Time To Go
I wrote my post about David Cameron's 'no third term' statement before I read Daniel Finkelstein's recent column in The Times, but our views are very similar and it seems very sensible to me that political leaders ought to have a fixed shelf-life at all levels of local and national government.
Because politicians who try to go 'on and on' tend to become complacent and far too cosy with a small group of supporters and advisers - and that's not good for democracy if you ask me.
So putting a cap on people's leadership ambitions once they've reached the top of an organisation must be a good idea and might even catch on in North Lanarkshire, for example.
Because regular readers will know that, broadly speaking, the same group of elected politicians and senior officials have been running North Lanarkshire Council for many years and that the present council leader, Jim McCabe, has been in post since 1998.
I wonder whether the North Lanarkshire would have got into such terrible difficulties over equal pay if the leadership of the Council had been shaken up several years ago?
I suspect not.
Tell every PM: ten years and that’s your lot
By Daniel Finkelstein - The Times
Thatcher and Blair proved no prime minister can, or should, go on and on. So let’s limit them to two terms in power
‘Victory. Triumph. My father is elected,” Alice Roosevelt recorded in her diary for November 8, 1904. Teddy Roosevelt’s re-election had indeed been overwhelming. Yet something else happened that night that cast a shadow over the rest of his life.
Addressing reporters at the White House, the exultant Teddy said: “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.” His daughter knew he would come to regret it. Five years later, he stepped down but spent much of the remaining decade of his life trying to get re-elected.
When it comes to announcements about leaving office, Roosevelt establishes the only rule. Don’t offer to leave if you don’t have to and would rather stay.
I have tried, I really have, to get excited by David Cameron’s announcement that he won’t seek a third term. Everyone (well, politicians and the media, which I dimly appreciate isn’t everyone) seems so excited about it that I really felt I ought to try as well. And everyone seems so convinced it’s a terrible error that I don’t fancy looking a fool by disagreeing. Yet play around with it as I might, holding it up to the light to see if I can make out the label on the bottom, shaking it to see if it rattles, I really can’t work out why it makes any difference to anything. Well, all right, I suppose that if he had somehow contrived to dodge the question, he might have avoided a day or two of coverage that is a distraction from the central Conservative campaign. Anything that isn’t helpful to that campaign is a mistake for him at the moment.
My understanding is that it was intentional (he intended to say it if anyone asked) but unplanned. He didn’t have much of an objective beyond looking as though he was sane and balanced and not a megalomaniac.
Unplanned, however, is not a good idea at this stage. So, at the margin, this is an error. But beyond that? I’m struggling, I’m afraid.
There’s all that stuff about it being presumptuous, of course, but I can’t take that seriously. People who don’t like David Cameron and aren’t going to vote for him might think it was. I’d be amazed if anyone else much did. It is, I think, difficult to argue that it’s arrogant to put a limit on one’s leadership. The idea that this is, to use the fashionable political cliché, a game-changer owes itself to a very odd misinterpretation about what happened to Tony Blair.
The idea is that by announcing before the 2005 election that he would remain for another term and then depart, Mr Blair weakened himself fatally. He started speculation about the leadership and hastened his demise by reducing his authority. Mr Cameron has now repeated this mistake.
Yet this analysis of what Tony Blair did and what happened to him is completely wrong. Mr Blair did not begin speculation about the leadership by announcing he would not stay in office for more than another term. He responded to speculation that was already so strong that he could no longer ignore it.
To use that other leadership contest cliché, his announcement didn’t fire the starting gun. Everyone was already well down the track.
Gordon Brown had spent a good part of the previous five years in Mr Blair’s study, shouting at him to leave so that Gordon could take office before the opportunity for him to make a national fool of himself expired.
In so far as Mr Blair’s promise to stand down weakened him, it was not because he was promising to go; it was because he infuriated Mr Brown by promising not to go for another four or five years. And Mr Brown was determined he should go sooner.
Mr Blair made several attempts at telling people when he might go and none of them made the slightest difference. Because he wasn’t in control of his leaving date. In the end, Mr Brown succeeded in pushing him out because he had support within the party and, after a decade in charge, Mr Blair had exhausted his.
It’s correct to compare Mr Blair’s announcement with Mr Cameron’s, but the conclusion most people are reaching is the wrong one. You remain the leader as long as the voters and your party allow you, and when they no longer allow you, it’s over. Your own statements to the contrary change nothing.
Mrs Thatcher demonstrated that when she tried a slightly different tack from Mr Blair’s. Before the 1987 election she announced that she intended to go “on and on and on”. She didn’t add, as Mr Blair did and Mr Cameron now has, her intention to leave at the end of another term. Leadership speculation began all the same and she was ejected in 1990.
The fact that neither saying you were going to leave after a second term (Blair), nor failing to say it (Thatcher), made any difference is a pretty good indicator that leaders’ promises on this issue don’t amount to much.
If David Cameron does well enough in the election to remain in Downing Street, there will be speculation about his leadership. That would have happened with or without Monday’s announcement.
Even in the last parliament there was speculation about a challenge from Boris Johnson despite the fact he wasn’t an MP. Naturally, it will increase once he returns to Westminster.
Mr Cameron’s authority will last as long as he has political support and no longer. And feverish discussion of the succession close to the 2020 election would have been inevitable, since, if he lasts that long, no one would seriously have imagined that Mr Cameron would run for a third term anyway.
