Reflections on politics (and other things) of the week

Remembrance and memorials; the future of the Democratic Party; familiar faces at the Department of Health

As is now becoming a regular feature of this blog, I’ve collected a few items in brief which help me clarify my thinking and may interest or inform readers, which would be a bonus. I take the view that these could swirl around in my head or I could take the time to set them down which leaves a record, and the latter seems more productive. Slightly more philosophical than usual in this edition.

The glorious dead

Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday and today, of course, is Armistice Day. I touched on some of the issues of commemoration in this week’s Sunday round-up, but one thing in particular struck me earlier in the day. It is not a revelation or a great unearthed secret, but something which I have always found interesting and thought-provoking.

It is a passionate matter of principle for the United States military that those killed overseas are repatriated for burial, and enormous efforts and resources are dedicated to the process. The policy began during the Spanish-American War of 1898, but the United States was an outlier, at that point the only country in the world systematically to return dead service personnel to the homeland from wherever they had been killed. Indeed, it was only during the Civil War in 1861-65 that concerted efforts were made even to identify the dead and mark their graves.

The United Kingdom took much longer to adopt the same approach. It was not until 1963, for those who died in North-West Europe, and 1967, for service personnel in the rest of the world, that repatriation at public expense became standard practice. This, of course, means that the 887,858 British sailors, soldiers and airmen who gave their lives during the First World War and the 383,700 fatalities of the Second World War were generally laid to rest in military cemeteries close to where they had died.

In March 1915, the War Office established the Graves Registration Commission to identify and mark the remains of those who had died in the theatre of conflict. The sheer scale of the casualties on the Western Front meant that French municipal graveyards were soon full, so the commission began to purchase land for new cemeteries. By May 1917, officials had begun to realise that the maintenance of these graves would be a significant task long after the war had ended, and the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries (as the commission had become the previous year) was transformed again into the Imperial War Graves Commission, established by royal charter. In 1918, it received a report from a committee headed by Sir Frederic Kenyon, the Director of the British Museum, entitled War Graves: How The Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, which made two principle recommendations: first, that bodies should not be repatriated, and second, that graves should have uniform markers to avoid distinctions of class or rank.

The team assembled could hardly have been more eminent. Three architects were engaged: Herbert Baker, who had worked extensively on government buildings in Pretoria and New Delhi; Reginald Blomfield (knighted shortly afterwards), who had designed Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and restored Chequers, Brocklesby Hall and Hill Hall; and the great Sir Edwin Lutyens, the mastermind of New Delhi who would emerge as a specialist in war memorials. Rudyard Kipling was appointed to advise on the language of inscriptions. Three experimental cemeteries were constructed in 1920, at Le Treport, Forceville and Louvencourt, and by 1927, 500 cemeteries had been built, with 400,000 headstones, a thousand Crosses of Sacrifice, and 400 Stones of Remembrance.

The cemeteries of the First World War are iconic and powerful. The headstones are uniform and regular, bearing the national emblem or regimental badge, rank, name, unit, date of death and age of each casualty inscribed above an appropriate religious symbol and a more personal dedication chosen by relatives. Those of unidentified soldiers carry the epitaph composed by Kipling, “A Soldier of the Great War, known unto God”. The lettering is standardised, using the specially commissioned Headstone Standard Alphabet designed by MacDonald Gill. No details of the cause of death are given. It is, in many ways, a strikingly democratic system, a reflection of the way in which the First World War was the first conflict in which the whole nation had participated (especially after the Military Service Act 1916 introduced conscription in Great Britain).

Additional sites were developed during and after the Second World War, like the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery completed in 1949, and in 1960, reflecting the changing times, the organisation was renamed as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, under which title it still operates. But it is the great graveyards of the First World War, and the stark, towering monuments like the Menin Gate, the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing and the Thiepval Memorial, which inform our visual sense of the conflict.

It’s more than just a visual sense, though. Those images locate the sacrifices made by British and Empire sailors, soldiers and airmen squarely in Rupert Brooke’s “foreign field” and maintain the links with the strange place-names of northern France and Belgium which geographical coincidence made famous: Mons, the Marne, Ypres, Loos, the Somme, Passchendaele, Cambrai. The scale and regularity of the cemeteries draw together some of the features of the First World War which make it such a profoundly influential conflict: the enormous number of casualties; the eerily formal way men would climb out of their trenches and dash towards the enemy’s front line; the unity of purpose which bound together soldiers from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Nepal, the West Indies and elsewhere; that quiet, sombre, reflective spirit of commemoration which, almost for the first time, was not simply joyful at victory but awed by the price at which it had been won.

In our more recent conflicts, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have moved much closer towards the American practice of ceremonial repatriation. From April 2007 onwards, the bodies of service personnel were returned via RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire and transported to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in coffins covered with Union flags. The route took them through the small market town of Wootton Bassett, and local Royal British Legion members quickly began to organise tributes to the dead as they passed through. It became a familiar sight on television and the media, and was a touching and heartfelt expression of thanks, but it creates a very different context. The emphasis on returning home, and on individual casualties, is on a much more intimate scale—as of course the conflicts themselves have been in terms of British commitments and casualties—and reflects a more modern sensibility.

