The Economist - Britain

Local elections may show a reconfiguration of British politics [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:45 -0700

THE count took place in near silence, it was that close. As ballot boxes were brought into the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, the only noise was the flutter of votes being tallied, recalls Andrew Mitchell, a local Conservative MP. In the end Andy Street, the Conservative candidate, was elected mayor of the West Midlands, a Labour heartland. Predictions followed that his triumph augured a Tory landslide in the general election due the following month. A year on from Mr Street’s victory, things look rather different. “He wouldn’t win it today,” says Mr Mitchell, bluntly.

The West Midlands has long been a turning point that failed to turn for the Conservatives. Rather than herald their resurgence in the region, Mr Street’s victory was followed by a Tory washout. But ahead of local elections due on May 3rd, the Conservatives hope—once again—that the West Midlands could provide a few bright spots on what is likely to be a dark night for the party. Labour, while expecting to make gains overall, could still lose ground in a few key places. The two parties are locked in an ungainly waltz, gliding into one part of the country while losing their footing in another.

The national picture looks grim for the Conservatives. Nearly half of England’s local councils, including its largest cities, are holding elections (see map). Some, such as Manchester, are close to one-party states for Labour, which also looks likely to tighten its grip on London. Local elections are usually tough on the governing party, and after the Tories’ eight years in power, in which they have presided over deep cuts to local services and the turbulence of Brexit, next month’s vote will be no exception. Austerity has seeped up. The poorest were first to suffer its impact. Now its effects are being felt by those who are more comfortable. Well-off boroughs like Trafford, just outside Manchester, look likely to break for Labour.

Labour, however, faces its own troubles. Although the party will cement its control of Britain’s cities, it may slip back in towns. Take Walsall. The marginal council, on the outskirts of Birmingham, may be one of the few sources of solace for the Tories. Last year the northern part of the borough returned a Conservative MP—a keen Brexiteer in an area where 74% voted to leave—for the first time since 1976. Labour’s membership has bulged in metropolitan areas, with some local parties trebling in size; in Walsall it has risen by barely a third. Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s left-wing leader, is locally “seen as a bit of a buffoon”, reckons Mike Bird, the leader of the borough’s Conservatives.

Both parties are picking the carcass of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which won almost a fifth of the vote in Walsall in 2015. Brexit is less of an issue than it was, with Britain’s departure from the EU now seen as a matter of when rather than whether, argues Sean Coughlan, Labour’s local leader. “People are now looking for a different offer: support, investment and communities,” he says. In nearby Dudley, where five seats are held by a deflating UKIP, the Conservatives are confident of taking control (Theresa May paid a visit to the Black Country town this week). But Labour’s strategists are optimistic. An assumption that the Tories would be the sole beneficiaries of UKIP’s implosion proved wrong in last year’s general election. Disaffected Labour voters “hate the Tories far, far more than they might distrust Corbyn,” says one former Labour staffer.

In Birmingham, as in most big cities, Labour is expected to extend its already-comfortable lead. This is despite a long-running strike by rubbish collectors that left the city resembling a dump for much of last summer. A small chance of a shock remains. Unlike some other cities going to the polls, Birmingham is not a Labour fief. The Conservatives ran it as part of a coalition as recently as 2012. The number of councillors is being reduced from 120 to 101, creating more uncertainty.

But Tory attempts to woo Brummie voters are chequered. So-called “Erdington Conservatism”, which argued that Tory policy should focus on the working-class, such as residents of that deprived area of the city, briefly flourished in the party under the influence of Nick Timothy, a former aide to Mrs May. It did not work. Nine of Birmingham’s ten MPs are Labour. “The position for Birmingham is difficult,” says Mr Mitchell in his constituency office behind an undertaker’s in Sutton Coldfield, a Tory blue dot on Birmingham’s otherwise red electoral map.

There is a danger of reading too much into local elections. Labour performed dreadfully in those in May 2017, and shockingly better in the general election one month later, points out Ben Page, head of Ipsos MORI, a pollster. Turnout may be low—it is the fourth vote in three years, after two general elections and a referendum—making results still less predictable.