Nor, indeed, should he. Ten years is quite long enough for anyone to be prime minister. It’s not a good idea for anyone to enjoy power in perpetuity even if they have to get re-elected from time to time. Instead of this charade of asking the prime minister a question to which we all deserve an answer, and then calling him a fool or presumptuous if he answers, or a liar and evasive if he doesn’t, why don’t we just solve the problem for him or her?
We should have a term limit for prime ministers. Two terms and that’s your lot. And if you quit half way through your term, your successor should require an election within months. David Cameron’s answer should be compulsory.
Thatcher and Blair proved no prime minister can, or should, go on and on. So let’s limit them to two terms in power
‘Victory. Triumph. My father is elected,” Alice Roosevelt recorded in her diary for November 8, 1904. Teddy Roosevelt’s re-election had indeed been overwhelming. Yet something else happened that night that cast a shadow over the rest of his life.
Addressing reporters at the White House, the exultant Teddy said: “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.” His daughter knew he would come to regret it. Five years later, he stepped down but spent much of the remaining decade of his life trying to get re-elected.
When it comes to announcements about leaving office, Roosevelt establishes the only rule. Don’t offer to leave if you don’t have to and would rather stay.
I have tried, I really have, to get excited by David Cameron’s announcement that he won’t seek a third term. Everyone (well, politicians and the media, which I dimly appreciate isn’t everyone) seems so excited about it that I really felt I ought to try as well. And everyone seems so convinced it’s a terrible error that I don’t fancy looking a fool by disagreeing. Yet play around with it as I might, holding it up to the light to see if I can make out the label on the bottom, shaking it to see if it rattles, I really can’t work out why it makes any difference to anything. Well, all right, I suppose that if he had somehow contrived to dodge the question, he might have avoided a day or two of coverage that is a distraction from the central Conservative campaign. Anything that isn’t helpful to that campaign is a mistake for him at the moment.
My understanding is that it was intentional (he intended to say it if anyone asked) but unplanned. He didn’t have much of an objective beyond looking as though he was sane and balanced and not a megalomaniac.
Unplanned, however, is not a good idea at this stage. So, at the margin, this is an error. But beyond that? I’m struggling, I’m afraid.
There’s all that stuff about it being presumptuous, of course, but I can’t take that seriously. People who don’t like David Cameron and aren’t going to vote for him might think it was. I’d be amazed if anyone else much did. It is, I think, difficult to argue that it’s arrogant to put a limit on one’s leadership. The idea that this is, to use the fashionable political cliché, a game-changer owes itself to a very odd misinterpretation about what happened to Tony Blair.
The idea is that by announcing before the 2005 election that he would remain for another term and then depart, Mr Blair weakened himself fatally. He started speculation about the leadership and hastened his demise by reducing his authority. Mr Cameron has now repeated this mistake.
Yet this analysis of what Tony Blair did and what happened to him is completely wrong. Mr Blair did not begin speculation about the leadership by announcing he would not stay in office for more than another term. He responded to speculation that was already so strong that he could no longer ignore it.
To use that other leadership contest cliché, his announcement didn’t fire the starting gun. Everyone was already well down the track.
Gordon Brown had spent a good part of the previous five years in Mr Blair’s study, shouting at him to leave so that Gordon could take office before the opportunity for him to make a national fool of himself expired.
In so far as Mr Blair’s promise to stand down weakened him, it was not because he was promising to go; it was because he infuriated Mr Brown by promising not to go for another four or five years. And Mr Brown was determined he should go sooner.
Mr Blair made several attempts at telling people when he might go and none of them made the slightest difference. Because he wasn’t in control of his leaving date. In the end, Mr Brown succeeded in pushing him out because he had support within the party and, after a decade in charge, Mr Blair had exhausted his.
It’s correct to compare Mr Blair’s announcement with Mr Cameron’s, but the conclusion most people are reaching is the wrong one. You remain the leader as long as the voters and your party allow you, and when they no longer allow you, it’s over. Your own statements to the contrary change nothing.
Mrs Thatcher demonstrated that when she tried a slightly different tack from Mr Blair’s. Before the 1987 election she announced that she intended to go “on and on and on”. She didn’t add, as Mr Blair did and Mr Cameron now has, her intention to leave at the end of another term. Leadership speculation began all the same and she was ejected in 1990.
The fact that neither saying you were going to leave after a second term (Blair), nor failing to say it (Thatcher), made any difference is a pretty good indicator that leaders’ promises on this issue don’t amount to much.
If David Cameron does well enough in the election to remain in Downing Street, there will be speculation about his leadership. That would have happened with or without Monday’s announcement.
Even in the last parliament there was speculation about a challenge from Boris Johnson despite the fact he wasn’t an MP. Naturally, it will increase once he returns to Westminster.
Mr Cameron’s authority will last as long as he has political support and no longer. And feverish discussion of the succession close to the 2020 election would have been inevitable, since, if he lasts that long, no one would seriously have imagined that Mr Cameron would run for a third term anyway.
Nor, indeed, should he. Ten years is quite long enough for anyone to be prime minister. It’s not a good idea for anyone to enjoy power in perpetuity even if they have to get re-elected from time to time. Instead of this charade of asking the prime minister a question to which we all deserve an answer, and then calling him a fool or presumptuous if he answers, or a liar and evasive if he doesn’t, why don’t we just solve the problem for him or her?
We should have a term limit for prime ministers. Two terms and that’s your lot. And if you quit half way through your term, your successor should require an election within months. David Cameron’s answer should be compulsory.
