Phil Hoad on the career of Muriel Box - Britain’s most prolific female director you've never heard of.

MP: Hammond must 'wake up and smell the coffee' on beer tax

Not for the first time, the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award.

You may not be too astounded to learn that the metaphorically confused MP is Shrewsbury's Daniel Kawczynski.

Philip Hammond's "gaffe" this morning shows what is wrong with political reporting

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What do we want our politicians to be like?

I would rather like it if they were prepared occasionally to raise their eyes from day-to-day politics and talk about the deeper and longer-term questions we face.

That is just what Philip Hammond did this morning:

Mr Hammond was interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show ahead of Wednesday's Budget, where among his announcements he is expected to pave the way for an expansion of driverless cars. 

Challenged on the impact of wider automation on people's jobs, he said Britain had to "embrace change", adding: "I remember 20 years ago we were worrying about what was going to happen to the million shorthand typists in Britain as the personal computer took over. 

"Well, nobody has a shorthand typist these days, but where are all these unemployed people? 

"There are no unemployed people because we have created 3.5m new jobs since 2010."

You may not agree with Hammond's conclusion - we also need to look at the quality and security of those new jobs - but this just the sort of issue we should want our politicians to be addressing,

But what is the BBC's headline on the article?

"Chancellor Philip Hammond's 'no unemployed' remark attacked"

And we are told that:

Labour and the Liberal Democrats both seized on his comment, calling him "out of touch".

Well, the Tories are out of touch and it is hard to resist any opportunity to emphasise that damaging narrative.

But the likely result of such a reaction and such reporting is that politicians go back into their shells and confine themselves to mouthing platitudes like "long-term economic plan".

Is that what we really want?

Incidentally, I find that I wrote this back in 2010:

The BBC is wedded to the idea that politics must be reported in terms of "splits" and "gaffes". It is therefore unable to cope with the sort of discussion you get under healthy cabinet government.

Philip Hammond should remember who his real enemy is

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It may have been a slip of the tongue or it may have been an attempt to placate the headbangers who now dictate Conservative policy.

Either way, calling European negotiators "the enemy" has made the claim that Hammond is the sole grown up in a cabinet of muppets and vegetables less convincing.

And he should remember who his real enemy is.

One of my favourite pieces of political wisdom goes something like this:

A keen new Conservative MP was sitting in the house, staring intently at the Labour benches. 

"What're you doin', young Tompkins?" asked an old buffer, sitting down next to him. 

"Staring at the enemy, sir." 

"No, that's the opposition. The enemy is on this side."

Henry Bolton, Ukip's new leader, stood against Philip Hammond for the Lib Dems in 2005

One of the few things the press has been able to discover about Ukip's new leader today is that he is a former Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate.

It turns out that Henry Bolton fought Runnymede and Weybridge for the Lib Dems at the 2005 general election.

He finished third behind the victorious Conservative Philip Hammond.

Behind the facade of Conservative unity it's ferrets-in-a-sack time

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Politics Home says Theresa May’s enemies plan to challenge her leadership in the week after the Conservative conference.

That is the traditional time to do it. Remember the rapturous reception the Tories gave Iain Duncan Smith just before they shot him?

But it is clear that cabinet members are already fighting for the succession. Take a couple of stories that appeared in the press today.

There was the one, in the words of the Telegraph, where

Philip Hammond has found himself at the heart of a sexism row after telling fellow members of the cabinet that driving trains was so easy "even a woman can do it."

It may be true. It may be true but exaggerated. It may be false.

But the most striking thing is that an account of a discussion at cabinet has appeared in the press at all.

Who passed on the story?

As a Remain supporter, the chancellor is not trusted by the Leavers around the table, so look for the culprit among them.

Not that all is sweetness and light among the Leavers. Have a look at  this headline from the Sun:

BOJO SEX SMEAR Ally of David Davis is spreading rumours Boris Johnson slept with Theresa May’s aide during campaign

What are we to make of this one?

