Mrs May is going to need the meritocrats

The Tory manifesto is a fascinating text. Easier to read than most such documents, it deserves pondering. That will uncover the occasional weakness. We are told that immigration must be curbed. We are also told that it is important to maintain the supply of skilled labour from Europe. There is one way to reconcile those positions: bring on Boris Johnson to burble about have cake, eat cake. But above the level of a clown with a custard pie, there is a problem.

That said, this manifesto should not be judged by its small print. There are big themes. Although Mrs May did not go quite as far as the Bennites in the early eighties, pledging an irreversible shift of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families, she is happy to march into traditional Labour territory on poverty and inequality. She and her team were also ready to address a weakness inherited from Margaret Thatcher. Neither the Lady herself nor her “ism” had a theory of the state. At times, as much as anything through her body language, Mrs T gave the impression that apart from the uniformed services, the state was a mere unprivatisable residuum whose employees were inadequates. As elections approached, the body language was kept under control and replaced by emollience, especially  about the NHS being safe with us. But there was no attempt at a synthesis.

That might reassure traditional Tories. Theories of the state sound alarmingly Germanic. If we in Britain have pottered along quite happily without one, so much the better for us. Instead of a theory, why not concentrate on a couple of aphorisms? First, that the state must mean more than anarchy plus the constable. Second, that where the state is needed, it should be strong. Where it is not needed, it should be absent. But how can one tell whether the state is needed or not? To old-fashioned Tories, that is a matter for politics, not abstraction and theory.

This does not satisfy Theresa May, and one can understand why. Like all Prime Ministers, she must be aware of a galling contrast. Although the government is spending over £800 billion a year, more than forty per cent of the nation’s income, the papers and the airwaves are full of discontent and cash shortages. To read the headlines, one would think that Mr Bumble was in charge of distributing public expenditure (do I hear anyone say “chance would be a fine thing?”). All recent PMs have experienced the same frustration and wished that they could take somehow take control of the whole process so that the money was spent effectively on desirable projects. It never seems to happen.

Mrs May is especially exercised by industry. Perforce, the government has a major role in British industry. It is the largest customer. So she and her ministers should surely be able to use their purchasing power to encourage desirable changes. This may sound easy. If so, that is deceptive.

Take defence procurement. In order to ensure its survival, the British defence industry has been largely insulated from foreign competition and able to dependent on government contracts for its survival. This has not prevented a succession of disasters. The government has not been able to use its power to promote efficiency. It is not clear what some of the manifesto’s detailed proposals would mean in practice. Nor is it clear why they should be any more successful.

Or why they need to be. Over recent decades, the strengthening of British industry has been a great untold national success – and an international one. Most of my friends who habitually visit factories make the same report. Forget lines of Nibelungen bashing metal. You will see employees wearing crisp lab coats, looking into computer screens in order to control the lasers which perform the modern equivalent of metal-bashing. At the end of a trip to such a factory floor, there is probably no need to wash your hands.

So what could any government do to assist firms like that to become even better? There is one obvious answer: listen to what they have to say. It may be that more could be done to promote exports. It could be that some detailed tax changes would help. But it would be wise to start from the assumption that businesses understand their own business and that politicians should accept the need to overcome scepticism. If you want some easy laughter at a business lunch, just quote from Ronald Reagan’s list of misleading phrases: “I’m from the government. I’m here to help you.’”Ministers must ensure that they understand the difference between help and encumbrance.

But one threat only materialised in a diminished form. In advance, there had been talk of putting workers on the board, as if the government was planning to give Arthur Scargill mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Instead, the word used is employees, and one proposal would oblige firms to nominate a non-executive director to look after employee interests. That does not sound too threatening.

Yet there is a better answer, and one which most wise firms have already adopted. Of course there should be employees on the board. In what proportion? One hundred per cent. Non-execs apart, every board member should be a hard-working employee. Equally, however junior their point of entry, everyone joining a firm should be encouraged to have ambitions.

This brings us to a more general point. Tories should not fear paradoxes. Although “original sin” is a formidable two-word summary of the human condition, Tories believe in personal freedom and are happy to steal Gladstone’s maxim: “trust the people”. Partly as a means of reconciling that contradiction, Tories believe in institutions. Individual life is the coral insect: institutions are the coral reef. Today’s Liberals – those most unworthy heirs of Gladstone – are forever prattling on about “change” as if it were an ipso facto good. Tories want to know why and how: what is it going to cost: have all the consequences been thought through? They might quote Palmerston: “Change, change, change: aren’t things bad enough as it is?” More seriously, they will suggest that any insensate enthusiasts for change examine Tony Blair’s House of Lords reform. Such Tories will conclude by quoting Falkland: “When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”

That should not end the argument, for there is an obvious rejoinder: “How can you tell when it is necessary to change?” Even so, sensible Tories should value institutions as buttresses against senseless innovation. But it is not clear whether Mrs May agrees.

This brings us to the weakest portion of the manifesto, in which the theory has not been thought out and the practical consequences are flawed. We are told that Mrs May’s goal is a “Great Meritocracy”. Surely no-one could object to that? But phrases are not enough. The manifesto is eloquent about social groups who have become an underclass, including a lot of white working-class boys and young blacks in prison. But why has this happened? There is an obvious answer: the decline of the family. Among the poor, the absence of fathers has turned financial poverty into moral poverty. The family is social penicillin. Especially among the poor, it is a force multiplier. Since the great onslaught of family breakdown began in the early sixties, every social problem has worsened. It is not going to be easy to turn the underclass into potential meritocrats.

If Mrs May is sincere about promoting meritocracy, she has a further problem. Under current arrangements, most of those who prosper do so for a simple reason which has nothing to do with privilege. They combine ability and energy. Most of those who reach the top have done so on merit. Whether Mrs May approves of them or not, they are meritocrats. Over the past few decades, all the routes to affluent employment have become increasingly more competitive – with one notable exception. Suppose Mrs May were to look around the House of Commons and her eye were to fall on Liz Truss – not the only Cabinet dunderhead – Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron. Was he the original “Tim nice but dim”? There is no hint of meritocracy anywhere there. But the PM may be drawing the wrong conclusion from those spectacular mediocrities. These days, that does not happen in other professions.

If meritocracy became the norm, life would immediately become easier for the Headmaster of Eton. He would not have to spend time finding out which Oxbridge Colleges were controlled by chippy Lefties determined to reject his boys. Meritocracy is a good idea. Competition ought to be the route to success and education needs to be improved so that more pupils will be able to take the opportunities it offers. But a lot of those who succeed under the present disposition would continue to do so. Ability has nothing to fear from meritocracy. As for the notion that a pack of dullards is reserving plum positions for their friends: if that ever were true, it is long out of date, except in politics.

The cabinet underclass is easy to deal with. A touch of meritocracy would put that right. The Corbynista one will be harder. As for the inhabitants of sink estates (I am not referring to the Labour front bench), they make Labour’s difficulties seem straightforward. “Tragic” is an overused word, but how else are we to describe youngsters who live within a few miles of the greatest cultural resources in human history, another few miles from the greatest engine of job creation – and who might as well be on another planet? Mrs May is right to worry about them and equally right to insist that Tories ought to make war on social tragedy. But that will take more than a few snide remarks about privilege. It will need a long campaign and the rewards will be slow in coming.

This is a stimulating manifesto, mostly worth a high beta. But the most interesting section, about meritocracy, only deserves a gamma. It is to be hoped that Mrs May is serious about her ambitions because if so, the country will benefit. But she will need to choose meritocrats to assist her.