Sunak and the backseat former PMs

This is an audio transcript of the Payne’s Politics podcast episode: ‘Sunak and the backseat former PMs’

George Parker
Hello, listeners. Before we start today’s episode of Payne’s Politics, we at the FT want to know what you’d like to hear more of. So to help us understand, we’re running a survey you can find online at FT.com/politicssurvey. There’s also a link in our show notes. The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete and if you fill it out, you’ll have the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort earbuds. So don’t miss out. Now, on with the show.

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George Parker
This week, Liz Truss reflected on her short and calamitous time as prime minister. Some thought her free-market government was brought down by . . . uhh . . . the free market! But Truss has reached a different conclusion — “It wasn’t me or my policies. It was the system”.

Liz Truss
I think one of the things I underestimated was this, this sort of scale of the orthodoxy. What I mean is, first of all, there are forces within the government itself and the wider institutional structure that have a given point of view, which isn’t necessarily the point of view of the elected government.

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George Parker
Of course. Welcome to Payne’s Politics, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, George Parker, in the hot seat vacated by Sebastian Payne, for the next few weeks before the pod is relaunched with a great new format. In this week’s episode, we’ll be reflecting on Rishi Sunak’s predicament in having to deal with advice from both Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, two very high-profile backseat drivers. I’m delighted to be joined by our commentators Miranda Green and Robert Shrimsley. And then we’ll be looking at one of the biggest shake-ups of Whitehall in recent times, which saw Sunak bury the concepts of industrial strategy as he tried to bring a new focus on science, energy security and innovation. Greg Clark, the former business secretary, and Hannah White of the Institute for Government will be here to discuss whether shuffling the deck chairs ever actually works.

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George Parker
So Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a historic address to MPs in Westminster Hall this week, and as part of his speech, the Ukrainian leader handed the speaker of the House of Commons the Ukrainian air force pilot’s helmet, a helmet scribbled with a pointed message.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The writing on the helmet reads, “We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it”.

George Parker
Zelenskyy appeared to question the logic of the UK’s refusal to supply the country quickly with some of the Eurofighter Typhoon advanced jet aircraft and his plea for planes received support from another part of the Conservative party too — the ex-PM, Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson
You heard his speech. I thought it was magnificent. The important thing is that his message is heard. What he’s asking for is the tools to finish the job. That’s all he wants.

George Parker
Well, in the aftermath of Zelenskyy’s address, Rishi Sunak made his most positive sound so far about potentially supplying jets to Ukraine. But Johnson’s high-profile calls for Sunak to do more to help Ukraine were a reminder that he remains active on the political scene, combining interventions at Westminster with £5mn worth of speaking and other activities since he stopped being prime minister last year. Liz Truss, meanwhile, was out and about blaming everyone else for her political demise, but also lobbing a political bomb in Sunak’s direction, adding her voice to Tory calls for immediate tax cuts to boost the economy.

So Robert, you wrote a column about Sunak being haunted by Tory ghosts and fantasies of cake. What was your take on this week’s events?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, you have to divide them up, I think. On the Liz Truss side of things, you have to say that Rishi Sunak is showing that key leadership skill of being lucky in your opponents, because her return to the political frontline was so extraordinarily tin-eared, so lacking in any rhetoric which would broaden her appeal, that actually people were moving to distance themselves from even those who actually agree with her cause, which at the core is a call for the Conservatives to cut taxes and fast. Boris Johnson’s a more complicated issue because I still think it’s very, very unlikely that he’s going to stage a full political comeback. But there are people who want to see it, unlike Liz Truss, and who still think it would be good for the Conservatives if it happened. And Boris Johnson is quite prepared to take Liz Truss his message and run with it if he thinks that’s the way to regain control of the party and give the Conservatives a chance of winning the election. So the two together are sort of a warning to Rishi Sunak. Truss has a message that might appeal to his backbenchers but is completely incapable of delivering it. Boris Johnson clearly is capable of delivering messages and would be prepared to run with it. I think the reason this matters is that for the moment Rishi Sunak’s got command of the party. Everyone can see what went wrong with the Truss government and why they shouldn’t repeat it. But as they look at all these different opinion polls predicting various degrees of Conservative wipeout, there will come a point where they just go, “We have to try something else. We have to try something else”. And the only something else they’ve got is a sudden splurge of tax cuts. And I think at that point Rishi Sunak’s gonna find it very hard to resist. So what it really shows is the pressure on him to deliver some sign of progress in the next four or five months, which isn’t easy.

