Voters will accept the occasional U-turn, but they will not respect a government that loses its way too often
I make a sensible adjustment to policy to address concerns; you are forced to U-turn because you are bad at government; he is a pathetic vacillator who ditches his legislation and runs for the hills at the first whiff of opposition. A series of backtracks, in a variety of areas ranging from the relatively trivial to the highly significant, is corroding the coalition's initial claim to be bold and decisive. The cabinet's overall reputation ? and specifically that of David Cameron ? now depends on whether voters conclude that they have a responsive government that shrewdly reacts to public anxieties or an incompetent government that is losing its bottle.
As in driving, so in politics, there's nothing necessarily wrong with doing a U-turn. If you are stuck up a cul-de-sac, then a U-turn is essential if you want to get back on the open road. If you are driving into a ditch, a change of direction is more sensible than the alternative. And if you are hurtling towards a cliff edge, then a U-turn is imperative if you want to keep yourself and your passengers alive.
Margaret Thatcher burnished the myth that she never backed down with her famous "the lady's not for turning" speech, but her unbending rhetoric was the cover for quite a few tactical retreats. It was when she lost any capacity whatsoever to flex, most notably over the poll tax, that she finally plunged over the cliff. Tony Blair once proclaimed: "I haven't got a reverse gear." The phrase came back to mock him when he subsequently found he had to back out of a tight spot. The occasional U-turn did not do serious harm to the reputation of either of those long-serving prime ministers because they were broadly seen as determined leaders with a strong sense of direction.
It is when backtracking becomes the rule that it leeches authority. The media and voters lose respect for governments that spend all their time slithering along cliff edges or trying to manoeuvre out of dead ends. In different ways, the administrations of Ted Heath, Harold Wilson, John Major and Gordon Brown all got a damaging reputation for being blown this way and that by the media, backbenchers, public opinion, events or a combination of all four.
The coalition's dodgy satnav has led to several U-turns on schools budgets, flogging off forests and some benefit cuts, to name just three areas where ministers have acted in haste and then had to repent. Yet until recently, the government still managed to look reasonably clear and strong in its overall direction because these were all essentially second-order issues. The more recent reversals on criminal justice and the health service belong to a higher category of significance. To be forced to reverse in one core area of government policy is unfortunate; to do two U-turns in one week looks careless.
Carelessness is part of the explanation. Both Ken Clarke's sentencing review and Andrew Lansley's original plan for the NHS were launched in the early days of the government when the coalition was driving with learner plates. Both the health secretary and the justice secretary are strong-willed men whose minds are not easily changed once set on a course. They were not restrained by an inexperienced prime minister who wanted his government to achieve a reputation for boldness from its inception. They gained further latitude because Nick Clegg was so keen to prove that coalition did not have to be a recipe for timidity.
As with so many things about this government, George Osborne and his targets for deficit reduction played a big role. Mr Lansley initially convinced his colleagues that they had to back his plan on the grounds that it would be otherwise impossible to achieve the �20bn in promised "efficiency savings" within the NHS. Mr Clarke was never going to win friends on the right of his party by reducing the number of people in jail. But the money saved ? it costs less to put someone up in a suite at the Ritz than it does to lock them in a cell in Wormwood Scrubs ? appealed to both the Treasury and Number 10.
Early-warning signs that both ministers were running into trouble ? Mr Clarke with fellow Tories; Mr Lansley with everyone else ? were not acted on because Number 10 was underpowered and distracted. David Cameron came to office forswearing the control-freakery of Gordon Brown and declared that he wanted to be less the ever-meddling chief executive of the government and more the chairman of the cabinet. This was, in many ways, a more attractive model of leadership, but he has since learned that a modern prime minister can't really detach himself that much. When things go wrong, people don't say how admirable it was of the prime minister to give his colleagues the space to fail. What people say is that the prime minister was asleep at the wheel.
So we are now in a paradoxical phase: the more that his government performs U-turns, the more Mr Cameron wants to look like he's in the driving seat. "All the commentary about him being too much of a chairman did sting David a bit," remarks one member of the cabinet. "He feels the need to look strong." So it was briefed that the prime minister had called Ken Clarke into Number 10 for a half-hour meeting at which he ordered the justice secretary to abandon his sentencing review. That spin asserted Mr Cameron's authority but at the cost of diminishing a senior colleague.
Ken Clarke is a veteran of the political game who knows that it can be rough. All the same, he is justified in feeling aggrieved about his treatment. During the negotiations over his budget last year, he explicitly cautioned both David Cameron and George Osborne that sentencing reform would be hugely controversial. A politician to his fingertips, Mr Clarke wanted the prime minister and chancellor to be in no doubt of the consequences. He told them: "I have never taken so much political risk in my career." He specifically warned colleagues that they ought to be braced for an onslaught from the Sun and the Daily Mail. When they nevertheless said they were behind him, Mr Clarke thought he had bound in the prime minister and chancellor so that they would stand by him when the battle got hot. He now knows differently.
The case of Andrew Lansley is rather different. Cabinet colleagues complain that the health secretary did not prepare them for just how much hostility he was going to ignite. That sounds right. Mr Lansley was temperamentally incapable of anticipating that anyone would find fault with his wizard scheme for the NHS. Now he too finds himself abandoned on the field of battle. When the details of the revisions to the legislation are announced this week, the Lib Dems will declare victory. Allies of Nick Clegg contend that they have secured 11 of the 13 of the changes demanded by the Lib Dems' spring conference. The Lib Dems believe they will profit politically if they are seen as the people who stopped the wicked Tories from ruining the health service. That tactic is understandable, even to Mr Lansley. Much more wounding to him is the way in which the senior figures of his own party want to take the credit for shafting him. There is an amusing competition between aides of the prime minister and friends of the chancellor to persuade journalists that it was their man who saved the NHS from the health secretary.
The intended effect of both these U-turns is to put the government on a smoother road. It is far from certain that they will achieve that. The abandonment of sentencing reform leaves a hole in Ken Clarke's budget. The Lib Dems say they will not tolerate the shortfall being made up by even deeper cuts to legal aid. If every member of the cabinet starts retreating when they run into opposition, then the entire spending settlement will start to unravel.
There is continuing confusion about where the government has ended up on health. Senior Lib Dems say they are now broadly content because the NHS plan has been substantially changed. The outstanding issue ? "a deal-breaker" says one of Mr Clegg's friends ? is the Lib Dem leader's demand that the legislation be "recommitted": started from scratch in the Commons. That could be one humiliation too many for the health secretary to bear. It might be the issue that prompts him to resign.
Tory rightwingers, who have adopted Mr Lansley as a mascot, are meantime saying they can live with the changes to the NHS plan because they are only minor. The Tory right and the Lib Dems cannot both be correct: the changes to the NHS plan cannot be significant and insignificant.
Neither of these U-turns is yet complete. But observing the execution of them has taught us some things about David Cameron. He is very sensitive to public opinion and the media, he is ruthlessly focused on his party's electoral prospects and he knows how to U-turn when he thinks his government is driving towards a cliff edge. The price is that he abandons previous commitments to colleagues and leaves them to swing in the wind, which prompts the media to ask whether the government is losing its nerve and has the voters wondering whether he is really fit to drive.
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