Clarke: British politics in crisis
The British political system is in “major crisis” because of the Labour government’s obsession with spin, Ken Clarke warns today.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, the former chancellor steps up his campaign for the Tory leadership with an attack on Tony Blair’s presidential style.
And he calls for his party to operate with more openness, publishing the list of committees of the shadow cabinet and consulting more widely in its policy making.
“We must be a listening party and not a lecturing party,” Mr Clarke insists, adding that this also means widening the public face of the Conservative party to better reflect society today.
Parliament has been sidelined for too long, he says, while the independence and quality of the civil service has been “seriously undermined”.
The checks and balances which should have restrained Mr Blair “have failed to work”, and Mr Clarke says the situation is likely to be little better under Gordon Brown, who he describes as an “obsessive control freak”.
“These are not just the concerns of political anoraks. They are of critical importance to all of us. How we are governed tells us not only the kind of country we are but helps to determine the direction in which we will go,” he says.
Worse still, the government’s “obsession for style over substance” has seeped into the public services, Mr Clarke says, infecting them with a “debilitating culture which elevates presentation to a higher plane than the making of policy”.
The former chancellor, a frontrunner in the race for Michael Howard’s job, believes that political parties will only win back public confidence if they are seen to be changing their attitudes “at the top”.
“We must raise the level of public debate in Britain. We must seek to avoid excessive use of slogans and mere abuse,” he said.
“We must set out a vision for the public as to how Britain can be better governed not just in terms of policies but in terms of a proper trustworthy system of accountable governance.
“There could be no more important task for anyone who aspires to take a leading role in British politics over the next few years.”