George Parker
Yeah, there was one poll this week, I think, which showed that if there was an election tomorrow, the Tories would end up with fewer seats than the SNP in the next parliament. So they’re looking for desperate solutions. Miranda, what did you make of Liz Truss’s comeback?

Miranda Green
Well, I was just thinking, what’s the collective noun for former prime ministers? I mean, this week it would have to be an intervention of former prime ministers, wouldn’t it? I think with Liz Truss, she’s got a huge problem, hasn’t she? Because at the moment her chapter in the history books is not only uniquely short but also ridiculous. And so clearly she penned this 4,000-word essay as a self-justification to try and rewrite at least her version of that history of her incredibly short time as prime minister. But, you know, as Robert said, people were already trying to sort of distance themselves from it. And then she did a filmed interview, again trying to justify her time in Number 10 and also to try to argue that she was representing the true Conservative path — low tax, deregulation, small state, these principles that she and so many on the Tory backbenches would like Rishi Sunak to sort of have a Damascene moment and rediscover as the way, the truth and the light, you know. So she was keen to try and stress her mandate because she wants to point out to the wider Tory party and to Tory MPs that she was elected by the membership, which of course Sunak was not. Of course, she wasn’t elected by the British public as prime minister. And she even seemed to indicate that making this argument for very low taxes and deregulation would be difficult to make to the country at large. And I think that’s the giveaway.

George Parker
Mmm.

Miranda Green
Is it a reasonable prospectus for Sunak as a way to hold on to power at the coming general election? Very doubtful.

George Parker
Do you think she thinks, Miranda, that she can make a comeback? And do you think we’re starting to see the start of a Tory leadership contest to lead the party after it’s lost the next election?

Miranda Green
I think that last point is definitely true. I mean, there’s so much warming up to have a kind of philosophical debate about what conservatism can mean as a comeback brand after losing the coming general election. I thought the promotion of Kemi Badenoch in the reshuffle was interesting from that point of view because a lot of people see her as a sort of interesting intellectual of the right — the Govites, I suppose you might call them, Michael Gove’s followers. I do agree with Robert though. I think in a sense you can’t necessarily see the Liz Truss intervention as a second leadership bid. I think it’s much more sort of retrospective and to do with the future ideological path. But with Boris Johnson, it does seem there’s something else going on, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not beyond him to change all of his principles overnight if he finds it expedient politically . . . 

George Parker
That’s happened before.

Miranda Green
 . . . and so that, you know, that can happen before and you get the feeling that Boris Johnson thinks that his chapter is not yet finished.

George Parker
Mmm.

Miranda Green
And his great hero, of course, is Winston Churchill. So this idea of being a voice in the wilderness, calling other people appeasers for not, you know, making enough military intervention, you can see those echoes that he’s trying to play on.

George Parker
Oh, they’re all over the place, aren’t they? The possibility he might look for another constituency to fight, taking up painting of cows. Oh my gosh. Robert, how much of a threat is Boris Johnson, do you think, to Rishi Sunak?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I think he’s a potential threat to Rishi Sunak’s security, even if he isn’t necessarily an actual all-out challenger. Because if you look at where the Conservatives are now, they can’t really have a fourth different leader in one parliament. So the only option they have if they ever decide to ditch Rishi Sunak is to go back to Boris Johnson, who will reluctantly accept the challenge if forced to do so. So to that extent, he’s the only sort of present danger on the backbenches that Rishi Sunak has to worry about from the point of view of his position. I think the bigger danger is the pressure on Rishi Sunak to change course, to deliver the tax cuts earlier than he necessarily thinks is prudent, to start doing things entirely for electoral purposes rather than because he necessarily thinks it’s the right thing to do. And when we’re talking about tax cuts, Conservatives talk about them as if this is the pure philosophy Miranda was mentioning is the conservative ideology of getting back to tax cuts and deregulation. But George Osborne, I think, was being interviewed on the Andrew Neil Show at the beginning of the week. And he said, “This is all very well. But she wants the tax cuts without doing the hard work of cutting spending, putting in place a structural programme to deliver growth”. So Liz Truss was there, her ideas were there for all those Tories who want to go to heaven but don’t really want to die and (laughter) Boris Johnson will pick up the same premise. So I think the threat is in ideological terms rather than a leadership challenge, though there is a non-zero chance of that too.