It could be that someone from Davis's camp really is spreading these rumours. Equally, it could be that the Johnson camp is spreading the rumour that this rumour is being spread to discredit Davis.

It it is the latter, then this could also be an attempt to put Johnson's private life out of bounds in any future leadership election - even though he has been given a remarkably easy ride in this area.

I don't know which explanation is true or if there is an even more machiavellian one. The only clue is that the story is written by Harry Cole, who comes from the Guido Fawkes team where adoration of Boris Johnson is the house religion.

Whatever the truth of this, you don't have to read between the lines to know the Conservatives are at each other's throats. You just have to read the headlines.

Tensions between May and Hammond mean the government is neither strong nor stable

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What makes a government weak and unstable?

Tensions between the prime minister and the chancellor that's what.

It was when Margaret Thatcher fell out with Nigel Lawson in 1989 that she started to look vulnerable. She did not last much longer.

Which is why the most important political news today is this one behind The Times paywall:

Relations between the chancellor and Theresa May’s top team have deteriorated following a series of clashes over policy and presentation. 

Philip Hammond infuriated senior Downing Street aides by effectively committing the prime minister to ditching a promise not to raise VAT, tax or national insurance days after she called the election and before the policy had been settled, The Times has learnt. 

Yesterday, both sides denied reports that Mr Hammond had initially opposed Mrs May’s promise to cap energy bills for 17 million households as they sought to present a united front before the launch next week of the Conservative manifesto.

The report goes on to say that Hammond's relations with Theresa May's chief of staff Nick Timothy are particularly strained. The latter is said to have been "incandescent" at briefings (blamed on Hammond's aides) that he is economically illiterate.

All of which strengthens the impression that Theresa May is a control freak surrounded by a group of tantrum-prone manbabies.

The claim that her government is strong and stable is as false as the one that a big majority will somehow improve the deal she gets from the European Union,

Philip Hammond spells out British government's Brexit thinking - to the German press

Brexit, we Britons have been told, means Brexit and it will be red, white and blue.

Beyond that, we know very little about our government's plans. Theresa May's speech on Tuesday may change that. Then again, it may not.

So if you want to know what the future may have in store, try the German press.

Philip Hammond has given an interview to Welt am Sonntag in which he is far more forthcoming than any minister has been to a British newspaper:

Hammond: We are now objectively a European-style economy. We are on the U.S. end of the European spectrum, but we do have an open-market economy with a social model that is recognizably the European social model that is recognizably in the mainstream of European norms, not U.S. norms. 

And most of us who had voted Remain would like the U.K. to remain a recognizably European-style economy with European-style taxation systems, European-style regulation systems etcetera. 

I personally hope we will be able to remain in the mainstream of European economic and social thinking. But if we are forced to be something different, then we will have to become something different. 

Welt am Sonntag: We don’t understand: Who or what would force you? 

Hammond: Economic circumstances. If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term. 

In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do.

Reading between the lines, Hammond is telling other European governments that Britain, if it is not favourable trade terms with the EU, will set itself up as an offshore tax haven with low standards of regulation and welfare.

How convincing a threat that will sound to those governments, I do not know.

But you can see how convenient it might be to right-wing British Conservatives. The line will be: of course, we would love to keep the NHS, but  because of those wicked Europeans we cannot afford it.

This vision of Britain as the Singapore of Europe, incidentally, was set out in the 2012 collection Britain Unchained.

Elsewhere, Hammond makes it clear that controlling immigration is the government's chief concern in Brexit negotiations.

He also offers this interesting observation:

In my judgement it would be a mistake to read the Brexit vote as being part of the same strand of thinking that has formed in the US. If you look at the media and the reporting during the Brexit referendum campaign, there was no anti-trade rhetoric. It was the exact opposite.