British politics is in an oddly frozen state, which the local elections are unlikely to thaw. Labour colouring cities a deeper shade of red will do little to improve its prospects of power if it also loses ground in towns. The occasional foray into Labour heartlands will not bring the Conservatives any closer to a majority unless they can maintain a toehold in cities. This dilemma is clearest in Birmingham and its surrounding towns. Whoever can crack the West Midlands is well placed to crack the rest of the country.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

Delivering a prince in Britain costs less than the average American birth [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:44 -0700

THE fifth in line to the throne arrived in some style on April 23rd. The private Lindo wing of St Mary’s hospital in London, where the as-yet-unnamed prince made his entrance, offers luxurious suites, afternoon tea and a comprehensive wine list for celebrating parents. Yet the cost to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was probably slightly less than the price of delivering the average baby in America. In 2015 the Lindo wing charged £5,670 ($8,900) for 24 hours in a deluxe room and a natural delivery. A survey in the same year by the International Federation of Health Plans found that the average fee for such a delivery in America was $10,808. Insurers cover most of the cost, but parents are still left with a bill of about $3,000—and perhaps a feeling of being royally ripped off.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

Wales, a one-party state, prepares for a transition of power [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:44 -0700

THE resignation of Carwyn Jones on April 21st took almost everyone by surprise. Wales’s first minister had been in the job for nearly a decade and only last month had told reporters that he had no plans to quit. Even some of his fellow Labour cabinet ministers had not got wind of his plans.

His departure seems to be a belated consequence of the suicide last November of Carl Sargeant, a former Welsh cabinet minister. In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein affair and the subsequent run of allegations of inappropriate behaviour by politicians, unspecified complaints were made against Sargeant. Mr Jones promptly sacked him. Four days later, Sargeant took his own life. His death shook Welsh politics and led some to call for Mr Jones’s resignation. One of the three probes set up in light of the death is looking at how he handled the dismissal.

An unfavourable verdict would stain a reasonable record. Mr Jones steered a poor country through a time of biting austerity, which started just after he took office. He won more powers for the devolved Welsh government—though they have not been used to great effect, at least in health and education. He proved to be a successful campaigner. Ahead of last year’s general election, the Welsh Conservatives were expected to make gains. Instead, a campaign led by Mr Jones saw Labour increase its tally of seats by three.

His job was made easier by Labour’s dominance in Wales. It is in effect a one-party state, says Roger Awan-Scully of Cardiff University. Labour has run the devolved government—most recently with the support of the Liberal Democrats—since it was established in 1999 and won the most seats at every general election since 1922. In parts of Wales the only political competition in the past century has been between Labour candidates. Rival parties complain that Labour poaches their brightest politicians.

There are downsides to this dominance. A lack of external pressure makes Welsh Labour prone to infighting. More seriously, a long period in power unchallenged can cause a “living decay”, with little incentive for the incumbent to come up with new ideas, says Richard Wyn Jones, also of Cardiff University.

Labour’s next leader is likely to be chosen using a system that weighs the votes of parliamentarians and trade unions more heavily than those of party members (the national Labour Party ditched this system in 2014, paving the way for the election of Jeremy Corbyn, a grassroots favourite). The process is under review, following a close election to the party’s deputy leadership. Carolyn Harris beat Julie Morgan despite winning fewer votes among members. Ms Morgan does not dispute the result, but says that if the same thing were to happen in the forthcoming leadership election it would be “unacceptable”.

The contest will take place in the autumn. So far only Mark Drakeford, the finance minister, has thrown his hat into the ring. He is to the left of Mr Jones, and the most Corbynite of the potential candidates. Whoever wins will oversee the aftermath of Brexit, which Wales backed despite being a big recipient of EU funds. Perhaps even trickier will be renewing Welsh Labour while it remains in power, with little pressure to change.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

The fight over a customs union is a proxy for a bigger Brexit battle [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:39 -0700

IT WAS hardly discussed during the referendum campaign. Yet the question of whether to seek a customs union with the European Union after Brexit has become an unexpected political flashpoint. Theresa May’s government is against the idea, but fears that Parliament is not on its side. Earlier this month the House of Lords voted that Britain should stay in a customs union. With Labour and a clutch of Tory rebels in favour, the Commons may soon follow suit.

The customs union is really a proxy for a bigger question: how closely aligned should Britain stay with the EU after Brexit? Mrs May is in a quandary. She wants to reassure pro-Brexit Tories that she is sticking to her red lines of leaving the single market and customs union, creating scope for regulatory divergence and an independent trade policy. But she also wants a workable deal that satisfies businessfolk and prevents a hard border in Ireland.