Is the former difference in practice between Britain and America significant? Perhaps so. For all that it is proverbially a nation of immigrants, the United States has long had a powerful sense of itself as “home”, and it is easy to see the motivation behind the decision as long ago as the late 19th century to make sure that US soldiers, even in death, came home rather than left their bones in the fields of foreign conflicts. Britain’s status as a sprawling imperial power created a different conceptualisation; at its greatest extent, in 1920, the Empire comprised 13.71 million square miles (around a quarter of the world’s land mass) and 458 million people (again, not far short of a quarter of the global population). So we had not “gone out” from our home to fight in the First World War in the same way as would the Americans, because we were there already, almost ubiquitous.

Rebuilding the Democrats

Anyone who is a Conservative will have thought, perhaps gloomily, in recent months about the party’s challenge in rebuilding itself, its membership, its reputation and its electoral base after the historic general election defeat in July. (Remember: 121 is the lowest tally of MPs the Conservatives have ever recorded since the modern party was founded in 1834.) While I am always cautious about making definitive judgements about political cultures abroad, I have a feeling that in a philosophical and emotional way, in a sense that touches on the fundamental matter of identity, the Democratic Party has suffered an even more grievous blow with Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris this week.

There was a very widespread expectation that the presidential race would at least be close, and many believed, based on plausible evidence, that Vice-President Harris would win. That ticked so many progressive boxes: the first woman president, the first Asian-American president, and the frustration and perhaps final defeat of Donald Trump.

That is not how events transpired. Trump won the presidency, but more than that: he won the Electoral College comfortably, by 312 votes to 226, the Republicans took back control of the Senate after four years and the party seems likely to retain a majority in the House of Representatives. The White House, both houses of Congress and a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives: the Democrats have been left with nothing. In addition, Trump won the popular vote (which he did not in 2016), only the second Republican (after George W. Bush in. 2004) to do so in more than 35 years. The only crumb of comfort is that the margin in that popular vote was not enormous: Trump won 50.5 per cent to Harris’s 48 per cent, an advantage of 3.5 million.

Losing power is painful for a political party, and losing against expectation is more painful still. The unavoidable task for the Democrats, however, is understanding and processing why they lost. To maintain the Conservative Party as a comparator for a moment, there is no shortage of reasons adduced for its general election defeat: the government seemed fractious, indecisive, incompetent, ideologically blank and grubbily lax in ethics and propriety. None of these faults was a deeply buried secret; all were acknowledged in kind if not necessarily in degree.

One interesting figure stands out from the presidential election results. Donald Trump received around 500,000 more votes than he did when he was defeated in 2020. Compared to Joe Biden, however, Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee shed around 10 million votes. That brings into sharp focus a difficult question. Can the defeat be ascribed to Harris or the the Democratic Party, or both?

Some electoral demographics are worth considering. According to a CNN exit poll, Harris was the more popular of the two candidates among independent voters (49-46), women (53-45), the unmarried (54-42) and particularly unmarried women (59-38), black men (77-21), black women (91-7), Latina women (60-38), college graduates (53-45), holders of postgraduate degrees (59-38) and urban voters (59-38). Of course some of these categories are overlapping. It does, however, reinforce a relatively broad-brush stereotype of Democrats as educated, metropolitan liberals, women especially, which retains its grip on black voters but is losing its traditional advantage among Latinos and Asians. Moreover Trump won the majority of votes of men in every age demographic, even the traditionally progressive 18- to 29-year-olds.

Harris scored well among voters who prioritised democratic institutions and access to abortion, but was heavily defeated among those who regarded immigration and the economy as the most important issues, and Trump enjoyed a significant advantage on foreign policy. I have a feeling that this may bear out an impression I have held for some time, that Democrats are very successful at delighting groups of voters who are focused on a single issue almost to the exclusion of all others, like democracy or abortion, but struggle to win the support of less politically engaged voters who react to more everyday concerns like the cost of living and unemployment.

It is too early for anyone, least of all me, to pronounce with certainty on the reasons for the defeat of the Democrats a few days ago. But I will suggest a few possible factors—for the party’s loss rather than Trump’s victory—which I think are at least plausible:

• The failure of President Biden (and, to an extent, Kamala Harris) to create an electorally attractive narrative of the period since January 2021 and identify tangible, resonant ways in which life has become better in the United States;

• The vigour with which leading Democrats defended President Biden’s fitness for office before, late in the day, flocking away from him to acclaim Kamala Harris seemed cynical and dishonest;

• A loss of connection and understanding between the leadership of the party and working-class voters, and a sense on the part of the latter that they were being marginalised and ignored;

• A perception that the party devoted excessive attention to radically progressive social issues like identity politics, the most extreme aspects of gender identity and trans right, the exclusion of non-liberal voices from public debate and censorship and politicisation of higher education;

• Weakness and lack of direction on immigration, citizenship and border control.

