The British Army has long lived by a simple maxim: “Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance.” It remains as true today as ever. Disasters are rarely unavoidable or destined to occur. Usually, they are the consequence of decisions – or the refusal to make them – over several weeks, months, and even years. Any government would be wise to follow this advice before entering office. Yet Keir Starmer’s Government, much like many of those that came before it, will fail because it lacked the prior preparation and planning to prevent the poor performance it subsequently delivered.
Each time Westminster convinces itself that the problem was just personnel
Living standards in decline. Industries leaving. Jobs going elsewhere. Wages stagnant. Communities fractured. Society, as we knew it, and wanted it, gone. Just like the Conservatives, Labour has failed the British people.
And now we’re left with a Government that is doing exactly what they promised they wouldn’t. More instability, chaos, and dysfunction. Still no vision, or plan to end decline and bring back hope. We elect our politicians to represent us, our values, and our demands, but yet again they’re more interested in their own games than in the interests of their constituents.
All the while, we have a media and wider establishment class that revel in the febrile atmosphere and reinforce this pathology. They call it a “soap opera,” a “psychodrama” and gossip over social media and at Westminster’s many pubs. They maneuver, conspire, and plot, allegedly against one another. But the reality is that these plots are working to continue Britain’s decline by wasting even more precious time.
Westminster operates with the wrong idea about what is actually important. An entire ecosystem is now obsessed with whether Health Secretary Wes Streeting can find 81 MPs to trigger a vote, or if Andy Burnham actually does have an MP willing to stand down for him. This is why everyone sees Westminster as completely detached from the country it is supposed to govern.
Imagine you’re a young graduate who can’t get a job. Or a single mum who can’t afford to feed her children three times a day. Or a grandparent struggling to get a hospital appointment. Or a business owner facing bankruptcy. What would you make of all this? You would conclude that the entire Westminster ecosystem is broken.
Successive governments have had no plan, so they’ve failed to deliver for the British people. They promise change, but deliver yet more crime, grime, and decline. As the public feel this, their support for the governing party collapses. The result is panic. MPs start to worry about their own chances of re-election, factions begin “maneuvering” as their leaders start to consider ousting the Prime Minister, antagonistic briefings start and rumors of leadership contests spread. Westminster becomes consumed by plots, resignations, succession gossip and even the sighting of a supposed contender on a train. Eventually, the dam breaks, and a new leader is chosen. Then the cycle starts again.
And each time Westminster convinces itself that the problem was just personnel. If only the party had chosen a different leader to begin with. If only they had communicated more sharply. If only ministers had better relations with the civil service. Personality has replaced policy as the central organizing principle of Westminster’s politics.
The reality, unconfronted by most in the SW1 postcode, is that all of these problems stem from having no plan. Perhaps Starmer survives the latest bout of instability. Perhaps he does not. In the end, though, it hardly matters. Our country is on the precipice of financial and societal collapse, yet our political class still wants to govern Britain with the same failed ideas. They have no actual plan for change, and unless we bring new talent and plans to Westminster, we will continue our downward spiral to mediocrity and irrelevance.
This is why public anger has now reached exhaustion. People do not simply dislike leaders, but the entire system itself.
Over the past week, some have questioned whether Britain is governable. The very fact the question is now being asked is itself a sign of national decline. Of course it is governable. The problem is not our country. It is that too many of those entrusted to govern it have lacked a plan, accepted decline, and are entirely unfit for the position.
Our decline is not the product of fate, geography, or an immutable characteristic of our isles. It is the result of political choice. The next government, whoever that involves, must arrive with a radical plan to rescue the economy, fix our borders, crush crime and get young people into meaningful work. They’ll need a competent team with experience outside the walls of Whitehall, and the courage to break decisively from Westminster’s failed systems and ideas. Without that, decline will continue. But with it, we can bring back aspiration, ambition and hope to the British people.
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