It is not hard to see why most businesses and trade unions want a customs union. By eliminating customs and rules-of-origin checks, it would facilitate goods trade between Britain and the market that takes almost half its exports. Promised free-trade deals with third countries like America are uncertain and would not make up for lost EU trade. Even after a transition period, Britain may lack the staff, computer systems and sheer physical space needed for customs controls at its ports.

Then there is the Irish border. The government has promised to avoid infrastructure, checks or controls, either through a “customs partnership”, under which it would collect duties on behalf of the EU, or with whizzy and untested new technology. Brexiteers point to the EU’s borders with Switzerland or Norway as examples to follow. Yet this ignores that both do in fact have border infrastructure, checks and controls on lorries. The Commons Northern Ireland committee has said there are no examples anywhere of similar borders without physical customs controls.

This may explain why the EU does not believe in the government’s solutions. It insists instead on a third, fallback option that keeps Northern Ireland in a customs union and in tight regulatory alignment with Ireland. In the formulation that Mrs May accepted in principle in December, any such answer would have to apply to the whole country, to avoid a border in the Irish Sea. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, calls this idea a reserve parachute that will not be used. He believes the EU’s emphatic rejection of Britain’s preferred two options is a mere negotiating tactic.

The customs union has disadvantages besides making free-trade deals with third countries harder. As Turkey has found in its customs union with the EU, it does not cover services, which make up some 80% of Britain’s economy. And it would mean that any future EU trade deals would open Britain’s market to third countries, without giving it reciprocal access. Moreover, a customs union alone would not avert an Irish border. That would also require close alignment with single-market rules for most goods, most notably agrifoods.

The cabinet, like Parliament, remains split over the customs union. Brexiteers are worried. Several fear that Mrs May’s customs partnership, which Jacob Rees-Mogg, one Tory MP, calls “cretinous”, could evolve into a customs union. Some have taken to labelling the customs union a protectionist racket, wrongly claiming that it means heavy tariffs on African farm exports (most of which are in fact tariff-free). Yet hints from the EU that it might offer Britain some say in future trade deals will keep the customs union option very much alive.

The government will surely put off any binding votes on the matter for as long as it can, perhaps until the autumn. Mr Davis hinted this week that the Irish border question may not be settled before October, or even later. He noted that Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, had said he would prefer a good agreement to an early one. Yet the ultimate Brexit deadline of March 29th 2019 cannot be easily postponed. And there will be many chances for Parliament to force the customs issue before then.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

British professionals revolt as austerity hits the middle class [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:38 -0700

ON APRIL 9th Gemma Owen appeared in Swansea Crown Court accused of murdering a pensioner, John Williams, at his home in Pentrechwyth. A straightforward hearing—except that it had to be adjourned because the legal firm assigned to Ms Owen had been unable to find a barrister to defend her. It was one of the first cases to be affected by a criminal barristers’ strike that started on April 1st.

It is not only the barristers. University and college lecturers only recently suspended their own strike action, accepting a joint committee of experts to arbitrate with the government in a dispute over cuts to their pensions. In 2016 junior doctors went on strike for the first time in 40 years, and their grievances simmer on.

They have all been protesting against cuts to their compensation or conditions, and the more general deterioration of the services they work in as the government reins in spending. After slicing through public services and handouts for the poorest, austerity is now biting hard at the professional middle classes.

Take the criminal barristers, of whom there are about 4,000 in England and Wales. They are striking against a change to the fee structure used when they take on cases in which the client qualifies for legal aid. The government wants to pay barristers according to the complexity of a case, rather than the volume of material that they have to read. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) argues that the change is cost-neutral. But Angela Rafferty, head of the Criminal Bar Association, argues that barristers doing work-intensive cases will lose out.

More to the point, though, the barristers are protesting against deep cuts to the justice system since the government’s austerity drive started in 2010. In 2016 the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee described a system “close to breaking-point”. Central government spending on criminal justice fell by 26% between 2010 and 2016. The MOJ has suffered more than most Whitehall departments, losing 34% of its budget during the same period, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It has to find a further £600m ($835m) in savings by 2020. “This is not a fiery uprising,” says Ms Rafferty. “More an unprecedented feeling of we’ve had enough, of humiliation and shame in the system.”

In the case of the lecturers, the axe has fallen on their generous pensions, part of what academics argue is an “unofficial covenant” to compensate for their relatively modest pay. In 2011 their final-salary pension scheme was closed to new entrants. Since then, members have been asked repeatedly to pay in more. The last straw was a proposal to move everyone over to a defined-contribution scheme. According to the lecturers’ union, this could wipe £10,000 a year off the average academic’s pension.

