Martin Kettle's Blog, page 29

One big lesson of the pandemic: spads are as important as the ministers they serve | Martin Kettle

As Boris Johnson’s response to Covid has shown, a poor adviser can lead to disastrous decision-making

When all this is over, which political insider’s book about Britain’s battles with the Covid pandemic will you actually want to read? My guess is that, for most people, the answer to that question is unlikely to be those by Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, or Nicola Sturgeon, although all three would seem quite likely to offer us their accounts at various points in the future.

Instead it might be those penned by Chris Whitty, Sarah Gilbert, Simon Stevens and – given his quotability – Jonathan Van-Tam. Although many will groan at the thought, I’d also add Dominic Cummings to the list. In other words, the accounts from the centre of government that will inform and resonate will be those of the advisers and the experts.

Related: 2020 was the year Boris Johnson threw away public trust | James Johnson

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Johnson is on the crest of a vaccine wave. Labour will just have to ride it out | Martin Kettle

Thanks to the rollout, the prime minister’s popularity is rising. It shows that right now, the normal rules of politics don’t apply

He made a great effort not to crow, but the Conservative minister could not contain his mix of pleasure and slight surprise this week. “If there is one thing that the Labour party absolutely does not want right now,” the minister told me, “it is a sudden and sustained display of competence on the part of this government. Yet that’s exactly what they’re now facing.”

The UK’s coronavirus vaccine rollout is the most significant achievement over which Boris Johnson has presided since the pandemic began. Ten million of us have now had our first jabs, 15% of the population and rising, way above the rate for most other European countries. It is a public health success story that looks set to continue well into the year. It is also an undeniable political boost for Johnson. Whether it is the proverbial gamechanger is harder to say.

Related: UK passes 10m Covid vaccination milestone

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Johnson's last-minute bid to save the union can't undo years of neglect | Martin Kettle

Scotland’s moves towards independence have panicked the UK government, but its hasty plans for reform may be too late

The potential breakup of Britain has crept up on Boris Johnson in plain sight. Cavalier inattention in Downing Street to the souring political mood towards Whitehall in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in parts of northern England, has been increasingly reckless. It may already be impossible for the Conservatives to retrieve the situation and keep the United Kingdom together much longer.

Nevertheless, although it is late in the day, and in spite of the fact that ministers are arming themselves with policy responses that may prove ineffective, the Johnson government now claims to be on full alert over the threat to the union. As it finally faces up to this country’s potential breakup, the government is preparing a counterattack that may prove too little and too late, and may fail. Yet it unquestionably marks a distinct change of approach after years of complacency.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Joe Biden is now president, but Trump has changed the US for a generation | Martin Kettle

Biden’s warm inauguration words will not reset the dials. The era of US global leadership can’t be rebuilt quickly, if at all

Donald Trump departed today from the American presidency as he arrived four years ago: vain, cruel and telling lies, without any vestige of grace or magnanimity.

There was no acknowledgment of, still less apology for, his deranged delinquency in the face of Covid, or of his election defeat – failures that made the nervy, locked-down inauguration of Joe Biden inevitable. But Trump leaves having changed America.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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If Brexit is 'done', then where's the dividend? | Martin Kettle

There was never a yardstick by which to judge the policy – so the issue will never be entirely settled

It is two weeks since Britain finally cut its ties with the European Union. It may therefore seem a bit premature to ask how it is all going. But the reality of Brexit in early 2021 is stark. We may now be a sovereign nation – which matters a lot to many – but in almost every material respect the UK is currently worse off than before 1 January.

Whatever else this tells us, it is a reminder that Brexit is not yet done. Great Britain remains an island off the coast of the EU, which is its major market. This requires policy and action from politicians and parties. Brexit is a stage in that process. But the process goes on, and Brexit still shapes it. Consider four live examples, on all of which parliament heard evidence today.

Related: Simon Rattle is leaving London. Is this a taste of the capital's future? | Charlotte Higgins

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Boris Johnson has 'got Brexit done'. With a deal that will please no one | Martin Kettle

Britain leaves the EU with its sovereignty compromised, its economy weakened – and its leader walking a tightrope

Brexit was never fundamentally an economic project. It was always more about what it said on the ballot paper in 2016. Brexit was about ceasing to be a member of the European Union. Leavers understood that. Remainers, in contrast, still struggle with it. To a lot of remainers, Brexit had to be a proxy for something else: anti-immigrant feeling, maybe, economic disempowerment, or post-imperial nostalgia. Those issues were not irrelevant to Brexit, but they were never the main point.

