‘You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning!’ Margaret Thatcher famously declared in 1980 to her party conference.
Fast forward to 2011, and for all the understandable anger that the Liberal Democrats are attracting from the voters, it remains Conservative-led departments that seem to have rediscovered the art of the U-turn.
Take Caroline Spelman, for example, forced to make a humiliating climbdown on her plans to sell off the forests. Or Michael Gove, made to abandon his plans to scrap the school sports partnership. Then, the biggest of them all, Andrew Lansley’s ‘pause’ on a health bill which resembles more of a dog’s dinner than a serious piece of public service reform. And does anyone remember public health minister Anne Milton’s suggestion that free milk for under-fives should be withdrawn altogether? Within hours, the policy bit the dust.
As a government committed to ‘evidence-based’ policymaking, this administration seems to have a pretty obscure understanding of what it means, preferring instead to come up with an ideologically driven policy first, and consult second, cherry-picking the evidence that just happens to give them cover for whatever they have already decided. It would be a farce if it were not so important to the country.
In opposition, it used to be commonplace to hear David Cameron berating Labour for consulting and reviewing too much and not just getting on with it. And yet now we have two extreme views within the government – one that seems to think you make the policy up then work out a problem it solves second. The other view is that consulting is the best way to kick a contentious subject into the long grass to avoid any embarrassing short-term headlines of splits between the coalition parties. The commission into a British Bill of Rights remains a classic example, used as an opportunity to cover up the deep-rooted differences of approach and values between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.
But perhaps more fundamentally, the constant sound of reverse gears echoing across Whitehall is symptomatic of a weakness at the heart of government, one in which No 10 is not providing the steer and leadership required of the prime minister. Despite his efforts to ‘beef up’ his policy unit and communications team, Cameron’s problem remains that he is effectively locked in a dual premiership with Nick Clegg, with each leading parties which are about as similar as chalk and cheese. It was from the start a recipe for bad government.
That said, while U-turns never look good, judiciously used they can stop molehills becoming mountains. Early policy reversals by New Labour over the Dome and the Gurkhas might have averted those self-contained policy issues becoming so damagingly iconic. The same might be said over Spelman and the forests – already fading from memory – and Milton and school milk – barely heard of. The government has consciously set itself the task of ‘sticking to Plan A’ on the deficit, knowing that, if it can maintain the onward momentum on the big picture, then dousing smaller fires where necessary will keep it going. And perhaps the risk-aversion which comes with being locked into government means the government is dodging more of these bullets than first appears.