John Ralfe, a pensions expert, argues that lecturers cannot feel too aggrieved at the proposed closure of their defined-benefit scheme, as these “have closed almost entirely in the private sector.” However, as with the barristers, the proposal comes on top of what lecturers see as a steady deterioration in their working conditions. There is particular anger at the “casualisation” of the profession, a trend common to other parts of the economy. Increasingly, academics find they can get only short-term contracts; lecturers have held protests against zero-hours contracts, to which workers in unskilled jobs have been subjected for years.

For now, the lecturers seem to have won. On April 13th university authorities agreed to talks, promising to maintain current levels of pension provision. The government also had to make a few concessions to the doctors to end their dispute. Tangling with the mobilised middle classes is a risky business.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

England’s single-sex schools are struggling to recruit pupils [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:38 -0700

IN 2021 Charterhouse’s hushed cloisters and vast, immaculate lawns will welcome new arrivals. For the first time since the boarding school’s foundation in 1611, girls will be among the “yearlings”, the term for those joining at the age of 13. Alex Peterken, the school’s head teacher, is excited by the change. He believes that co-education holds many advantages, one of which is that it helps militate against a “macho, alpha-male culture, based on hierarchy and order”.

For centuries, that was a big part of what boys’ boarding schools offered. And they were not alone in their approach. Until the 1960s all schools, with the exception of “one or two radical ventures”, were single-sex, says Alan Smithers, an education expert at the University of Buckingham. There was a big move towards mixed schooling with the introduction of comprehensive (ie, non-selective) secondary education, which offered a chance to reorganise the school system along more egalitarian lines. In the aftermath, the number of single-sex schools continued to decline.

The trend shows no signs of stopping. In 2010 542,125 pupils in England attended a single-sex school. Now just 509,910, or 6%, of pupils do. And although the shift has been fastest in the private sector, where schools have little choice but to respond to market incentives, it is noticeable in the state sector, too. Altogether 889 single-sex schools remain, a narrow majority of them funded by the state.

The decline is not for want of support in education circles. Those in favour argue that single-sex schools allow pupils to flourish, free from the distracting influence of the opposite sex. Last year Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, wrote a defence of girls’ schools. She argued that they helped women “take their full place in a world which is, to some degree, loaded against them.” In 2016 an analysis of English schools by SchoolDash, a data firm, found that single-sex schools appeared to provide a small boost to the results of girls, but not to those of boys.

The trend away from single-sex education is mostly driven by boys’ schools, which like the better exam results provided by female pupils, as well as the opportunity to double the size of their market. Girls’ schools then have little choice but to follow suit.

Cultural change is perhaps the biggest reason for the shift away from segregation. Girls have long been seen, “sometimes erroneously”, as a civilising influence on boys, says Susan Hamlyn of the Good Schools Guide education consultancy. This belief increasingly combines with a parental desire for an education that reflects the modern world. “I’ve had lots of conversations with fathers who go, ‘Hmmm, I had a great time [at my boys’ school]...but I would rather not think of the way I behaved towards women between the ages of 18 and 25’,” says Mr Peterken. Parents’ habit of unthinkingly sending their offspring to their old school has also largely come to an end, bringing more parental scrutiny of the education on offer.

The fact that schools are moving in a European direction (single-sex education is rare on the continent) is not entirely coincidental. According to the Independent Schools Council, which represents private schools, the number of non-British European pupils enrolled with its members has increased by 42% since 2014. Single-sex schools have struggled to take advantage of this growth, says Will Orr-Ewing, director of Keystone Tutors, a tutoring firm, since European parents, for the most part, “just do not understand single-sex education, do not believe in it, do not like it.” Chinese and Middle Eastern parents are said to be keener.

Growing internationalism is not the only demographic shift behind the co-educational trend. A generation or two ago it was rare for children to grow up in households in which both parents worked. Today 60% do. This was one factor in Charterhouse’s decision to go co-ed. “Lots of parents have boys and girls,” notes Mr Peterken, “and they’re really, really busy, often both with high-flying jobs.” Putting all their children in one place cuts down on faff, both in choosing a school and shuttling children around.

