Lee Cain’s resignation is another sign that the government is directionless

Editorial: The government should be so busy with Brexit, Covid-19 and ‘levelling up’ the country that it doesn’t have time for infighting

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It is fair to say that Britain has bigger things to worry about than a man named Lee Cain. It is also apparent that Mr Cain’s job prospects have worried too many people in No 10 for rather too long.  

By all accounts, the prime minister wanted to promote Mr Cain from being in charge of communications to become chief of staff. That, it seems, was what Boris Johnson’s more famous adviser, Dominic Cummings, also had in mind. 

The plan, whatever its merits, was effectively vetoed by a combination of the newly appointed prime ministerial spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, and Mr Johnson’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, who has no official role. It does not suggest that Mr Johnson is head of his own house. Soon, the rumours go, Mr Cain will be followed out by Mr Cummings and other alumni of the 2016 Vote Leave campaign. Mr Cummings reportedly wants to remain until Brexit is finally “done”.  

The squabbling and the departure of Mr Cain are more the symptoms of an underlying malaise at the heart of government, rather than the malaise itself. A freshly elected government with a good majority in parliament and an ambitious programme ought to be so busy that it has no time for infighting. But the Johnson government appears to be utterly without purpose. When a government is surrounded by so much failure it is no surprise that so many of those at the heart of it start to think they could do a better job than the next person. The team ceases to be a team, and the egos start to inflate.

Usually a sure sign of an administration in its latter stages of decay is when its various advisers and factotums start to fight one another on behalf of their rival bosses. It has happened before in the later stages of a premiership, when change is expected, as with the running wars by proxy between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, or Margaret Thatcher and her most senior ministers. This spat within the Johnson entourage marks a bit of a departure, because it is a power struggle between the advisers themselves, with the prime minister an apparently helpless bystander. Personnel management may be added to the lengthening list of prime ministerial weaknesses.

The government has major tasks: getting Brexit “done”, controlling the Covid-19 pandemic and “levelling up” the country. What it lacks is a coherent idea of how to achieve any of them. Busking is fine for a Johnson party conference speech or even an election campaign, but it is no way to run a country, even in easier times than this. It is ironic that Mr Johnson used to complain about the “dither and delay” of parliament when he seemingly cannot decide whether to do what Ms Symonds or Mr Cummings tells him to do.  

If there was a clear sense of purpose, of goals and a set of policies to achieve them, then the key staff around the prime minister, permanent civil servants and political advisers alike, could be allocated their responsibilities and they could get on with them. Job titles, reporting lines and power would be less important if there was more a sense of common endeavour for the greater, national good. Plainly that has been absent, and public administration has suffered.

Perhaps the chaos is why there are so many U-turns and so little consultation of cabinet and MPs. The confusion has been exacerbated by the bullying and departure of senior civil servants, some connected with Mr Cummings’s schemes to turn No 10 into a version of a Nasa mission control room. And whatever became of the scheme to take over the Treasury? Rishi Sunak seems to have more of a grip than his nominal boss. The missing component at the top of government is the lack of a mission, beyond a few slogans, and indeed a competent captain for this moonshot show.