Labour’s dishonesty is now well-known. Last week’s attempt to gaslight us about the reasons for the winter-fuel U-turn was one of the more obvious lies. But a crass inability to tell the truth, or just to follow through a few policies without a shameless flip-flop, has been a feature of this Labour Party for the last half decade. For all that, however, Labour held together a semblance of competence. They did their job in opposition. They won a huge landslide, albeit a loveless one. They beat the Tories so badly that there is now a genuine chance that the party that has governed Britain for much of the last hundred years might actually die.
But that impression of competence is now fading like memories of Christmas. The economy is in desperate straits. Public services are overwhelmed. Channel crossings are a joke. Crime is out of control. Anyone who spends any time in London will know that a huge number of people treat paying for things – like Tube tickets or goods from local stores – as optional. Competent government? I don’t think so.
The icing on this distasteful cake was just yesterday when a Government Minister gave an interview to Nick Ferrari on LBC that was so inadequate, and so painful to listen to or watch, that I can hardly write about it without shaking with embarrassment.
I actually felt sorry for the Minister concerned, Emma Reynolds. Anyone who’s been interviewed by Ferrari knows you absolutely have to be rock solid. If you don’t, he’ll tear you to shreds. And he has zero time for politicians who obfuscate, bluster and dissemble.
Poor, hapless Reynolds. Asked two simple questions about where the new Thames crossing would be built and how much it would cost, she floundered hopelessly.
“Forgive me,” she pleaded, “I can’t recall. It’s … it’s the Lower Thames crossing, which has been in planning for many, many years. You’ll forgive me Nick, but this is part of a broader 10-year infrastructure strategy…”
On and on she went, digging deeper, pretending she knew what on earth she was talking about. Oh dear.
So why do I feel sorry for her? Because her humiliation was played out on national radio, then clipped and gleefully reposted all over social media. Columnists like me write about it. And if I were her, I’d be as mad as hell at my officials for putting me on Ferrari, of all shows, without the facts.
And that’s the nub. She should have been briefed. A competent operation would make sure. She should have had the facts at her fingertips. Instead, she did the political equivalent of going onto Wimbledon’s centre court with no talent, practice or training and hoping to beat the world number one.
Love him or loathe him, there is no way Alastair Campbell would ever have allowed that to happen under Blair. He ran the tightest of ships. As did Blair himself, despite the humongous catastrophe of Iraq and opening the immigration floodgates.
That’s what I expected of this government too: the veneer of Blairite competent management. Dishonest, yes. But competent.
Sadly, my expectations are being dashed. And there will be plenty more demonstrations of incompetence as the months go by: missed targets, economic misery, migration stupidity and more desperate “initiatives” and flip-flops to turn things round.
A government can survive a reputation for dishonesty. Blair’s did, and lasted for 10 years. But once the virus of incompetence sets in, no amount of medicine will make the slightest difference. That’s what’s playing out in front of our very eyes. And, my God, we’ve still got four years to go.