Single-sex schools are unlikely to die out. Many are adapting to new circumstances. In Bristol and Newcastle, small girls’ schools have merged to form more viable institutions. There remains a religious constituency for single-sex education, particularly among Muslims and Catholics. (Eleven single-sex “free schools”, which are funded by the state but run by organisations including charities and religious groups, have been founded, often to cater to this demand.) And those single-sex schools that remain tend to be well run, meaning they frequently play a central role in “chains” of schools run by non-profit organisations, says Sue Higgins of the Association of State Girls’ Schools.

But the remaining ones look increasingly odd in a school system that is overwhelmingly comprehensive and co-educational. As Mr Smithers notes, a widespread emphasis on equality means that it becomes harder and harder “to sustain the argument that children have to be separate to be equal.”

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

Online porn will soon require age checks in Britain [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:38 -0700

AS IN most countries, only adults are allowed to buy pornography in British shops. In theory, the same is true online. In practice, of course, obtaining pornography on the internet is easy at any age. Prodded by children’s charities, the government wants to tighten things up. The Digital Economy Act, which was passed in 2017, included a requirement that pornographic websites check their users’ age before allowing them access. The rules were due to come into force this month. But in March, buried at the bottom of an unrelated press release, the government pushed the date back to the end of the year.

Quietly postponing a policy is often the first step towards abandoning it. But not, it seems, in this case. The government has appointed the British Board of Film Classification, the country’s film censor, to enforce the new rules on age-verification. The BBFC is now consulting the public on how it should go about doing that job, with a view to presenting its ideas to Parliament in the summer.

The general idea is not new. Like many other countries, Britain already imposes age checks on gambling websites, which ask their users for details such as their names and addresses, which can be checked against public records like the electoral roll. But that could be a problem with porn. One of the advantages of internet pornography is that it avoids the embarrassment involved in buying a magazine in a shop. Customers may be reluctant to hand over identifying details that could leak—or be hacked—in future.

David Austin, the BBFC’s boss, is at pains to point out that porn remains legal, and that the law is not intended to make life harder for the 56% of British adults who admitted in a survey in 2014 that they had watched online porn at least “occasionally”. Rather than run age-checking schemes itself, the BBFC will oversee their development by other organisations. But, says Mr Austin, there are many ways that such checks might be done. Users could be required to give a credit-card number, or details of a mobile-phone contract, both of which can be obtained only by adults. Another idea, for the more privacy-conscious, is to allow people to buy, in physical shops, a numerical code that would provide access to the forbidden fruit online. Such numbers could be sold in the same way as alcohol and cigarettes, with identification requested only if the shopkeeper thinks a customer looks suspiciously young.

The BBFC will have the power to require internet service providers to block access to sites that flout the rules, as well as to levy fines and to require payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard to cut off the site’s source of income.

The government says the law is designed to protect children who stumble across porn unintentionally. But for those depraved teenagers seeking out the stuff deliberately, things seem unlikely to get much harder. Attempts in Britain to block piracy websites have proved easy to circumvent, via virtual private networks (which hide what is passing through an internet connection) and proxy sites (which disguise a user’s eventual destination). A schoolyard black market in login IDs seems inevitable. The law is designed to target commercial porn providers. But plenty of porn is available through search engines and social media, even though it is not their main business.

Ironically, the law could prove a boon for a Luxembourg-based firm called MindGeek, which is reckoned to be the world’s biggest porn merchant. The firm is one of the biggest bandwidth-users, servicing more than 100m visitors a day across its various websites, among which is Pornhub, the most popular porn site. It has an age-verification product called AgeID, which is in use in Germany (which already requires age-verification for porn). Assuming it gets the nod from the BBFC, MindGeek is ready to deploy the system for British users.

Other porn sites would be able to use AgeID to comply with the new laws, for a fee. Many pornographers resent the prospect of paying an already-dominant firm. But MindGeek’s market power could make AgeID the most-used piece of age-verification software across the web—and not just in porn. In response to new privacy rules, WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook, is raising the minimum age for European users to 16. Video-streaming sites, from YouTube to the BBC, offer violent, sweary content which, like porn, is supposed to be off-limits to children. It is an interesting question, says Mr Austin, whether age-verification rules might one day apply to them, too.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG

Amber Rudd finds herself in a hostile environment [YHIBLOG]

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:02:37 -0700

LAST November the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) held a drinks party to fete the younger generation of Tory MPs. The message was simple: far from being the zombified and lobotomised monstrosity that it appeared, the Conservative Party was, in fact, busily renewing itself, thanks to a new generation of MPs drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and fizzing with ideas. The star of the show was the home secretary, Amber Rudd.

