Craving Competence

After Covid exposed many leaders around the world, and after the global chaos created in the Trump White House, it is interesting to note a trend in 2021 towards a desire for competence. 

Competence in a political leader has an innate problem, which is that the competence to get elected often proves a hindrance to governing and vice versa. Getting elected involves plotting, charisma, vision and exaggeration. Governing involves delegation, teamwork, plans and patience. Few have both, and we usually only learn this once we have elected somebody wholly unsuitable. But it is our own fault because we make the same mistakes again and again.

 

Two elections this month exemplify the trend, admittedly in two rather competent, nay boring, countries, Canada and Germany.

 

Yesterday, Justin Trudeau appears to have been re-elected as prime minister of Canada, but when he called the election his purpose was to secure a majority mandate. In reality he failed to even secure a plurality of votes and only won the most seats thanks to a favourable election system, but only enough to continue with an unstable minority administration similar to that he enjoyed before calling the election.

 

How did this happen? Well, Trudeau looked at his primary opposition and saw a Conservative party with a dull new leader struggling to find his feet, and thought he could turn that to his advantage. He was wrong, because Erin O’Toole actually fought a superior campaign, cleverly tuned in to what the centre of the electorate sought, competence. I loved his slogan that Canada needs a handyman not a poster child. Well, they still have their poster child, but the handyman certainly threw a spanner into the works.

 

The German example is even stronger. The Germans have benefited from a plainly competent and competently plain leader for many years in the form of Angela Merkel. Since she announced that she would be retiring three years ago, her party has tried out at least three possible successors. After some humiliating failures, they landed on Armin Laschet, a clubbable sort of bloke with some of the charm they hoped would be effective in an election. Wrong again. Laschet has never been known for his competence, and managed to mess up handling the August floods during the campaign, among other blunders. Meanwhile Olaf Scholz successfully portrayed himself as a Merkel clone, experienced and dull, and competent. His slogan was something like “Olaf will sort it out”. He is another handyman, and this one looks set to become Chancellor, reversing a generational decline in the fortunes of his party.

 

There are other examples of the trend. Mario Draghi in Italy fits the bill, although he owes his position more to politics than votes. Sir Keir Starmer is trying to use exactly the same positioning in the UK, so far without noticeable success. It goes beyond politics too. In business, we seem happier listening to a Tim Cook than a modern day Jack Welch, though Elon Musk is defying gravity, even earthly gravity, for the time being. Bill Gates secures plenty of airtime with his dull but accurate analysis. 

 

Maybe the best example of all is President Xi. We might not care for some cynical policies, or the centralisation of elite power, or even some economic actions, but one thing they all have in common is competence in execution. Economically, his team has navigated many growing pains with remarkable success, and I am backing them to continue their good run. And politically China is out-manoeuvring the US at every turn.

 

So that brings us to the US. The same trend is in evidence. It was noticeable in the New York mayoral primary that the poster children flamed out while competence became a magic sauce. Kathryn Garcia, as dull a performer as is imaginable, nearly won based on how competently she had managed New York's  garbage collection agency. Fiery Democrats in other cities are toning down the rhetoric and focusing on building a track record of results. Hooray for that.

Biden campaigned as the antithesis of Trump, and competence was clearly a part of that story. Domestically his team have appeared competent so far, steering through a Covid relief bill, forming a feasible strategy for his larger economic package, and handling everyday matters neatly, including the vaccine minefield. But foreign policy has told a different story.

 

Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan were sold to us as experienced and reliable operators, but I have seen little evidence so far. The first meeting with China was reportedly a shambles, disintegrating into a shouting match within minutes. There is much talk of inflection points and new doctrines, but so far I see no substance and a consistent misreading and misanalysis of the main competitor.

 

Then we can add in the execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. How could the intelligence have been so far out? I guess we can blame the same complacent military spokespeople who blithely made false initial claims about their shocking drone strike. The whole operation was mis-sold and poorly executed.

 

A rare ray of hope comes from the climate progress, and, despite a lacklustre G7 meeting, I am optimistic for Glasgow. But that can be attributed to the smart appointment of (competent) John Kerry rather than anything achieved by Blinken’s team. But that same G7 also failed to provide the required and eminently achievable bazooka of global vaccine billions.

 

Of course Biden and Blinken have a fair excuse that Trump actively destroyed the State department during his tenure. Building back confidence and competence will be a job for multiple presidencies, and it also must be tough to get allies to work together with the US after the betrayals of trust under Trump, and the nagging fear that he may return.

 

But now we have another awful own goal with the questionable policy of equipping Australia with nuclear power submarines (aren't there treaties about this sort of thing?). This has the feel of something rushed through to create positive domestic headlines after Afghanistan. But to have annoyed the French to the extent that a nominally close ally and vital player on the UN Security Council should actually withdraw ambassadors shows just how incompetently the whole incident was handled. This never happened under De Gaulle, and not in the “freedom fries” era of the Iraq war, so we can guess how angry the French are.

 

There are a few more encouraging signs. Biden talked to Xi for ninety minutes last week and took a collaborative tone at the UN today. But this feels pro forma; I will start to believe in competence when I see the team consider how they might look to China and consider some steps that make cold war less likely rather than more. Some respect for international institutions would be a good start.

 

It is hard to know how long the sober mood among electorates may last. In many places a handyman is not on the ballot even if the public would vote for one – think Brazil, Argentina, India or even Russia. Perhaps Boris Johnson’s long honeymoon will end eventually. And perhaps competence will be important in 2022 and 2024 in the USA. There is no space for anybody competent on the Republican side just now, so we need the Democrats to step up. Admittedly foreign policy does not weigh a lot on voters’ minds, but it is foreign policy that ultimately has the most impact. Blinken is running out of time to demonstrate that he and his team are up to the task.