Spot changing
- 20 Mar 07, 10:46 AM
What on earth made him do that? That was the first question all who know the former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull asked when they heard of .
It is not his style and, unlike some other senior civil servants, he's not known to have had any particularly fierce battles with the chancellor. I confess that my first thought was to ask how they'd managed to get him to say it and I hadn't. The answer is now clear. He didn't intend his comments to be public at all.
He believed, I'm told, that he was speaking off the record for a feature to be published after the Budget. Not that he denies making the comments or has distanced himself from them. Nor indeed has he criticised the FT but, friends say, he refers to his interview as "a classic cock up".
What matters, of course, is the contents and the credibility of what was said and not the intent of the person making the comments.
No one can question Lord Turnbull's qualifications to pass judgement. He's uniquely well placed to give an insight into the pros and cons of the chancellor's working methods. He was on the receiving end of Brown's dictats as permament secretary in the Department of the Environment. He then worked at his side at the Treasury before moving to Number Ten to see the Blair end of the Brown/Blair battles.
No one can suggest that his criticisms are not widely shared. Lord Turnbull's attack mirrors that of the former Home Secretary Charles Clarke - another who went rather further in print than they had planned to - and that of the anonymous Cabinet minister who told me that "Gordon Brown will make an f鈥ng terrible prime minister".
No one close to Gordon Brown protests that there's no truth in the suggestion that their guy exhibits "Stalinist ruthlessness" and has, at times, ignored, belittled or insulted other ministers.
No, the debate is about whether Brown's uncompromising style was good or bad for government and whether he needs to and is capable of changing his spots if he gets to Number 10.
The case against Brown is clearly spelt out in Turnbull and Clarke's interviews. Government, they argue, should be a team sport and he is not a team player. He and his clique have fought colleagues rather than working with them; divided government rather than united it; and been dictatorial rather than consultative. He has, in Tony Blair's phrase been "a great clunking fist".
The case for the defence is that Whitehall needed a good punch because it is still deeply conservative, resistant to change and risk averse. There would, it's argued by his allies, never have been independence of the Bank of England if the mandarins had had their way. There would never have been a plan to build thousands more houses without the Barker Report to challenge the environment department's complacency. What's more, they argue, some of the government's greatest mistakes came from the Treasury not interfering enough - look, they say, at the absurdly extravagant GP contract.
Does he need to change in Number Ten? All agree that the answer is yes. Prime ministers depend on wooing and cajoling other departments and have few levers themselves to pull. The debate is between those who think he's capable of it and those who, like Turnbull have... well... doubts...
PS Someone did persuade Lord Turnbull to go public with his concerns about not just Gordon Brown's approach but Tony Blair's as well. Anne Perkins' excellent documentary for Radio 4 called (MP3) is well worth listening to.
In it Turnbull says: 鈥淲as too much policy developed at the centre? Yes, I think it was. The occupants of 10 and 11 have got to be very sensitive to the downside of taking over a piece of policy that could be done in a department. It鈥檚 often a short sighted view because if you are constantly taking something over you will not develop the capability and also people won鈥檛 develop the sense of pride, they will actually feel belittled.鈥 He goes on 鈥淎ll the time you are leaning in the other direction, to say 鈥榥o, don鈥檛 do it that way, take it through a cabinet committee or something, something that may look quite bureaucratic but ultimately gives you a better decision and a better sense of buy in鈥 鈥︹ That is the tide that you are always swimming against 鈥. I felt I was swimming against the tide which is quite tiring, but hopefully I wasn鈥檛 swept away.鈥