The choice of Ms Rudd was significant for both chronological and ideological reasons. Chronologically, she represented a link between the establishment and the new generation. Ideologically, she represented a unifying force in a divided party. Here was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite think-tank championing the leader of the Remain faction in the cabinet. Lord Saatchi, the CPS’s chairman, introduced Ms Rudd by reading a list of five home secretaries who had gone on to become prime minister.

Today Ms Rudd is fighting for her political life, thanks to the abysmal treatment of the “Windrush generation”, Caribbean migrants who came to Britain in 1948-71, who have recently been harassed in innumerable ways (including being threatened with deportation) because they can’t produce paperwork to prove they are British citizens. Labour has called for Ms Rudd to resign. She faced blistering questioning from a parliamentary committee on April 25th about the Windrush affair, and what it says about Britain’s treatment of immigrants.

Windrush is only the latest—if by far the most serious—in a succession of setbacks for the home secretary. Britain has seen a surge in knife crime and acid attacks. In February and March London’s murder rate briefly exceeded New York City’s. The Conservative right has added its voice to Ms Rudd’s Labour critics. Fraser Nelson, the editor of the pro-Brexit Spectator, has criticised liberal Tories such as Ms Rudd for misinterpreting Brexit as a vote for closing the borders rather than embracing a more global future. Peter Oborne, a Daily Mail columnist, has accused her of being overpromoted—she became home secretary after only six years in Parliament—and unpatriotic to boot.

How badly damaged is she? Probably not fatally, unless there is another scandal festering in the Home Office’s basement. Ms Rudd has tarnished her reputation with her handling of the Windrush disaster. She blamed her underlings at the Home Office, which was hardly statesmanlike. Her statement to the House of Commons that she found the cases “heartbreaking” provoked a stinging response from Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian journalist who broke the story: why, then, had the home secretary delivered nothing but pro forma answers when the paper contacted her about those very cases almost every week for the past six months? In 2016 Ms Rudd also horrified her friends on the Conservative Party’s left by demanding that employers publish lists of their foreign-born employees. But for all that, her primary sin is administering—or perhaps mis-administering—a policy that she inherited from her predecessor.

The principle architect of the Windrush mess, in so far as there is an architect, is Ms Rudd’s boss, Theresa May. Mrs May not only developed the “hostile environment” policy that was meant to discourage illegal immigrants from staying in the country. She also pursued David Cameron’s target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands, with a determination worthy of Inspector Javert in Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables”. She insists that students should be included in the numbers, despite the opposition of almost everyone else in the cabinet, including Ms Rudd.

Even more than the Maybot’s rigidity, the policy was driven by Britain’s deep ambivalence about both immigration and identity documents. Under New Labour Britain pursued one of the most liberal immigration policies in the world, opening its doors to eastern Europeans after 2004. It then slammed the doors shut. Britain is one of only a handful of EU countries that do not require people to have ID cards. But at the same time it is increasingly demanding that people who receive the benefits of the welfare state should be able to prove they are in the country legally. Windrush is the product not of racism, but of the collision between the demands of the bureaucratic state and Britain’s commitment to ancestral rights.

Ms Rudd is fortunate in that her strengths outweigh her weaknesses, making her unusual in the current cabinet. She is a natural member of Britain’s officer class, devoid of clever ideas but just the sort of person you need to keep the show on the road. She also has flashes of star power. During the referendum debate she skewered Boris Johnson by describing him as “not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening”. And her pro-European views make her hard to sack. Removing her would upset the most important balance in politics.

Trial by fire

This is not to say that Ms Rudd will be able to relax any time soon. The Windrush scandal continues to metastasise, recently ensnaring citizens from other Commonwealth countries, including Canada. It also raises thorny questions of both competence and culture. Why should EU citizens think that they will be spared the Home Office’s bureaucratic ineptitude after Brexit? And why should members of ethnic minorities trust the Tories again? The Tories are rapidly losing their claim to be the party of law and order, as Labour blames them for cutting police numbers by some 20,000 since 2010. Ms Rudd is fighting to shore up a minuscule majority in her Hastings and Rye constituency, making her acutely sensitive to public opinion. All of this will test her like never before. But that is surely no bad thing in somebody who aspires to the top job. Ms Rudd’s former husband, A.A. Gill, used to refer to her as “the Silver Spoon” because of her privileged background. Britain will soon discover whether the Silver Spoon is in fact made of steel.

Britain

Apr 28th 2018

YHIBLOG