What’s my problem with Lord Peter Hennessy?
Aspirant national treasure
Peter Hennessy has written very popular and readable accounts of Britain’s history since the war (see Hennessy profile). He is full of enthusiasm, and colourful imagery about our system of government — with phrases such as ‘primary colours’, ‘back channels’, the ‘gyroscopic effect’ of our ‘great institutions’ , ‘history doesn’t repeat itself but often rhymes’, casting the house of Lords as ‘Hogwarts — or Valhalla’, and he talks about the ‘hidden wiring’ of government .
Everyone loves him, he is ubiquitous on the media — a Professor and Lord called upon to comment on our contemporary political problems from his lofty long term perspective. It’s difficult to find much criticism of what one reviewer has called an ‘aspirant national treasure’.
Irritating — why?
I don’t have a critique of his many books — which I haven’t read –but as a ‘public thinker’, I find his pronouncements profoundly irritating — why?
Is it because he rarely comes up with anything really original — something you have not thought of or read before? Is it because he seems far too much in love with the way Britain does things and has always done things? Is it because he presents himself as an objective observer, despite receiving fairly overt patronage from the system he purports to study?
He seems careful to ensure his mild criticisms are already conventional wisdom — — the Iraq war, the Suez adventure etc, so he doesn’t risk being cast as some kind of dangerous radical? He seems to be a favoured pet of the system — and indeed he needs to be, in order to have the intimate, personal access to the ‘great and the good’ in politics and the civil service. They help to guide him to the written material — official, quasi official, and secret documents which constitute the unique selling point of his kind of ‘history’? Indeed, he occasionally modulates his occasional critique apologetically with ‘some of them are my friends’….
Brexit crisis — where’s the insight?
Take the present crisis over Brexit in Spring 2019. He has listed what’s at stake, — Britain’s place in the world, the Union with Northern Ireland and Scotland , inequality between London and the rest of the country, political parties fragmenting, and Parliament under stress, but he has not really offered any insights above what has been said by a host of commentators and journalists
He suggests the crisis is equivalent to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1840’s , and Imperial Preference crisis of 1906 , so you would have thought that with his 40 year deep-delving into the viscera of the British government system he might have come up with something more profound than ‘running a system of plebiscite democracy alongside our familiar representative democracy is asking for trouble’. No, really?
He is against a confirmatory referendum on any final deal negotiated with the EU over the three years since the referendum, not because of the inherent flaws of referendums, but merely that ‘it would look as if we were suggesting “you were not properly informed, so kindly think again until you come up with the right answer”’.
That seems more like Daily Express journalism than historical analysis, and indeed has been quoted in that very organ. He doesn’t ask whether people were indeed properly informed and if not, whether it is sensible to plough on regardless with whatever form of Brexit emerges, without a pause for the country to consider the profound implications.
He doesn’t ask any fundamental questions about a governing system, that made it so easy to overturn a centuries-old tradition of representative parliamentary democracy, and launch a one-off yes/no poll on such a hugely complex issue, which was ‘advisory’ and yet let the public believe it was binding.
A constitutional academic might have been expected to question the failure to launch such a poll without any accompanying rules on the majority required such as govern referendums in countries which incorporate them in their (usually written) constitutions.
Enamoured
He seems really enamoured of Britain’s pragmatic’ sensible, muddling through approach to government and lavishes praise on the ‘crown service’ — the professional civil service recruited ‘on merit’. Whether it incorporates the technological and scientific expertese necessary to run a modern economy and society is not really questioned.
There are several published accounts of policy disasters — including a string of multi billion pound IT projects, the Iraq war, poll tax and many others. 80% of current government projects — to the scale of almost £500bn, across various government departments are classed as being either in doubt, hindered by problems, or virtually unachievable. Does this demonstrate a well functioning governing system?
In previous eras — including his favourite period — 1942–48 when the post war social, security and economic settlement was forged, referendums were regarded as foreign — as Thatcher later said ‘tools of dictators’, but Hennessy seems to have raised no profound analysis of the drawbacks of referendums.
One gets the impression he wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of any leading politician or bureaucrat . On the occasions he strays into policy he becomes superficial. He is pro the renewal of the nuclear deterrent to ‘retain credibility’ , but does not ask in what sense it makes us ‘credible’, or how it will help to halt further nuclear proliferation among the 18 countries that have shown an inclination to acquire nuclear weapons. Under the Hennessy-lauded governing system, the renewal was essentially covert since so much work had gone ahead prior to the formal decision, that parliament was faced with a fait- accompli.
He seems content with the over -populated , non elected House of Lords praising its ‘collective expertise’ . Surprise, surprise he is happy to continue being Lord Hennessy.
