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Our lesson today is taken from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 14, verse eight: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”
In the macho and combative world of Westminster politics, certainty is a highly valued commodity. If you are not decisive then you must be a ditherer. The logic, and the alliteration, are irresistible. Hence the prime minister’s current difficulty over three (count ’em!) recent U-turns: over the winter fuel allowance, a national inquiry into grooming gangs and now on proposed cuts to personal independence payments (Pip).
U-turns are good news for reporters and political commentators. They provide an opportunity to confirm how insightful they are, and wise after the event (admittedly some are wise before the event). They also mean that the adjective “screeching” is likely to be used far too often, along with references to the smell of burning tyre rubber. Some words – unlike some policies – just stick. Older readers may remember that under the last Labour government it was compulsory for an extended time to refer to the transport secretary, Stephen Byers, as “the beleaguered Stephen Byers”.
Why are U-turns always regarded as being such a bad thing? Isn’t it a good idea to change direction once you realise you are heading the wrong way? With the holiday season approaching, overheated children and spouses must brace themselves for that tense moment when the driver is told he has picked the wrong route, only for the man behind the wheel to declare grumpily: “No, I’ve decided, we’re sticking with the A591!” A no U-turns policy can make a Daddy Pig out of anyone.
But what explains the enduring, emblematic power of the U-turn to make grown men and women in London SW1 tremble? Here we must point to the usual suspect, Margaret Thatcher. In October 1980, the Conservative party was heading to its annual conference in Brighton. The new Tory government was less than a year and a half old, but was already extremely unpopular and under intense political pressure. Unemployment and inflation were both high. Thatcher was seen as an inflexible and insensitive leader. Surely there would be an adjustment, and some acknowledgment of the severe economic pain the country was suffering?
But, (in)famously, Mrs T said this in her conference speech: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning!”
It did not matter that Thatcher may not have fully appreciated the joke which her speechwriter Ronald Millar had provided for her (a pun on the 1948 play The Lady’s Not For Burning by Christopher Fry). The line stuck. And the mythology around Thatcher began to grow: that she was resolute, unflinching, impervious to counter-arguments and determined never to change her mind.
But hang on a minute. What happened only four months after she gave this speech, in February 1981? A government plan to close 23 coalmines was withdrawn in the face of opposition from the National Union of Mineworkers, then led by Joe Gormley. It was a complete and utter … U-turn. The headline on the BBC’s website where the story is featured says: “Thatcher gives in to miners”. People remember the moment when, three years later and with much higher coal stocks, Thatcher battled the miners again when the timing suited her better. This too fed into the “no U-turns” myth. But it was not the whole story.
Westminster orthodoxy and the real world are not always in perfect alignment. In SW1-land, you can never go into a general election committed to any kind of tax rise. But if the current government had said that, if elected, it was going to reverse the second of Jeremy Hunt’s employee national insurance cuts how much happier (fiscally and politically) it might be today. The gap between what everybody in Westminster knows and what normal people think might also help explain why some free-wheeling populists like Nigel Farage get away with their bogus yet apparently “authentic”, so-called “common sense”.
No one wants to be led by a vacillating or broken “shopping trolley” (the label Dominic Cummings applied to a chaotic Boris Johnson in No 10) that has no consistency or sense of direction. But it is OK to change your mind based on a fresh assessment of the evidence.
In their award-winning 2006 book, Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?, Rob Goffee and the late Gareth Jones wrote about the power of leaders admitting to doubt and even, on occasion, weakness. “By exposing a measure of vulnerability, they make themselves approachable and show themselves to be human,” they wrote. It is possible that the parliamentary Labour party might agree with that. Until it changes its mind.
So, U-turn if you want to. Perhaps you should. It beats going full steam into the rocks.
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Stefan Stern is co-author of Myths of Management and the former director of the High Pay Centre. His latest book is Fair or Foul – the Lady Macbeth Guide to Ambition