George Parker
Miranda, what do you think is the scenario under which Boris Johnson makes a comeback?

Miranda Green
Well, I think he could, in fact, sell himself to the wider Conservative Party if they lose the election really badly, because he could argue that they had squandered what he had built — that coalition of voters that he built in the 2019 election off the back of the Brexit vote, which included all of this new territory across previous Labour strongholds. But, you know, again, would he be that interested in doing it? It’s very hard work in opposition when you’ve suffered a bad defeat. I mean, you’re looking at years and years of rebuilding and there’s not necessarily much glory in it, you know, turning up at PMQs every week as a badly defeated party leader. I’m not sure. You know, we’ve learnt this week how much money he’s made . . . 

George Parker
Five million quid, it’s amazing!

Miranda Green
 . . . since leaving office. I think unless the prize is really big, you know, would he really go for it? I’m not quite sure.

Robert Shrimsley
I think that’s absolutely right. I mean, £5mn, that’s almost enough for him to stop living in somebody else’s house now.

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But, yeah, I cannot see Boris Johnson as leader of the opposition. I cannot see him being interested and I can’t see him being any good at it, actually. And if the Tories are badly beaten at the next election, it will not only be because of Rishi Sunak. It will be because of the chaos of the whole of this government, of which he has been a part. So I think if there’s any possibility of a Johnson return, and I really don’t think it’s very likely, but what if there is? It’s got to come before the election.

George Parker
And of course we still got the Privileges Committee inquiry into partygate, the Covid inquiry and all the other things hanging over him. But just the fact he’s out there, Robert, how do you think that potentially makes a difference to the kind of policy choices that Rishi Sunak has to make? I’m thinking about things like the Northern Ireland protocol, for example. We’ve been talking about taxes, small boats, all of those things. Does it drag Rishi Sunak further to the right than he would otherwise like to be?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, that’s the risk and that’s the possibility of knowing that he has somebody on the backbenches who can galvanise, who can get to the forefront of, for example, the Brexit hardliners on Northern Ireland or the tax cutters. He can put himself at the head of that movement and appeal over the heads of Rishi Sunak to the wider party. That’s absolutely the risk. I’m gonna be unusually generous here. These people are ex-prime ministers. They haven’t decided to fade away into nothingness yet. They’re going to speak up. They’re going to want to be interesting. They want to be listened to and taken seriously. All ex-prime ministers have this problem to a degree. The difference is that Boris Johnson is the only one of whom at the moment that he can get any possibility of a return. And even if he doesn’t return, as you say, he could make a real nuisance of himself for Rishi Sunak if he’s minded to do so.

Miranda Green
It’s quite complicated, though, isn’t it? Because we are only choosing to remember in this discussion the ways in which the hangovers from the Johnson project might drag Sunak to the right. In fact, quite a lot of the Johnson project was this big government intervention, levelling up. It was a very different sort of conservatism. And actually, I spoke to a couple of Tories in the last few days who felt that this is where the kind of rot had set in in terms of conservatism’s brand identity to the electorate. So in a sense you’ve actually got the kind of left-wing hangover of Johnsonism as well as a problem potentially for Sunak, who, you know, as we heard this week, is very sceptical about things like industrial policy, seems to be putting a lid on Michael Gove’s levelling-up department. So that sort of actually Theresa May and Boris Johnson left-wing conservatism seems to be being put to bed as well.

George Parker
And, Robert, can I ask one final question? Slight change of subject: the appointment of Lee Anderson as the deputy Conservative party chair.

Miranda Green
The Rottweiler of the red wall.

George Parker
The Rottweiler of the red wall, former coal miner, speaks his mind, likes what he says and says what he likes. He said this week that he supports the return of the death penalty because once you’ve been executed, you’re unlikely to commit any further crimes. What do you think this tells us about Rishi Sunak’s political judgments? And do you think he’s starting to regret it already?

