A resource curse

Two Labour backbench MPs, Chris Hinchliff and Neil Duncan-Jordan have written on the PoliticsHome website of their discontent with the leadership’s approach to its backbenchers:
 
‘Time and again, only organised opposition and the threat of a backbench rebellion have succeeded in correcting the government’s course to a more sensible position. In the end, with U-turns only coming at the eleventh hour, after months of ministers asserting their unshakeable determination to proceed regardless, we appear stuck in a cycle of chaos and self-inflicted errors. The Prime Minister’s position would be far more secure if we stopped pretending that party loyalty in Parliament means accepting an unspoken doctrine of cabinet infallibility. A more open, mature and constructive approach that takes the concerns and proposals raised by backbench MPs seriously would serve far better than the hunched, tetchy and defensive response to challenge often exhibited by the government so far.’

Plus ça change! I can hear now the (albeit unspoken) response: ‘Do you not realise why I’m a minister and you’re a mere backbencher? I was chosen for my wisdom. You were chosen for canon fodder, so do your job and leave me to do mine.’ This mindset might be described as ‘Red Box Syndrome’ which comes with associated perks. After all, cream rises does it not? There is a natural order to things, and part of the discipline is about preventing anarchy in the Parliamentary Labour Party. And as we have seen it has produced a very stable government, as Starmer keeps repeating, we don’t want to go back to the days of Truss! He has set himself a very low bar.
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I seem to recall blogging on the occasion of Labour’s landslide that winning such a large majority would eventually be a bane for the leadership. Starmer has wasted no time in making it so.