Leaving the EU was an emotionally charged political proposition, not an economic one. It was a desire rooted in a vision of British sovereignty richly marinaded in a heady mix of nostalgia and bogus victimhood, fanned by Britain’s media, and which made the enormous error of confusing sovereignty with power. The reality of that error will come home to roost in the months and years ahead. But Brexit was never about the price of potatoes or cars. In the end, it wasn’t even about standing up for Britain’s one genuine shared diplomatic triumph of recent decades, the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

Related: At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it's as bad as you thought | Tom Kibasi

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist.

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Post-Cummings, are we seeing signs of a more consensual government? | Martin Kettle

Boris Johnson remains deeply flawed, but there are signs that his style of leadership is becoming less top-down

What follows is all extremely relative, all highly conditional, and there is no guarantee that any of it will be sustained in the future, even if it is correct in the first place. But here’s the thing to note: as we near the close of what one Conservative MP rightly called “a torrid year” for the country in the Commons today, Boris Johnson is moving towards a style of government that will be to his party’s advantage and, in some ways, to that of the country too.

That’s because there are signs – only signs, but a number of them all the same – that a somewhat less confrontational form of UK governance is beginning to take shape. Where it may lead, if and when life begins to return to some sort of normality in 2021, is tricky to predict. But if this very tentative reading of the government is even half right, the consequences may be influential for Johnson, for his party and within British politics into 2021 and beyond.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Fidelio review – Opera North triumphs with electrifying take on Beethoven's radical opera

Filmed in Leeds Town Hall, streamed on demand
Rising above the challenging circumstances, Opera North’s semi-staged Fidelio is gripping and authoritative, with an outstanding cast of soloists

Opera North’s Fidelio went ahead in the teeth of the region’s tight pandemic restrictions. The concert performance, recorded in an empty Leeds Town Hall and available to stream, proved much more than merely a victory over challenging circumstances. The musical lineup had always looked pretty special on anyone’s terms, and the musicians duly delivered a gripping operatic experience in which every aspect of the show seemed to come together.

What made the impact so strong? There was, of course, the excitement of a British company performing a major opera again after so long. There was the appropriateness of this particular opera, performed just days before Beethoven’s 250th anniversary. Then there was the electrifying reminder, in Mark Wigglesworth’s reading, of how brilliant a piece Fidelio is, and of how radical Beethoven’s imprisonment subject still is today. Last, but by no means least, there was the tingle factor of a live performance that contained so much committed and first-rate playing and singing.

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The partition of Ireland reverberates through history – and Brexit will too | Martin Kettle

Constitutional ruptures have effects that echo down the generations, as we are about to find out all over again

Arguments about difficult parts of British history have been a feature of 2020. But it is striking that something as important in its continuing consequences as the partition of Ireland, which took place 100 years ago this month, has been so widely neglected. There has been plenty of reflection on partition in Ireland itself, but there has not been much in Britain, which created the divide in the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

The closure of the British mind regarding Ireland is not new. But it remains glaringly topical in the light of Brexit. Irish partition still underpins one of the most charged dilemmas in Britain’s process of European disengagement. As recently as Monday, Michael Gove and the European commission vice-president, Maros Šefčovič, crafted a British climbdown over the future international regulatory status of Northern Ireland, one of the territories that partition created in 1920.

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The Tory backbench rebellion is a problem of Boris Johnson’s own making | Martin Kettle

Instead of uniting his party behind a firm Covid strategy from the start, the prime minister vacillated, and divided it

If Boris Johnson was a better leader than he is, or if he had more intellectual grasp than he actually possesses, this could have been a week of vindication for the prime minister. Instead, a year after his general election triumph, Johnson is licking his parliamentary wounds, while his authority and judgment are being questioned within his own party as never before.

Related: Can't be led, won't be led: Johnson's backbench rebels are incapable of loyalty | Rafael Behr

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