Robert Shrimsley
But you can’t fault the brutal logic of that argument. Of course there are several people who would have been executed who hadn’t committed any crimes at all. Look, I think Rishi Sunak recognises that there’s a constituency in his party, the red wall, the northern Conservatives, the people, the particular outlook on conservatism that he can’t simply ignore and he has to show he’s reaching out to. And so he’s picked Lee And — I must have, I think there were better choices. But he’s picked Lee Anderson to show that he is attempting to be an open leader, inviting all wings of the party into his tent and saying, you know, if you behave, if you’re sensible, then there’s room for you here. We all need to work together to do this. So, you know, Lee Anderson’s a bit of a sort of maverick figure, and Rishi Sunak may come to regret this, but I don’t think he will regret the idea of trying to build as big a tent for himself in the party as he can.

Miranda Green
It seems to me that what the Conservative party loves to do is to look back at the successful Tony Blair playbook and then try and repeat it, but mess it up. And I was reminded of Blair having John Prescott as his deputy to show that there was a sort of true Old Labour element to the government post-1997 and that big win that looked so modern. But they’ve done it wrong, haven’t they? They picked the wrong person, as Robert has said.

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George Parker
Miranda and Robert, thanks very much.

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George Parker
So Nadhim Zahawi, the chair of the Conservative party, was sacked by Rishi Sunak last month following revelations about his tax affairs. And this week, the prime minister reshuffled his cabinet, but one key minister stayed in place — Dominic Raab, despite allegations of bullying. So why did Raab stay in place?

Rishi Sunak
With regard to Dominic Raab, as people have seen from how I’ve acted in the past, when I’m presented with conclusive independent findings that someone in my government has not acted with the integrity or standards that I would expect of them, I won’t hesitate to take swift and decisive action. That’s what I’ve done in the past. But with regard to this situation, it’s right that we let the independent process continue.

George Parker
But apart from the ministerial shake-up, Sunak also carried out what politics nerds called a machinery of government overhaul. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is no more, brutally carved into three pieces: income, new departments for energy and net zero and the new science and technology departments. I’m joined by Greg Clark, the former Tory business secretary, and Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government. Hannah, first of all, can you explain what Rishi Sunak did and how big a Whitehall shake-up this is?

Hannah White
This is a pretty big shake-up. He has created four new departments, as you say. BEIS, the business department, is no longer with us. We now have energy, security and net zero. We have science, innovation and technology. We have culture and media, which is what’s left of the old DCMS, once you take the large digital part out of it and give it to that science department. The rump of the business department is being combined with the trade department. So we have four new secretaries of state for those newly formed departments. We’ve also had a reshuffle of the senior civil servants leading them. So in terms of Whitehall, this is a big shake-up and it will cause quite a lot of disruption.

George Parker
And how much is it gonna cost?

Hannah White
Well, based on what we’ve looked at in terms of past departmental reshuffles, we reckon about £15mn in sort of set-up costs for a new department. But then in terms of lost productivity, probably around another £35mn over the first year or so. So probably per department, we’re looking at about £50mn.

George Parker
Greg Clark, you look slightly sceptical though.

Greg Clark
Well, I’ve been in a reorganised department when BEIS was created — Business Energy Industrial Strategy, one of the first decisions of what we called the acronym, and we settled on BEIS. But actually these days a lot of the branding, as it were, is virtual. It’s changing an electronic logo. People are still working on the policy areas. They will continue to work on those areas. So I’m not sure that the financial cost is anything more than a bit notional.

George Parker
And you’ve always got to be careful about the acronym of your new department. Famously, Tony Blair came up with a department, which was I think is Product Energy and Industrial Strategy, which Alan Johnston, the secretary of State, detected, might be reduced down to PENIS.

Greg Clark
Which would have been very unfortunate.

George Parker
It would have been unfortunate [chuckles]. Now, Greg Clark, are you sad to see your old department being broken up?

Greg Clark
Well, in a way, in that I enjoyed for three years being its secretary of state and founding it, and I think we did a lot of good together. We took the climate change agenda and then put business behind it. And we made a lot of runs in terms of getting renewables built, for example. But actually I proved it. I think it’s the right thing to do. I think it’s evident to everyone that energy, energy security and net zero have a particular importance and prominence at the moment. And I think they require that focus of a department and a secretary of state in the cabinet dedicated to that. I also strongly approve of the fact that science, innovation and technology, I chair the select committee that specialises in this area. We’re at a time in which technology is changing opportunities, the way that we conduct our lives, probably more than at any time since the first industrial revolution. I think to prioritise that, to have someone at the cabinet table, is important. And actually when it comes to business and trade, there is a good sense in bringing them together. So I think it’s a clear underlining of priorities and it’s right to give them the focus and the cabinet clout that comes with that.