There may be many more factors, and some may not subscribe to all of these, but I think there is a case for each of them.

I do not lean ideologically or philosophically towards the Democrats, and I am a foreigner commenting on another country’s politics, so I write with due caution. From my vantage point, however, having been a close observer of politics in general for more than 30 years now and having worked in the field for 20 years, I think the Democrats face two serious problems which will take time and a great deal of effort to resolve. The first is that there is no agreement yet—of course it is very early—on why they lost unexpectedly and decisively. The second, if my hypotheses are even reasonably accurate, is that they have failed on a number of fronts, in terms of policy, presentation, leadership and attitude, meaning there is no quick fix. Like the Conservative Party here, I think they have a lot of work to do.

We’re putting the band back together (we’re on a mission from God)

This is something I will note only briefly because I will return to it in several ways and in several contexts, I’m sure. Over the weekend, the Department of Health and Social Care announced what, to use that Northern Irish phrase, the dogs in the street already knew: former Health Secretary Alan Milburn had been appointed as lead non-executive director of the department’s board. In addition to the board’s overall role to “provide independent advice and expertise to inform the department’s strategy, performance and governance”, Milburn will give “additional support” to the Secretary of State, Wes Streeting.

(Milburn takes the place of Samantha Jones, a former nurse turned NHS manager who briefly soared in influence during Boris Johnson’s premiership: from April 2021 to February 2022, she was the Prime Minister’s expert adviser on NHS transformation and social care before being appointed interim Permanent Secretary and Chief Operating Officer in 10 Downing Street as part of plans to establish a new Office of the Prime Minister. It was an attempt to create more rigorous management around Johnson in the wake of “Partygate”, but it did not survive the departure of the Prime Minister in the summer of 2022 and Jones was left without a role. She was appointed as Non-Executive Director of the Department of Heath and Social Care in February 2023.)

Milburn was a Labour Member of Parliament from 1992 to 2010 and a leading light of New Labour; The New Statesman described him as “the epitome of Blairite centrism and moderation”. His most significant role was as Health Secretary from October 1999 to June 2003, making him the longest-serving occupant of the post after Jeremy Hunt (2012-18) since the department was established in July 1988; he was also Minister of State for Health, responsible for the Private Finance Initiative funding of hospital building, from May 1997 to December 1998. I have said before, say now and will without doubt say again in the future that I think Milburn was comfortably the ablest health secretary of the past 30 years, who combined political weight and influence with administrative ability and a genuine vision of how to transform healthcare. Indeed, a few years ago I suggested in The Daily Telegraph that Boris Johnson could revolutionise politics by looking beyond strict party lines for a cabinet reshuffle and bring Milburn into the tent.

Given the controversial nature of Sir Tony Blair’s legacy in the Labour Party and on the left more generally, and especially given Milburn’s association with the Private Finance Initiative and later with private-sector healthcare providers, it is fair to say that his involvement in the new government’s management of the NHS has attracted some attention. But he is not the only face from the New Labour past in health policy to make a reappearance under Sir Keir Starmer.

Shortly after taking office in July, Streeting commissioned an independent investigation into the condition of the NHS in England from eminent surgeon Professor Lord Darzi of Denham. But Ara Darzi was no newcomer to the development of health policy: he had been National Advisor in Surgery at the Department of Health; in December 2006, he had been asked by NHS London to design a five- to 10-year strategy for healthcare for the capital, which was published in July 2007 as Healthcare for London: A Framework for Action; and in June 2007, Gordon Brown had appointed him Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of Health as part of his “Government of all the Talents”, in which role he had produced a plan for the NHS, High Quality Care For All NHS Next Stage Review Final Report.

Another well-kent face returned in July 2024, when Paul Corrigan was appointed to work with Streeting in order to “shape the government’s 10-year health plan and provide independent scrutiny of its structure and implementation”. It is a 12-month direct ministerial appointment with the possibility of extension. Corrigan began life as an academic in social policy before working in local government, but in July 2001 he became a special adviser to Alan Milburn at the Department of Health, also serving under Milburn’s successor John Reid. At the end of 2005, he moved to 10 Downing Street as senior adviser to Tony Blair on health policy, then from June 2007 to March 2009, he was Director of Strategy and Commissioning at London Strategic Health Authority. He is married to Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top, Blair’s Chief Whip 2001-06 and Minister for the Cabinet Office 2006-07.

Directly in charge of drafting the NHS’s 10-year plan as a civil service director-general is Sally Warren, who was recruited from the King’s Fund, a leading health policy think tank. She was Private Secretary to John Hutton, Minister of State for Health, from August 2004 to May 2005, then to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt from June 2005 to June 2006, with particular responsibility for NHS reform and finance.

I don’t point these names out snidely; I’m all for utilising experience and expertise. But the appointment of Blair’s long-time chief of staff Jonathan Powell as National Security Adviser last week did bring into focus the extent to which thinking around NHS reform is being shaped by figures from the Blair era. Perhaps that is no bad thing. But the task is enormous.