How to approach this most extraordinary of weeks in Britain’s political life?
Let us start with the death of The Queen, and the advent of King Charles III. The death of a 96-year old lady cannot truly be called tragic. My initial response was shock, but in all honesty, grief was quickly superseded by another emotion it took me some time to recognize.
That reaction turns out to be rather simple: wonder. Wonder that she carried her duty the same to the very end of her days, with scarcely a deviation in word or deed. (Though who knows what she thought.) By plodding on, pursuing a line that was simple and clear to her, she became a living wonder. What an achievement!
I was in reasonably close proximity to her only once, when she distributed the Maundy Money in York in 2012, and my over-riding memory then was of the simple happiness she engendered all around us by merely stepping out of her limousine. How did she manage that? Answer: she was a wonder.
So this piece is dedicated to plodders, to those who achieve greatness not by brilliance but by a peculiar steadfastness in duty which, on the whole, bends towards the good of humanity. Let us hope Charles III plods the same line.
The keynote of Britain’s change of government has been the eviction of the undoubtedly ‘brilliant’ and gallivanting Boris Johnson, and his replacement by Liz Truss, who is immediately dull and wooden but who, if we are lucky, may in time turn out to be a plodder.
The signs are good: Mrs Truss is an accountant, and there are plenty of accountants joining the government. Hurrah.
Britain certainly needs plodders at the top right now. So many of the top ranks of our public life current seem to be occupied by brilliant people who, not content with the humdrum nature of the duty assigned them, discover their true calling is to fight for a more inclusive/better/fairer (you can complete this list yourself). These pursuits are wholly more exciting than the day-job, so leech attention and time away from it.
And thus it is that administration important but dull jobs begin to corrode. Consider the erosion of service at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. It’s not a pulse-quickener, the DVSA: among other things, it administers driving tests. Not exciting, but really important. Waiting times for driving tests are still running between three and six months, with backlogs inherited from the pandemic. A true plodder at the top would know in his/her bones that this cannot be tolerated. A true plodder would be realize that though the job may be humdrum, it is a vitally important way of liberating possibilities for the young. Or cancelling them, as it is now.
Let us hope that DVSA CEO Loveday Ryder, who describes herself as “a decisive extravert [sic, sp]” whose “natural style is quick-fire ‘challenge and solve’” may yet discover her inner plodder. Though the spelling mistake isn’t encouraging.
Who knows? Maybe plodding can be a key Social Democrat virtue? Maybe we will plod the Long March to victory. So I’ll leave you with a limerick from that great plodder Clement Atlee:
"Few thought he was even a starter.
There were many in life who were smarter.
But he finished PM,
A CH, an OM,
An earl and a Knight of the Garter."
Michael Taylor / Coldwater Economics / Coldwater Economics Substack