‘The winter of discontent should serve as a warning to Boris Johnson’

A man walking past a pile of rubbish during a waste collectors’ strike in London in 1979

(Image credit: Graham Morris/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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1. Beware, Boris: Britain is hurtling towards a winter of discontent
2. Why ‘the Biden doctrine’ on foreign policy is here to stay
3. The PM has ‘full confidence’ in his foreign secretary – but that doesn’t mean accountability is dead
4. Britain needs to find a better role for its former prime ministers
5. Britain’s cancer survival rates risk going backwards

By The best columns

last updated 1 September 2021

1. Beware, Boris: Britain is hurtling towards a winter of discontent

Liam Halligan in The Telegraph

“September represents new beginnings, a time to consider what lies ahead – for the government and the UK as a whole”, writes Liam Halligan in The Telegraph. “It strikes me that Britain, both economically and politically, is at a turning point not dissimilar to the mid-1970s”, he notes. And that time of “chronic uncertainty” culminated in the 1978/79 “winter of discontent” writes Halligan, where a “combination of soaring prices, intensifying strike action and a breakdown of vital public services sparked a radical political reset, embodied by Margaret Thatcher.” Of course, there are “key differences” between then and now – but “the similarities are eerie and should serve as a warning to the Prime Minister of just how quickly the economic and political tide can shift and the electorate’s patience can snap.”

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“How important was the speech Joe Biden gave last night?” asks Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. “The headline-grabbing parts are his defence of the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan”, yet the key part of his statement was about his intention to end major military operations to “‘remake other countries’”. “Whatever happens to Biden politically, what you might call ‘the Biden doctrine’ on American foreign policy will almost certainly be more enduring – and that reality is something that all politicians in the democratic world will have to adjust their own foreign policy to.”

“I doubt that Raab will be moved in the next reshuffle unless other things go wrong,” writes John Rentoul in The Independent. “Being on a beach during an international crisis looked bad, but it is hardly the worst thing a minister has done,” he says. And that doesn’t mean that that “political accountability is dead.” Indeed, “[t]he idea that ministers used to resign with honour but now cling to office despite being bang to rights is refuted by a list of ministerial resignations compiled by Whitehall Monitor,” he continues. In the end, “accountability comes via public opinion”, Rentoul says. The reason Matt Hancock, for example, had to go “is that it would have been disastrous for the government to have kept a law-maker who was a law-breaker. And the reason Raab can stay is that public opinion is largely unmoved.”

Theresa May is “the only living former UK prime minister still in parliament,” notes Sebastian Payne in the Financial Times. The remaining four have “left the political stage, declining a customary pew in the House of Lords.” While “[t]he honourable reason for quitting the Commons after leaving Number 10 is to avoid undermining one’s successor”, it seems “most former PMs really leave for money. Having enjoyed the gilded Downing Street existence of chauffeurs and private jets, few embrace a return to normal life.” Our ex-MPs should be persuaded to stay on in some form, argues Payne: one can “imagine how much richer the debate over Brexit would have been if Blair, Brown and Cameron had been present on the green benches.” Indeed, “British politics is sorely missing leaders with wisdom and expertise. Our ex-PMs have both.”

“Once again, ahead of the spending review, the health sector and its allies are lining up to make the case for more money. But this autumn will be different. For the first time in years, the government is expected to set out its spending for a longer period: the next three years,” writes Charles Swanton in The Times. “This is a huge opportunity to fix chronic problems of the NHS, particularly in workforce and infrastructure, drive innovations and address persistent inequalities in care,” he continues. But the challenges facing the NHS “pre-date the pandemic”, he notes. Dispiritingly, “the last time the NHS met its two-month cancer waiting time target was in 2015” and “[b]y the time Covid arrived, this statistic was the worst on record”. “We now risk a crisis, with cancer survival potentially declining,” writes Swanton. “But with political will and targeted investment this can be avoided.”

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