Our correspondent hears good things from Andrew Griffith MP, but has some remaining doubts
In a previous life, Swift worked with Andrew Griffith, now shadow secretary of state for business and trade. A very successful businessman, Griffith now has the time and opportunity to devote his considerable talents to getting the Conservatives back into government. Or, as he said a few times, ‘a future right-of-centre government’. Hmm…not quite the same, is it dear readers? Sign of the times.
Taking part in a PopConversation with Mark Littlewood, Griffith was sleek, confident, and unlike many who tread the path from business to politics, able to capture issues in a pithy phrase. Are we the party of Makers or Takers?, he observed rhetorically. The next election will me about Show Me, not Trust Me. The patient (the UK economy) is bleeding out. And so on.
But what is the substance? Griffith correctly diagnoses that the last 14 years saw the Conservatives fail to get to grips with the Blair constitutional settlement (yet another example of how Popular Conservatism arguments have conquered on the right). Yet he seemed to envisage a future in a new government would populate the same structure with its own supporters. Apparently there is a whole army of his chums ready to parachute into Whitehall to bend – another evocative phrase – ‘the system to our will’. Swift was led to reflect that dismantling the system altogether might be rather more effective. But perhaps that is in a Starmer-like Phase Two, if we ever get that far.
Dear readers, Swift is certainly not inclined to go studs-up on Griffith. Compared to some of the shadow Cabinet he is extremely sound. Hates ID cards (lesson for the leadership there); led the fight against the colossally damaging (un)Employment Bill; scoffs at net zero; aware of the need to get into office with a radical plan to reshape the economy via deregulation etc. – these are all good. He even had a very intriguing proposition that civil servants’ pay should be linked to GDP increases (and decreases) which would be startling (in a good way). Imagine the reaction from the Permanent Secretaries! The word chainsaw escaped his lips too. Come into office with a radical plan for change. All good to hear.
And yet. There was perhaps a slight flavour of playing to the PopCon gallery rather than gut conviction. Mr. G is an ambitious man. It is hardly a secret that he would relish being Chancellor of the Exchequer one day. Would he be the chap you wanted in the trenches with you when the liberal woke establishment and its pet lawyers came charging towards your lines shouting their terrifying war-cries of human rights, judicial review, child poverty and climate emergency? Swift is not (yet) quite confident. Let us hope he proves such sceptics wrong.