Sunak looks serious after the Boris farce

When I was a small boy, I used to read science fiction. Even after more than sixty years, one story stays in the memory. Scientists had built a wonderful computer, far more powerful than any rival and also far larger. This was before the era of miniaturisation, so the machine was said to be the size of a hill. The world’s most learned men assembled and drew lots to decide who would have the first question. The world waited agog as the winner asked the computer whether there was a God. The reply was instantaneous. “There is now”.

Cut to AI. One philosophical question is being raised. Could a man-made machine somehow evade ultimate human control? For what little it is worth, I think that the answer must be “no.” But even a technology firmly under control might have the most dramatic effects, some of them dangerous.

Work as we know it could be face a radical challenge, with the danger of social unrest. Man is homo faber. Work is about status and identity as well as income. It plays a crucial role in giving a purpose to life. But suppose the labour of a vast proportion of mankind ceased to have any value? How would the superfluous hands spend their time?

There is no easy answer. Yet the question itself may be gaining pace, preparing to confront us all.

Which brings us to Rishi Sunak. As he already had an agenda full of hard questions, he could have decided that AI would wait until after the election but that is not how he operates.

There was a hazard in raising the issue now. Could he ensure that he and the government would be taken seriously? To begin with, the answer was unclear. Sunak was accused of being too deferential to Elon Musk. Musk is a fascinating character. It seems unlikely that he is easily satiated by flattery. It was important to bring him on board and thus help to establish the UK’s leadership. All that happened.

The PM, who is too at ease in his own skin to worry about flattery, was happy to risk appearing as a doofus (whatever that means: John Rentoul used the word. It is not in Dominic Cummings’s lexicon). But Rentoul made other points: there is no more intellectually honest commentator on the centre-left. He told us that the experts were unanimous. The Bletchley event had been a thorough success and the British participants had gained respect. it may be that in years to come, Bletchley will be seen as an important event.

That will not be true of more highly-publicised recent events. For many years, the Whitehall Theatre specialised in light comedy and farce. It then changed its name. Some wags have claimed that this occurred because it could not compete with the farcical productions on offer in the grand building opposite the bottom of Whitehall. Whether that is true or not, farce has discovered another location: the Covid Inquiry being led by Lady Hallett.

That inquiry was necessary. Whether it will be in five weeks or fifty years, there will be another pandemic. So it is important to examine the lessons of the recent outbreak to ensure that mistakes can be avoided: best practice, implemented.

That is not an easy task. There seems to be growing agreement that lockdown was unnecessary, although some experts are still arguing that it should have been more rigorously enforced. Yet there is one apparent advantage which is now seriously misleading: 20:20 hindsight. Today, we know the outcome. In early 2020, that was not the case. Boris Johnson declared that we should follow the science. But which science and which scientists? Distinguished figures thought that Covid might turn into another Spanish flu. Others argued that it would be no worse than a severe outbreak of normal flu. The difference could have amounted to hundreds of thousands of lives. If you were the minister and it had been your decision, how well would you have slept? Matt Hancock appears to have broken under the strain. I do not find it impossible to sympathise with him.

That brings us to Boris. In the face of a crisis, a PM ought to ensure a double response: process and grip. The processes of government need to run as smoothly as possible while the Prime Minister exerts his authority by gripping the machinery of decision-making. In both respects, Boris was deficient. He just could not cope. He once described his approach to government and for once he was telling the truth: “Have cake, eat cake.” As a PM, he could just about have managed to run a cake stall in easy circumstances, but such a happy destiny is rarely available – though President Bill Clinton more or less managed it. 

Boris was unable to focus his mind, cut to the chase, identify the necessary decisions – and take them. Nor did Dominic Cummings assist him. It was never clear why Bojo brought Dominic into No.10. I suspect that the answer lies in insecurity. Behind the bumbling and goofery, Boris was aware that he had no political compass, no core of belief to fall back on for guidance: no ideological coherence. Although it is a moot point whether ideology should form part of the Tory lexicon, ideas are essential. As Dominic Cummings had plenty of them, Boris may have chosen him to act as his political brain.

All well and good – someone would have had to – but there was an obvious difficulty. In 10 Downing Street, there is only room for one ego. Everyone else must subordinate theirs to the PM’s needs. In the nature of things, life is stressful at the very top and in Boris’s case, that may also have been true in the No.10 flat. Dominic brought disruption. He seems to have assumed that this would provide a healthy stimulus. Yet the outcome was predictable: ill-temper and chaos.  

Cummings has qualities. “Take back control” was his phrase: one of the most influential in modern British political history. He also helped the great Kate Bingham to brush aside officials who were worried about pressing ahead with the inoculation programme before all the safeguarding tests had been completed. There, his role as a disruptor was useful. But he should have been in a think-tank, with limited access to Downing Street, rather than haunting its corridors like an angry goblin, extending the vocabulary of the tamer inmates.

It would be unfortunate if Lady Hallett’s deliberations were dominated by peccadillos. Did Dominic really swear like an especially fruity parrot in a sailors’ brothel? Who broke the rules at which parties, who was sick over Sue Gray’s karaoke machine? (not Miss Gray, I hasten to add.) This is all entertaining light reading, but none of it will help a future government to deal with the next pandemic. Lady Hallett needs to grip her inquiry. 

On the subject of light fiction, there is a rival: Nadine Dorries. If the Johnson/Cummings Downing Street will sound like an especially anarchic undergraduate beano, Nadine’s is more like a poor imitation of Edgar Allan Poe. It may well be the worst account of a British government that has ever been penned.

This does not mean that it is harmless. The reputation of our politicians is already unjustifiably low. Many MPs – in all parties – are decent men and women who work hard and believe in public service. Nadine’s book will make it even harder to make that case.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, will press ahead with seriousness, and there is one consolation. He is receiving more of a hearing than John Major managed in his final years. Labour will do its best to sabotage this by reminding the voters about the Johnson years and about that girl who came after him. What was her name? 

There is a riposte. However far Boris Johnson fell below the level of events, he was a better prime Minister than Jeremy Corbyn would have been. Yet not once but twice did Sir Keir Starmer campaign to put Corbyn in Number 10. Corbyn versus Johnson, Sir Keir? Tu quoque.   

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