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B A R N A R D   C A ST LE

Support for the prime minister remains strong, but his government has gained a

dangerous reputation for incompetence

Grip slipping

Britain, “Is the Conservative/Labour Party

competent or incompetent?”, %

Source: YouGov

75

50

25

0

2019

2020

Competent

Labour

Conservative

75

50

25

0

2019

2020

Incompetent

Labour

Conservative

B

ri

ta

in

20 Dog-walking

21 Avoiding a second wave

21 Brexit negotiations

22 Flats out, houses in

22 Britain’s rotten 5G

23 Rave revival

24 Bagehot: The Lib Dems may fly again

Also in this section

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20

Britain

The Economist

September 5th 2020

2

Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos 

mori

, a

pollster. Voters—including Labour suppor-

ters—approve of the package of interven-

tions to support workers and businesses

designed by the chancellor of the exche-

quer, Rishi Sunak. A programme of week-

day subsidies for restaurants “was a fantas-

tic idea”, says Ms Rooney. 

Tory 

mp

s think their vote is holding up

largely because Mr Johnson is aligned with

the values of his base, much as “Teflon”

Tony Blair could brush off scandal as long

New Labour was attuned to the public

mood. Folk in Barnard Castle credit Mr

Johnson with pushing on with Brexit.

When in trouble, he has tickled the coun-

try’s cultural divisions, claiming that Win-

ston Churchill’s statue and the patriotic

songs sung at the Proms are under threat

from censorious forces. 

But competence matters, and acts as a

leading indicator of support. In “The Poli-

tics of Competence”, a 2017 study, Jane

Green and Will Jennings show that new

governments invariably enjoy a honey-

moon, before errors accumulate, dragging

a party’s polling lower like a yacht taking on

water. Once gained, a reputation for in-

competence is hard to shift. 

Reversals are particularly harmful to Mr

Johnson, who cast himself as the barn-

storming antidote to Theresa May’s cau-

tion and paralysis. Johnsonism promised

to “Get Brexit Done”—and other things,

too, through large cheques, vim and can-do

spirit. The attention to detail and patience

that good governance demands are not part

of the narrative. 

All this works well for Sir Keir Starmer,

Labour’s leader. Unlike his ideologically

driven predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, Sir

Keir wants every government policy to be a

test of competence. It suits his lawyerly,

professional image and distracts from the

splits in Labour’s electorate: to ask whether

the Dover customs checks will be ready is

to sidestep whether leaving the European

Union is a good idea at all. 

The strategy is paying off (see chart on

previous page). Some polls show Sir Keir

ahead of Mr Johnson as “best prime minis-

ter”. Mr Johnson stirs much more animos-

ity in Labour voters than mild-mannered

Sir Keir provokes in Tories. (“He has his

head screwed on,” says Andrew Alderson, a

Tory-voting retired firefighter in Barnard

Castle, of Sir Keir). Overall, voters disap-

prove of the government’s handling of the

pandemic and do not trust its ability to get

a grip in the future. Most voters, including

more than quarter of Tories, say Britain is

“going in the wrong direction”. 

Although the virus is now being effec-

tively suppressed and 

gdp

will bounce

back strongly after the shutdown, winter

will be hard. Mr Sunak is determined to end

the furlough scheme next month. That will

drive unemployment sharply upwards and

may erode the goodwill his largesse to date

has garnered. Mr Johnson is determined to

help the economy recover by getting peo-

ple back into their offices, but in other

European countries increased mobility has

pushed infection rates up. Whether or not

Mr Johnson secures a Brexit trade agree-

ment, leaving the

eu

’s single market and

customs union on New Year’s Day will dis-

rupt trade. His party is quarrelsome: he

faces a rebellion over plans to build more

houses in wealthy constituencies, and the

prospect of tax rises to repair the public fi-

nances have alarmed his

mp

s. Mr Johnson’s

marks in his first year have been poor, and

he has more tough tests to sit.

7

“W

hen i think

of England, I think of

the queen taking her dogs for a

walk in the countryside,” says Carsten Ha-

ferkamp, a dog-owning German architect

working in London. There may be some-

thing in the stereotype. Data from Tractive,

a firm that provides 

gps

tracking for pets,

show that Britons walk their dogs more

than their European neighbours do. 

British dogs get 177 minutes of activity a

day, compared with 160 minutes for slack

German pooches and 170 minutes for the

average French mutt. That could be why

they are slimmer than their European

cousins: the average British labrador

weighs in at 28kg, compared with 29kg and

31kg for its German and French counter-

parts. And it’s not just Europeans that Brit-

ish dog-owners outpace. Research by Carri

Westgarth of Liverpool University has es-

tablished that they are beating the foot-

paths more than Americans or Australians

as well. 

That continental European pooches are

on the porky side has not gone unnoticed

on the mainland. “Obesity among dogs is

acknowledged as a problem,” says Fleur-

Marie Missant of France’s Société Centrale

Canine. James Serpell, professor of animal

ethics and welfare at the University of

Pennsylvania, suspects that excessive

pampering, as well as under-walking, may

contribute to the problem. “The French are

super-indulgent with their dogs. They tol-

erate them in restaurants. I’ve been nudged

by strange dogs under the table in France.”

The German government is determined to

get the country’s dogs—and dog-owners—

off their sofas. Last month the agriculture

minister announced plans to require dog-

owners to walk their dogs twice a day.

The British devotion to dog-walking

may have more to do with the walking than

the dogs. Britons are big walkers—they

came fifth in the world in a study in 2017,

the highest in Europe. Dogs provide walk-

ers with company and a purpose, so it may

be that walking encourages dog-owner-

ship, rather than vice versa. 

But Julien Dugnoille, an anthropologist

at Exeter University, suspects dog-walking

has a deeper significance. Dogs, he sug-

gests, are a useful aid to a socially awkward

nation. “British people…tend to see dog-

walking as a rare opportunity to socialise

with strangers, to have a chat and exchange

a few jokes and comments about the

weather without putting themselves in

danger (ie, without being too committed in

their interaction).” The French, a nation of

flâneurs

, have no need of canine props.

A tradition among the British aristocra-

cy of owning and training dogs also leads

Dr Dugnoille to speculate that dog-walking

retains some of its ancient kudos. When

people in the park say “Max is very well-be-

haved,” says Dr Dugnoille, “that is a way to

demonstrate mastery in the art of taming,

an elevation above those dog owners who

are ‘not in control of their own dog’, which

is the ultimate faux-pas in public spaces.”

But it’s not just about showing off, in his

view. A Belgian who has lived in both Brit-

ain and France, he reckons the British are

closer to their dogs than the French. Walk-

ing with one’s best friend “creates a time

and space where dogs and humans meet as

species and connect as individuals”.

Still, the British should not congratu-

late themselves too much on their behav-

iour towards their canine companions, for

they are guilty of a universal hypocrisy. Ac-

cording to Dr Westgarth, “people say that a

dog needs a walk every day, but they will

find reasons why their dog doesn’t need a

walk. They’ll say: he’s got company in-

doors, he’s nervous or he doesn’t like the

rain.” Paw show. 

7