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dismantle accountability’. Labour too had plans to abolish quangos, but the Audit Commission and primary care trusts, however imperfect, would have survived ‘because they make sure government is accountable to the taxpayers’.
Generally, argues Byrne, the government is going hell for leather with its reforms and cuts, and lashing out at public servants on the way. Cameron’s ‘enemies of enterprise’ attack on civil servants is ‘really disappoint- ing’, he says. So is the communities secretary’s attempt to localise blame for the cuts. ‘It’s much more conven- ient for Eric Pickles if council leaders take the blame for thousands of people being put out of work.’ And on ministers’ drive for ‘any willing provider’ to take over public services, Byrne says he is worried about ‘a race to the bottom’. ‘I’m a pluralist, but if the govern- ment forgets to talk about quality and standards, there are great risks.’ The same goes for public service reform. They’ve got it half right, on the power shift out of White- hall, he tells me; but they’ve missed out the crucial bit; rights and guarantees. ‘It’s a free-for-all. You pay your taxes, but have no idea what you get back in return.’ Closer to home though, on his own welfare patch, Byrne is more circumspect. The Welfare Reform Bill is ‘ramshackle’, one of the most ‘half-baked’ pieces of legislation he’s ever seen. So why didn’t he urge Labour MPs to oppose its second reading, rather than abstain? ‘Well, we’re approaching this in a spirit of national con- sensus. We’ve got to be on the side of welfare reform.’ And many of the differences are just ‘managerial’, rather than fundamental, according to a member of his welfare policy group.
But there’s something more at stake too. Byrne’s political antennae tell him that, for the squeezed middle, welfare payments are a big concern. ‘We’ve all had hundreds of conversations on the doorstep about whether too much is given out too freely.’ However misguided some of these views, he’s a great believer in the British public’s ‘sixth sense’ about fairness. This tension, between challenging the most damaging aspects of the government’s programme – while retain- ing credibility with target voters – risks resulting in a kind of ‘stunned torpor’, according to local government expert Tony Travers. He thinks it might be a bit soon for a policy review, particularly with the electoral land- scape so uncertain. ‘Oppositions don’t win elections, after all, governments lose them. The challenge is to
come up with just enough to have something to say, but not too many concrete policies,’ he says. An exercise in ‘studied vagueness’ is how one former Labour policy wonk puts it.
Byrne does seem reluctant to talk about the dreary detail of what, for example, Labour would have done about protecting NHS budgets beyond 2012/13, and its impact on non-protected departments. Or whether he would be making the same level of staff cuts at the Department for Work and Pensions as secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith.
He is much keener on the big picture stuff: Labour’s ‘non-negotiable’ values; his deep belief in community; the heroism of many public servants. Asked what advice he has for fi nance managers having to implement coali- tion cuts, he pauses before saying: ‘Keep your faith in public services.’ He recalls his dad, general manager of Harlow District Council in the 1980s, having acid thrown over his car for making people redundant during Thatcher-era budget cuts. ‘He didn’t come into public service to do that,’ he says sadly. Byrne knows that, barring any accidents, the Opposition has got to play a long game. And he’s per- sonally in it for the long haul. Not just on the running track, where he’s training for the Stratford half- marathon in May, and Birmingham’s in the autumn. Being out of offi ce does have its compensations, like playing more football with his three kids, and not having his family weekends ruined by endless studio rounds. But he’s also got to knock his party into shape, and that’s going to take a while.
Eds in the cloud? Labour leader Ed Miliband and shadow chancellor Ed Balls need to do some blue-sky thinking
Photos: Getty, iStock
And regrets? Well, he has a few. Mainly about Labour’s failure to reconnect. And be openly prouder of its record. Oh and yes, he defi nitely shouldn’t have sent that note. ‘I should have been more cynical about my successors, and realised they’d be the fi rst to break with tradition and reveal its contents,’ he says. Anyway, it could have been worse. He could have left a note saying: sorry, for the time being, we’ve run out of ideas. But that, even for Byrne, would have been a candid message too far.
APRIL 2011 PublicFinance 29
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