Bill Jamieson: David Cameron needs to stay the course

THE coalition appears to be wavering in its commitment to tackle the UK’s debt burden

For a government in trouble there are few better solutions than a period of enforced inaction. Easter recess is upon us. And for a beleaguered administration in Westminster it cannot come soon enough. For it is a common feature of a parliamentary recess that the popularity of a government tends to rise when absent from the stage.

There is an important lesson for the Cameron coalition – and indeed all administrations: incessant activism does not guarantee popularity, and bursts of headline-chasing initiatives to get out of a hole can have the opposite effect to that intended. Certainly, the coalition has been struggling to get out of a number of holes: cutting tax for the rich; “Granny-gate”; “pastie-gate”; security intrusion. It has sought cover in diversion. Across these it has shown itself easily distracted: symptomatic of an administration that no longer focuses on its central, overriding purpose and mission.

A reality check is in order to remind the Prime Minister and the Cabinet why they are in office at all. The coalition was formed amid an overwhelming desire to sort out the debt and deficit mess. That is what compelled the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form their unlikely coalition and why, until recently, the public was willing to back it despite the scepticism of the Westminster pundits.

Bearing down on the budget deficit and slowing the relentless rise in government debt remains the most compelling purpose of this government. This does not mean that other issues do not matter. But in the hierarchy of concerns, deficit reduction was, is and must remain the clear and dominant priority. And this would be the case were the Labour opposition in power. And the reason this must remain a priority is not just a desire to retain our triple-A credit rating but that the greater the debt grows by inaction, the greater the burden of annual debt interest, and the more the debt interest charge eats into the other duties and responsibilities of government. A nation that has lost control of its debt is one that is a slave to misfortune.

Against this, however, are powerful political instincts. One of these is a belief that public spending is at all times deeply popular, and thus a reduction of it is a political loser. But this is by no means always the case. Voters are frequently incensed at examples of wasteful or poorly directed spending. And they can be censorious of administrations that have spent heavily on what seemed at some time a civic improvement or ennobling cause.

You do not have to go far in Edinburgh to detect the rancid mood of voters ahead of the local elections on the debacle of the trams. There is a widespread view that never again should the council embark on such costly projects without, at the least, far more careful study and research on what exactly such projects involve and whether, when completed, they offer value for money. Voters will take their vengeance on those candidates they deem responsible for the transport shambles that has befallen the city.

Much the same criticism can be levelled at major items of public expenditure – expensive defence equipment; regional aid programmes of questionable benefit; multi-million-pound IT systems that fail to deliver; the expansion of central and local government staff with questionable improvement in services. The cry that public spending should be maintained and preserved from “savage cuts” is a political demand advanced by vested interests keen to equate their own sectional demands with the public good.

It may be said such voter criticism of public spending does not extend to welfare and poverty alleviation. But in Glasgow an incumbent administration with one of the largest budgets in the UK is under siege: spending huge amounts offers it little protection from voters who have cause to ask how Glasgow’s budget has come to be spent with so little evident result in the alleviation of drug abuse and alcohol dependency and the social evils that flow from these. Rhetorical concern with “equalities” issues has done little to effect improvement.

It is said that the government should “listen more to the people” and “take advice from those who know”. But, as we are seeing, “the people” proffering advice are not “real people” but more often lobbyists for particular causes and vested interests.

An administration charged with debt and deficit reduction needs to be careful to whom it listens, and to keep its distance from sectional interest. Keen attention to the wealthy has resulted in too early a reduction in the top rate of income tax – a move which has handed a gift-wrapped propaganda tool to its opponents.

At the same time, HMRC is also a lobby that has grown too close to government and which gives every impression of being able to write its own ticket in Budget measures. The “granny tax”, like the reduction in the 50p tax rate, could have waited a year for consultation.

Similarly, measures advanced under the smokescreen of “tax simplification” need to be more carefully vetted: some appear to be the work of those given free rein for vindictive score-settling – and if it blows back on the government, all the better, one suspects.

What is needed now is not some earnest hand-wringing by government and a programme of apologetic ingratiation – the very exercise that breeds contempt – but a clear and unambiguous resharpening of its purpose. The hard work of deficit reduction has barely begun and we are by no means out of danger. Delivering on what it set out to in May 2010 would be a noble achievement.

But one suspects the deeper problem lies within the Prime Minister himself: the sense of a lack of longer-term philosophy, programme and purpose at the heart. Instead, his purpose seems to be daily reassurance in whatever happens to come along. That is a dangerous flaw.

The greatest reassurance Mr Cameron can provide is to deliver on what this government set out to do. He should stick to the point of why he is where he is.