Government is in stasis. The Cabinet is openly defying the authority of the prime minister.
The rozzers are rapping at the door of Number 10. Big decisions are not being made. Initiatives are not getting off the ground.
Enjoy it while it lasts, because it cannot go on.
Any time soon Gordon Brown will be bounding up the stairs of Number 10, fizzing with ideas. Earnest and eager not-so-young men will begin dusting off the plans for their first 100 days. After a decade of waiting, they will be itching to get cracking.
This will be scrapped; that will be created; reviews will be established; six-point plans will be published. Decisive, bold measures will be driven through by a newly invigorated government determined to prove that it has not run out of steam. And why not? It’s been at least 18 months since our last ten-year plan for transport.
There will be revelations too. Suddenly, we may discover that those areas of government that were not Brown’s responsibility have been run even more badly than we had grasped.
Urgent action will be needed to turn things around. Busy, busy, busy. How the political journalists will love it. They will be back in business, breaking news of initiatives and plans. No-one will remember how similar it is to all that frantic activity we saw when this Labour government arrived in power.
Forget all that stuff about how Brown is going to have to learn to do ‘the emotion thing’. A sense of purpose will be the order of the day.
Now there might be those out there who consider this to be a good thing. After all, there are problems to be tackled. There’s the shambles that has always been the Home Office; the still atrocious secondary education on offer, especially in our cities; the unfinished business of the reform of the House of Lords.
But how well were these tackled when the government was a living dynamo – a veritable powerhouse?
Of course, there have been lapses. One might question whether our political masters gave us quite the degree of decisive leadership needed during the Shilpa Shetty crisis.
Brown was quick to speak but, denied the ultimate authority, there was little he could really do. The prime minister was patently ready to weigh in but was forced to pull his punches by the Essex mafia in Cabinet who had urged him not to tar Jo and Danielle with the same brush.
Had this happened six months later government might have been back on the front foot. The Big Brother (Hate Crimes) Bill and the Jade taskforce might have made all the difference.
The awful secret is that for all the caterwauling of the political classes, Britain is managing to cope with the stasis.
After all, how is the Home Office faring now that John Reid has been giving it his full attention?
Everyone will have their own views over the issue of gay adoption. But even those of us who support the measure can hardly argue that it absolutely had to be done now. This year; next year — we’ll get by.
Does the country — let alone the school system — really need another Education Act? The 1944 Act seemed to serve the test of time for some decades: since the 1980s we seem to be running at the rate of one or two a year.
As we struggle to adapt to the issues of multiculturalism, does anybody actually think a few changes to the national curriculum are the answer?
This is not to say we do not need a government. There is much that needs administering and arranging. The taxes will still roll in; the local government settlements will be completed.
Even the delayed Comprehensive Spending Review will still occur. Every now and then a real decision must be made – although in a globalised era the impact of any decision taken by Britain can be overstated.
But the bureaucracy is continuing to function; unavoidable decisions will still be unavoidable.
The stasis is in those vast areas of government intervention that fall into the categories of unnecessary — desirable but inessential, well-intentioned but probably unsuccessful.
When one thinks about it, a government in which only really essential things can get done seems rather attractive. Most of what is being lost can wait (sometimes for an eternity).
Even accepting the catastrophe of Iraq and the home-grown terror, Britain is enjoying a period of stability. There might be lots to be done but how much of it needs to be – or can actually – be done by government? Actions might be louder than words, but sometimes inaction speaks volumes.
Stasis is underrated. Tony Blair has performed a public service by pledging to resign within the next few months. He should continue being about to resign in the next few months for many years to come.
