On the inadequacy of a changing UK, political agreements and the missing Scots

I was impressed by Heidi Allen’s first speech after leaving the Conservatives to join the independent group now called Change UK. How could the Conservative hierarchy ignore such a brilliant talent? But I was disappointed by her performance in a debate on beer and Brexit at King’s College London on 14 May. Ms Allen is now acting leader of Change UK. But even as her title rises, her stature as a politician seems to have fallen. Under gentle questioning from Anand Menon, King’s current Brexit expert, she gave a string of bland, vague responses that suggested she had neither the ability to think rigorously nor the ability to organise effectively.

Ms Allen repeats a host of platitudes about how Britain needs to make better use of expertise. Politics should be run more like a business. Parties should take inventory of the skills and talents of every new MP. Parliament should be run like an old-fashioned gentleman’s club, and so on. There is some truth to this – especially about the skills inventory. But isn’t the call for politics to be run more like a business a little outdated for a party that fancies itself as an agent of change? Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 promising to use his skills as a businessman to shake up Washington DC, and Silvio Berlusconi said the same about Rome in the 1990s. Is Change UK’s boss ill-suited to calling for a more business-like approach to politics? The party has lurched from one disaster to another: failing to build a brand; agonising over its name; openly opposing policies; producing ridiculous and sloppy campaign literature; and, in every respect, allowing itself to be outdone in performance, organisation and thinking by the Brexit Party of the supposedly out-of-touch bigot Nigel Farage.