MPs to Put Country Before Party?

The laughable prospect, anticipated by Rachel Sylvester in the Times today, that MPs may “put country before party” by voting for a second EU referendum, caused me to check my six for bandit pigs. Whilst I concede that there would be several hourable exceptions, she also set me thinking about how we measure loyalty these days, particularly in those of the political and, increasingly, the public service class.

The concepts of loyalty, sense of duty and integrity are notoriously difficult to pin down and often over-lap and contradict.  When I served, the Royal Air Force Officer promotion system relied upon 3^rd party assessment of annual confidential reports compiled on individual officers by their immediate and successive superiors.  It was called the Form 1369 and ones “1369” was make or break, as far as career was concerned.  The four-page A4 booklet comprised personal details and qualifications and then a numerical assessment of a number of personal qualities of which, “Loyalty,” Sense of Duty,” and “Integrity,” were but three.  Then began a sequence of narrative reports painting a pen-picture of the subject with strengths and weaknesses. Subsequent narrative reports were added by successively superior officers, supposedly to provide authenticity and prevent injustice.  There would also be recommendations for future employment together with, crucially, an assessment of potential to fill a rank two rungs higher.

But back to the numerical assessments.  As a flying instructor, I was required to judge student pilots not only on their flying ability but on their personal officer qualities.  To help out, I remember being sent on a post graduate student assessment course at RAF Upwood (it was run by the Education Branch).  To illustrate the difficulty of objective assessment of human qualities we were shown the 1960s drama “Tunes of Glory” and then asked to make our own numerical assessments on the key individuals in the cast.  To remind, the cast was headed by Alec Guinness who played the ex-ranker, no-nonsense temporary Colonel Jock Sinclair, promoted during the War.  He is about to be succeeded by the patrician Colonel Barrow, John Mills, who spent his war as a Japanese POW.  The Officer cadre includes the Brigade Major Charlie Scott (Dennis Price), the faithful Adjutant Jimmy (Gordon Jackson), timorous 2^nd Lt McKinnon and sundry caricatures of Army Officers of the time. The plot is simple: Jock is on his way out of temporary Command as the new Colonel arrives and imposes a strict peacetime regime over a rather boisterous wartime Mess.  Mess loyalties are divided as wartime behaviour is frowned upon and highland dancing with the hands above the head forbidden.  Meantime, Jock bashes a Corporal Piper who happens to be dating his daughter.  Jock should be Court Martialled but persuades Colonel Barrow to cover it up.  As Jock’s popularity soars, post reprieve, Barrow is consumed by remorse for his weakness and shoots himself.  Jock, now remorseful himself, orders an over-the-top full military honours funeral and then, carried away with grief for his part in the “murder” of their Colonel, breaks down and is led away by faithful Jimmy, the Adjutant.  End.

After the film, we were asked to compile our own assessments on the key officers in the plot.  This exercise was conducted individually and it was only after personal opinions had been solidified that open discussion began.  On the three key areas of loyalty, integrity and sense of duty, the range of opinion was vast.  For example, one man’s sense of duty was rank disloyalty to another and vice versa.  Although the film plot was fictional, the moral uncertainty exposed is eerily applicable to current political dilemmas.

So what chance of the current crop of Cabinet members (and their shadows, for that matter) putting their country before themselves, their career and the next election?  What sort of characters have we actually elected to high office on our behalf?  What confidence do we have that they would behave courageously and with integrity in a moment of crisis when they would have no time to consult their advisors on the percentage line to take?  Would they, for example, jump on the (wrong) underground train and ask the random sample of humanity in the carriage for advice or would they know, instinctively, what was the right thing to do?

Here is an exercise to test your gut feeling.  Devise a scale from 1-10 where the left end is an utterly selfish, unprincipled and a misanthropic loner whilst at the right end is a workaholic socialite, with Leonard Cheshire-like morals and St Joan-like steadfastness, and score the following in terms of Loyalty, Integrity and Sense of Duty:

Boris Johnson

Amber Rudd

Michael Gove

Phillip Hammond

David Lidington

Gavin Williamson

I expect you will find some inconsistencies, just like the film!

Honourable Surrender

Many have tried and failed to define what it is to be British but we know, instinctively, what that sense of belonging to place, family and society means in terms of well-being and sense of security. Britishness is very difficult to quantify but it is there all the same. Struggling with the same concept, Churchill asked, in 1940, “people ask why we fight on,” and then answered himself, rhetorically, “they should soon find out if we stopped.”

Today, without an enemy at the gate, it is easier for professional politicians to ignore the indefinable and frame their arguments around evidence, however relevant that may be. I have often complained that politicians seem incapable of making difficult moral judgements preferring, instead, to rely on process and evidence provided by “independent” bodies. As Charles Moore pointed out recently, the word independent has become interchangeable with unelected.

So I fear for the Brexit process. I understand that in cosy one-to-ones, Ministers will be indoctrinated into to the Treasury truth and obliged to change their opinion about the future – with a heavy heart, they will declare that the economic evidence was overwhelming and that they had no alternative but to bow to the current trade orthodoxy? They will point to that likelihood that history will judge them on their assessment of the evidence and due process. Never mind that seventeen million of us voted, despite the dire economic warnings at the time, to take back our independence as a people.

Another Service from Boris

The Times leader concludes this morning

“Mr Johnson was right to drag the NHS to the top of the political agenda.  He has reminded No 10 that if it fails to persuade voters the service is safe in Tory hands a Corbyn government is all but guaranteed.  And he has reminded his party that it could be sleepwalking to disaster.”

But if the clamour for action is to be satisfied, at least in the short term, more money will be required (even if the actual benefits of extra expenditure in the current system, in terms of outcomes, is questionable).  From where would that extra money come? Philip Hammond made it quite clear that there was no spare cash around when he said, “Mr Johnson is the Foreign Secretary.  I gave the Health Secretary an extra £6 billion at the present budget and we will look at departmental allocations again in the spending review.”  Robbing Peter to pay Paul would not play well with a mounting movement to increase expenditure on defence and, in any case, would be unlikely to yield the mind-boggling sums required by the health service.  The Labour Magic Money Tree is probably off limits for Conservatives as is significant rises in taxation.  But there is a great deal that could be found in the folds of the Brexit sofa, £3-400 million a week according to the IFS recently, depending upon how you do the maths.

So, the Brexit Dividend could be spent could be spent at will and in advance of actual realisation (remember how the “Peace Dividend” was squandered shortly after the Berlin Wall came down). A political masterstroke which would completely undermine Labour’s bid in the emerging NHS pissing contest!

But I think there is more to Boris’ intervention than that.  The realisation of a "Brexit Dividend" would be contingent upon not paying vast membership fees to the EU in the future.  The fifth column of Remainers in the Government know that their cherished dream of remaining in the single market and customs union would cost us big time, maybe even more than we are paying at the moment.  Were the ignorant electorate to get wind of the easy way out of funding the health service, they may well decide to ignore the self-interested bleating of the likes of the CBI and that a clean break with Brussels was a price worth paying. And what a favour they would be doing us? Simultaneously, we should free ourselves from the straight-jacket of the ECJ and take control of who comes in and out of our independent country.  What we voted for in the first place, actually.  No surprises, then, at the vehemence of the attacks against Mr Johnson from his Cabinet colleagues who are beginning to show their true anti-Brexit colours.