Neal Ascherson: Theresa May's government is ramming through a damaging policy it doesn't believe in

Neal Ascherson is always worth reading. Here he is in the London Review of Books on the sorry spectacle that is Theresa May's government:

Nothing in British history resembles this spectacle of men and women ramming through policies everyone knows they don’t believe in. 

Never mind the few genuine Brexiteers. Amber Rudd, Philip Hammond and Theresa May – among others in government – all tried to keep the UK in the European Union. Now they are trying to take it out again, apparently on the terms that will do their country most damage. 

There’s a kind explanation, a white-coated one and a coarse one. The kind account says that they feel democratically obliged to carry out the wishes of the English people, whatever their private opinions. (A variant suggests that they think themselves duty-bound to save the country from the worst consequences of a disastrous decision, but their recklessness over Brexit doesn’t support that.) 

The white-coated shrink account is that they are pathologically over-compensating out of guilt for backing the wrong side. And the coarse explanation is that they just want to stay in power.

Grant Shapps' continuing problems with the internet

In 2012 I blogged about "Grant Shapps' problems with the internet". Judging by this afternoon's Guardian story, those problems continue:

Wikipedia has blocked a user account on suspicions that it is being used by the Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps, “or someone acting on his behalf” to edit his own page along with the entries of Tory rivals and political opponents. 

The online encyclopedia, where pages are edited and created by readers, has tracked the changes made by a user called "Contribsx" who has systematically removed embarrassing references on Shapps' Wikipedia page about the Tory chairman’s business activities as Michael Green, the self-styled millionaire web marketer. 

A Guardian investigation found about a third of the contributions made by this user were to Shapps’ own Wikipedia entry while the rest are made up largely of unflattering changes to the online pages to senior political figures – including prominent figures in the Tory party such as Philip Hammond, Justine Greening and Lynton Crosby.

I suspect it is the suspicion that he has been doing down his internal party rivals that will prove more damaging.

I should add that Mr Shapps denies knowing anything about Contribsx, but then he has denied things "over firmly" in the past.

It is 25 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down

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The fall of the Berlin Wall is the greatest political event of my lifetime, but what lessons should we draw from it?

An article in Foreign Policy by Melvyn Leffler suggests that it would be quite wrong to see it as the triumph of capitalism and the American way.

He writes:

We need, first, to acknowledge the role of the human rights revolution and the agency of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like Helsinki Watch, the Workers Defense Committee (KOR) in Poland, and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and many others. These groups, though diverse in ideology and tactics, all clamored for change, openness, free expression, individual opportunity, religious liberty, and human dignity. 

Historians are now coming to appreciate the energy and agency of these NGOs in the fall of communism. These groups championed the Helsinki Agreements of 1975, the accords signed by 35 European countries - communist, non-communist, and neutral, as well as the United States and Canada - that outlined the principles to guide East-West relations, including economic, scientific, cultural, and technological cooperation. They inscribed the obligation of all the signatories to respect fundamental rights such as freedom of thought, religion, and conscience. 

NGOs arose throughout Europe, east and west, to champion the right to travel, to promote cultural exchanges, to support family reunification, and, most of all, to hold governments accountable for imprisoning dissenters, discriminating against minorities, stifling civil society, thwarting the rights of workers to organize, or infringing on the freedom of religion or the press. These NGOs worked tirelessly to shame transgressors. They nurtured transnational contacts, and their mutual support sustained dissidents throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. As much as anything, this led to the downfall of the repressive communist regimes.

He also pays tribute to a generation of political leaders: George Bush the Elder, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand. (Fairly or not, Margaret Thatcher does not get a mention.)

Today, in a time of multiple international crises, it is hard to have confidence in our leaders. Has there ever been a more lacklustre pair than Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon in charge of foreign affairs and defence?

And the Conservative Party, which had an honourable record of speaking out against tyranny in Eastern Europe now seeks to placate precisely those who are infuriated by the free movement of people in Europe.

Lord Bonkers on Philip Hammond

Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

"Hammond must be our least memorable Foreign Secretary since... What was that fellow's name?"