Rafe Fletcher: Make Britain competent again

Rafe Fletcher is the founder of CWG.

“Something has gone radically wrong with where elite talent spends its time in this country.” So said Dominic Cummings at a recent Looking for Growth event, as he reflected on the declining quality of British’s politicians. Cummings contrasts the calibre of figures like Pitt the Younger and Winston Churchill with today’s underwhelming bunch.

Abject politicians are the result of admirable British values breeding sub-par consequences. Just as tolerance feeds resignation to managed decline, fair play prioritises the loyal above the competent. Party apparatchiks and spirited constituency MPs end up in cabinet positions because they’ve stuck at it long enough. Rather than possessing any relevant experience or expertise.

A brief football analogy illustrates that point. In the elite game today, most top managers get parachuted in without earning their stripes at lower levels. Tom Allnutt writes in The Times that managers “who overachieve with lesser sides have historically struggled when asked to meet expectations at the most demanding clubs.” Because the skillsets are different: maller clubs are inspired by energy and organisation; big ones need vision, ruthlessness and obstinacy. Arsenal is currently top of the Premier League with a manager, Mikel Arteta, in his first head coach role.

It’s elitist, but it works. Formidable figures rarely emerge through auditioning. Leaders who change countries – Pitt, Churchill, and (in line with this column’s theme) Lee Kuan Yew – don’t follow a neat path from exemplary local casework to national leadership. In the UK today, we trade the breadth of these backgrounds and talents for parochialism. Even when we get variance in the form of someone like Nigel Farage, the system seeks to nullify. The possible next prime minister is criticised for spending time in America, cultivating the strongest relationship of any MP with the Trump administration, when he should be holding surgeries in Clacton.

Of course, constituencies shouldn’t be deprived of local advocacy just because its MP is a very important man. Particularly deprived ones like Clacton. But it brings a dilemma for the fore. How can Westminster attract the country’s most influential if it won’t let them get on with meaningful work?

The US provides one solution in executive cabinet appointments. Reform Chairman Zia Yusuf says his party would copy this in government. Talking to the Telegraph in September, he said, “we don’t think it makes sense necessarily for the minister of defence to also be doing constituency surgeries about the chlorine level in the local swimming pool.”

Yusuf suggests as many as half of Reform’s cabinet could be appointed from the Lords. Uneasiness about these plans only reflects a misdirected sense of fair play. Winning parties should select the best people, instead of being beholden to internal factions. The “galactic-level talent” Yusuf wants to appoint aren’t looking to further political careers or court local popularity but carry out roles effectively.

Whatever one’s views on the Trump administration, there’s a chasm of competence between the talent at the President’s disposal and that available to Sir Keir Starmer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was running multi-billion-dollar portfolios while Rachel Reeves was maybe working for the Bank of England. Whatever the truth behind Reeves’ malleable CV, she has never had to make anything like the same concrete, high-pressure judgements that Bessent did.

Experience like that not only informs his strategy today but a track-record that proves his suitability. But would Bessent have traded high finance for Washington DC if it meant sorting out bus timetables on the weekend?

Appointing cabinet ministers from the Lords is no aberration, but the practice has withered. Reviving it would greatly widen the talent pool and force parties to be serious about governing rather than just winning elections. It’s also a quick fix that the Conservatives could implement as easily as Reform. But it avoids the harder work of changing a political culture.

It’s here that I turn to Singapore’s form of executive recruitment. A country with a less vibrant democracy than America but one that copies the UK’s parliamentary system. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) actively headhunts potential MPs – senior civil servants, military officers, business leaders – years in advance. To entice the best, it lessens the opportunity cost: salaries are famously the highest in the world. But pay is benchmarked to seniority. Backbench MPs earn the equivalent of about £115,000 while senior ministers earn up to £1m.

Talented outsiders are parachuted in, standing in safe seats and going straight into the cabinet. They are free to focus on national-level issues because Singapore runs Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs). These constituencies elect three to five MPs instead of one. There is a hierarchy within that team, so one may be a cabinet minister, one on a ministerial fast-track and one dedicated to local issues.

That structure accepts the concept of different skill sets. Good local MPs have a role to play, but not in executive decision-making. And young political talent can still emerge, winning promotion within the GRC hierarchy.

There are considerable obstacles to a similar system in Britain. First, the PAP has a monopoly on power. They can decide which seats will be GRCs and place cabinet ministers there accordingly.

Second, it would mean investing in politicians, the only area where the British government shows any fiscal restraint. Funding more MPs and higher salaries for the best would be a rounding error in government spending. But the public would hate it. Third, you would need radical cross-party introspection for MPs to confess they don’t currently represent the best of Britain.

Capable people have options. If you’re Zarah Sultana, a £94,000 salary and a public platform is as good as it gets. There is no private sector queue for your services. So, addressing Cummings’ talent dearth is about lessening the opportunity cost for those with genuine competence. It’s not purely financial.

Cabinet members in the US and Singapore can command far better pay elsewhere. But they are freed up to take on real responsibility. If the UK can’t offer similar paths to the country’s brightest, it condemns itself to mid-table mediocrity.