Professor Norman Dixon’s landmark book, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, showed how and why certain generals, seemingly well trained, clever, fitted for the job, nevertheless failed catastrophically at the job they were given.
In a case study of the failed British defence of Singapore in 1942, Dixon wrote that “the more events proved them to be wrong, the stronger their defences became against admitting this to be the case”, and that General Percival, their highly intelligent commander, showed “ineffectual leadership”: “passivity and courtesy, rigidity and obstinacy, procrastination, gentleness, and dogmatism”.
Overall, he identified a tendency to ignore inconvenient facts, to stay in well-trodden comfort zones and stick to routines and actions that had served them well in previous roles, to obsess about second-order issues rather than get to grips with the core problems, and to be frozen by indecision at critical moments.
Remind you of anything? Perhaps, were he writing today, Professor Dixon would be tempted to pen On the Psychology of Political Incompetence. After all, the traits he identified have all been readily visible at the top of the Conservative Party in the last year.
That’s why we have tonight’s disastrous result – and a disaster it is, if not quite the utter wipe-out some predicted. The strategy chosen by the outgoing Tory leadership – to ignore the 2019 electoral coalition and political realignment, to pretend Brexit never happened, and to tilt Left-wards away from actual conservatism – was a comfort zone plan, not one that engaged with the reality of the political situation. It was compounded by the inability to deliver anything important, the repeated failure to get to grips with illegal immigration, and the view that legal migration didn’t matter, and the obsession with second order issues like the smoking ban. And the polls fell consistently as all this became more and more obvious to Conservative voters.
Many of us, beginning with Suella Braverman in her powerful resignation letter last autumn, have been pointing out that catastrophe was coming. We might as well have talked to the wall. The clique around the Prime Minister knew better. As poll after poll predicted disaster, we were told that Downing Street knew best. Like General Percival, the more events worsened, the more they clung to their analysis. Those of us who wanted to save something of the party while it was still possible were frozen out.
In recent days, this has all been coupled with an air of entitlement entirely unjustified by the conduct of the campaign. The leadership seemed to believe that, whatever its errors, whatever its failure to deliver, the Conservative Party had an absolute right to occupy the Right of British politics. Nigel Farage and Reform were treated as if they were the tenantry arriving at the front door with pitchforks, or uppity domestic staff disrupting the smooth running of a stately home, rather than people who had actual grievances and had every right to make their case. The leadership of the party have simply failed to realise that trust in them is broken and instinctual loyalty to the party is largely gone. Hence tonight’s result.
Decent man though he is, Rishi Sunak’s brief, tragic premiership has ended, and it is best that it has done so, though I wish it could have been sooner. He never seemed to understand the skills needed to lead, and all he and the group of mediocrities and nonentities around him were able to achieve was stop anyone else doing so instead. Some of them will no doubt be paying the price before tonight is out, as, unhappily, will large numbers of good conservative MPs, too.
All that is left now is a rebuilding job, and it’s a huge one. Discussion of that can wait – though not for long. What is clear is that those directly responsible for tonight’s disaster – the leadership, the accommodationist grandees, the defeatist commentators around them – can’t be part of the reconstruction. They need to go and not be seen again. Then the Right of centre in British politics, those with actual conservative beliefs, whatever party they are in, can start to do what is necessary: unite behind a conservative vision with a coherent set of policies and the determination to deliver them. That is going to take time. All the more need to start soon.
