A Duty of Care by Peter Hennessy
Peter Hennessy is one of my favourite political historians who has written some excellent books about the social and political developments in Britain post the Second World War. He is always a welcome addition to radio and television programmes, and Reflections, his series of BBC radio interviews with heavyweight politicians of the recent past - Heseltine, Kinnock, Ashdown, Blair - was a masterclass in how to gently coax revealing insights from substantial figures. In addition to his lightly worn but deep intellect, his particular approach is to view political events in an historical context. This focus enables him to find the roots for what is happening now in the past as well as uncovering philosophical links and repeated trends of behaviour.
Which brings me to ‘A Duty of Care’, a book written whilst he was shielding during covid and pondering what impact it would have on Britain when we emerged from lockdown to a world with new challenges. In order to look forward to what he hoped would be a potential period of national renewal, Hennessy looks back to what he sees as the rich and substantial socio-economic improvements, broadly supported by both main political parties, that emerged at the end of the second world war. His idea and hope is that the sense of all being in this together shown during the covid crisis – that’s if you forget Partygate, Hancock, the billions wasted on useless protective clothing, etc - is an echo of the spirit that drove the country forward during the war and led to the national reforms that began with Attlee’s government in 1945.
Now before I begin to unpack his thesis, I should add that despite having never met Hennessy it is clear that like Attenborough he is patently decent. In all his media appearances, including recently on Desert Islands Discs, he comes across as wise, kind and optimistic, with a humorous twinkle in his eye; he’s the sort of person you’d want as a dad or grandad. Therefore, it gives me no pleasure to say that this book seems a sincere, well- meaning failure.
I’ll get to why I’ve come to that conclusion in a short while. However, this being Hennessy, there are still things of value in this short book. As a concise history of the post war governments and the impact of their policies on the socio-economic life of the country, it is informative and illuminating. The story is well known. Attlee’s government, surprisingly to some and especially Churchill, swept into power on the votes of a population rejecting the inequities of the past. The structural changes this government introduced, despite the dire financial situation after six years of war, were broadly carried on by all governments until Thatcher came to power.
At that point, the existing, shared assumption that our capitalist society needed to be tempered by a benevolent government, with involvement in and responsibility for economic and social planning, was replaced. In its stead, Thatcher introduced a market economy approach and echoed Reagan’s idea that government was a problem for the economy and society and not an integral and positive partner. There is, of course, some disagreement about how big a rupture Thatcherism was from the post war political settlement as well as whether we are still living in a version of Thatcher’s Britain. Certainly, inequality has increased on all the different measures available, and the number of families in real poverty seems on the increase. Despite our historical advantages and such short-term blessings as North Sea oil we are becoming less competitive and productive than many other western democracies and the rising economies of the developing world.
Is this simply the result of increased globalisation and the historical decline, including the loss of empire, that has been going on since the mid nineteenth century? Well, Hennessy acknowledges that historical paradigm shift but also seems to link our decline to the rejection of the post war settlement. As I say, many people would dispute how far Thatcher changed the fundamentals of British society. Yes, there were privatisations, union reforms, council house sales and social housing depletion but the state still had a significant role in people’s lives despite the free market rhetoric. I’m also not sure that the attempts by both governments to operate economic and industrial strategies in the 60s and 70s were that effective. However, that is not Hennessy’s main point. He focuses in on the idea of the state caring for its citizens and the notion that we all contribute to society in order that the machinery of government functions effectively for everyone and that, if we falter, there will be reasonable and timely support. It’s hard to argue with him that, at present, it seems this function of the state is under strain. Sewage in the rivers, the difficulty in seeing one’s GP, crippling industrial disputes and a lack of affordable housing are just some of the symptoms of broken Britain. And, of course, this then feeds into an unstable political system where we seek simple solutions to complex political problems.
I’m getting away from Hennessy’s central argument, though. Now, remember this was written during covid, and as my good friend Mark noted, it already seems out of date. Hennessy sees the way we responded to the pandemic as analogous to the spirit of war time Britain. It is inspirational to think of the NHS workers and other key workers risking their own health to keep the country going. It’s the same with the volunteers and our brilliant scientists. Many people did rise to the challenge and, in addition, there were many small acts of kindness that have bolstered my faith in people. Conversely, I could mention the inner government’s sense of criminal exceptionalism and the fraudulent contracts but Hennessy’s point about the behaviour of the majority of people in the country is well made. However, from there he projects a plan to harness this sense of national unity and purpose to enable a New Jerusalem to emerge as lockdown ends. Now, of course, no one could have anticipated Truss and Ukraine, but even without these two disasters Hennessy’s plan seems rooted in wishful thinking. It just seems more of the same under this crumbling Conservative government.
Like the Chinese Communist Party member’s judgement about it being too soon to make a judgement about the French Revolution, it may be too early to judge how we will fare post-covid; but it doesn’t look too good. To be fair to Hennessy, he does offer ideas for what he calls the new politics under the following headings: Social Care; Social Housing; Technical Education; Artificial Intelligence; and Climate Change. This is his conscious effort to provide a blueprint in the vein of The Beveridge Plan published in 1942. That austere academic’s detailed report diagnosed exactly what was holding the country back and was accepted across the political spectrum; and, as Hennessy argues, many of the broad approaches to the policies required were agreed. No such consensus exists today – there seems to be no shared agreement, for example, about what to do about social care and how to fund it.
And here’s my problem with Hennessy’s book – if you’re looking for solutions then you’d be just as well-informed reading reports in The Economist. There are interesting ideas, but little detailed analysis, and little coherence other than a duty of care for the people. There are 125 pages describing how we got to where we are today since 1945, and only 39 pages on his proposals for a new consensus. Perhaps that was the extent of what he wanted to achieve. However, I wanted more – he looks, for example, at schemes to reduce income inequality but admits the idea of a Universal Basic Income is too expensive. Then he rather airily mentions the state setting up a system of Universal Basic Services as “a more likely runner” – great – but fails to explain how it could be implemented.
If I thought there was a political party, or better still a political consensus, pushing forward his blueprint for a new approach to the manifest issues facing the country, then the policies would follow. But there isn’t and so they won’t. Hennessy is still a good chap, though, to use one of his own well-known phrases.