George Parker
And the words industrial strategy have been lost to the Whitehall nomenclature. You had an industrial strategy. It was famously binned by your successor, Kwasi Kwarteng, who called it a pudding without a theme. And I’ve not heard the words industrial strategy come out of the mouth of Rishi Sunak. Seems to me like the government’s given up on it. Do you think that’s a bad thing?

Greg Clark
No, I do think it has given up on it. That’s one of the aspects that I do regret that’s no longer there. For all that I’ve said about it being a good thing that you’ve got these three separate departments with a clear focus and each with a cabinet minister. It’s very important that they not just talk to each other. But they act together because I think the world and domestic investors want to have a forward view as to what Britain’s view is on certain policy matters, what the government’s view is, not what an individual department has. Partly this is about planning for the future and thinking ahead, that sense of strategy. But the other sense of strategy that was very important to us was a sense that a strategy integrates different policies, perhaps from different departments, to make sure that they certainly don’t conflict with each other and ideally should pull together. And given that they are now in separate departments, I think it’s all the more important that the government has a clear strategy — call it industrial strategy, call it a plan for growth. But it’s important that we have one and that it brings together these three departments with the Treasury and other departments.

George Parker
Now Hannah, do these shake-ups ever actually work?

Hannah White
Well, it depends what you are trying to get them to achieve. I mean, I think it’s really important, as Greg has been saying, that you have the apparatus behind you in Whitehall to push forward the things that you feel are priorities. And having the right set of departments to give the focus individually is important. It is undeniable that there will be a period of disruption and distraction, not least because across Whitehall we have different HR systems, different IT systems, lots of things you would have thought would have been made universal across Whitehall a long time ago, just haven’t been. And so that stuff does take time. But I think, you know, if you feel that in the long run, this is the right way to restructure government, then these are changes you do need to make.

George Parker
Is it wise to make them 18 months after an election?

Hannah White
Well, I mean, Rishi Sunak is presumably looking forward ahead of the next election and thinking how he would want his government to be structured. And I think those people who have criticised him for maybe some of his other decisions, looking as though they might be very sort of focused in the short term, can’t have their cake and eat it by also saying actually these long-term decisions, you shouldn’t be making those either. You’ve got to appreciate the rationale for them.

George Parker
And Greg Clark, you said you were in a reorganised department. Do people spend a lot of time arguing about who’s got the swivel chair and the yucca plant and the best view?

Greg Clark
No, not very well. Actually, we had two different buildings that we brought together, and certainly, during my first few days it was very important that the Department of Energy and Climate Change was not being abolished. It was a merger. So I had to give repeated addresses to staff in the two different buildings. I had private offices in both. I worked from both to make it clear to people that this was not one department taking over another. So there was a bit of that, but it didn’t last very long. So it is possible to do it well.

George Parker
And finally, Greg, what could go wrong with this breakup of BEIS and the creation of these new departments?

Greg Clark
Well, as I said, I think the principal thing that could go wrong is if they don’t cohere with each other. That’s why I think an industrial strategy, a plan for growth that integrates them is important. But I think we shouldn’t be too protective of particular government departments. Barring one or two exceptions like the Treasury and the Foreign Office and most departments, there is an organisational device to implement and design public policy. It should be geared to the purpose. Things have changed with respect to the energy agenda, with science and innovation technology, and I think we should be agile and responsive rather than building edifices that are impregnable for decades, if not centuries to come.

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George Parker
Well, Greg Clark and Hannah White, thank you for joining us. And that’s it for this episode of Payne’s Politics. If you like the podcast, we recommend subscribing. You can find us through all the usual channels to receive episodes as soon as they’re released. And we also appreciate positive reviews and ratings. Payne’s Politics was presented by me, George Parker, and produced by Anna Dedhar and Manuela Saragosa. The sound engineer is Breen Turner. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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