SpAds and spending
Sajid Javid always seemed to be an odd choice as Chancellor of the Exchequer in this government. It should be no real surprise that he hasn’t lasted the course.
Boris Johnson’s appointment of Sajid Javid as chancellor seemed strange to me. The recent history of successful UK governments is of Prime Ministers and Chancellors being on the same page, politically if not personally. Both the partnerships between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and between David Cameron and George Osborne were key drivers of the moderation of their parties. Both these Labour and Conservative modernisation projects were driven by politicians who spent around half a decade pushing their party in a particular direction. They engaged in battles with the rest of their parties in order to change the way they were seen by the public and how they would act in government, making a break with the past. The partnerships between the leader and (initially shadow) chancellor, already on the same page politically, were forged in these fights to make their parties more electable and break with a past that had put the public off. They were together at the start and on the journey throughout, even if not everything ended up as they would have wanted it to.
This shared ideological mission doesn’t seem to be the case with Johnson and Javid. While Johnson seems to be changing his party, Javid does not seem to fit well within the project. In part this is because Johnson’s modernisation project comes after a decade in government, rather than in opposition.
It is worth noting the similarities and differences between the Cameron/Osborne government and that led by Johnson. The governments that Cameron led were driven by the pursuit of fiscal austerity. The moderate image that Cameron attempted to forge was combined with that fiscal position to lead to six years in government. Theresa May acted as a gateway to the new type of Conservatism, with commitments to engage actively in the economy through an Industrial Strategy for example. Her battles with Philip Hammond over the same issues of increased public spending foreshadowed the disagreements between Johnson and Javid. It may be that Johnson’s majority has given him the authority to make sure he gets what he wants.
The Johnson government has been very light on its ideology, and indeed policy so far. There is a budget in less than a month, but it is possible to get an idea of where the government will head longer term. There have been high profile commitments to
· Increased spending on the NHS
· £5 billion investment in local transport services
Javid, however, is a more traditional, and fiscally conservative, Conservative. There have been rumours that he was reluctant to commit to the largess that his leader has promised. Though under Javid the Conservatives abandoned the previous fiscal rule to reduce the UK’s deficit, he adopted a new one whereby day-to-day spending could not exceed total revenues. As a result, Javid sent a letter to all departments demanding they cut their budget by five percent.
Things came to a head when Javid resigned as chancellor. The BBC reports Javid saying that “no self-respecting minister” could accept the demand to sack his aides. However, the lack of a strong partnership between Johnson and Javid means that this may have, as always, come down to politics. Javid’s fiscally conservative instincts always seemed likely to come into conflict with the new era of Conservative enthusiasm for public spending.
Finally, it means that all members of the Great Offices of State voted to leave the European Union. These are outlines of the new, modernised Conservative Party. It makes sense for the Prime Minister to have a chancellor who is a driving force behind that change, and so makes it little surprise that Javid did not last.
