Government U-turns: positive or destructive?

“Humility is a good quality in a minister,” Caroline Spelman just told the Commons.

“Even if I say so myself,” heckled Labour’s Kevin Brennan.

Mrs Spelman had just given a full-frontal apology for the forestry policy the Government had, until last night, been pushing. U-turns are occasionally necessary but if repeated and easily achieved can be hugely destructive.

There are now, pressure groups will have spotted, templates for success. The forestry campaign organised massive public emailing. Nick Clegg received more letters against the forestry changes than he ever got on student tuition fees. That goes for every other MP I’ve checked with as well. Like the earlier school sports campaign, a smattering of non-political celebrities and a well-focused campaign hit its target.

One minister confidently predicted to me that this issue will go the same way as the school sports issue – an high profile campaign forces a public mea culpa…Things go quietly submerged, there are talks and, after tweaks here and there, the measure carries on much as previously planned. You lose a bit of money along the way plugging holes and satisfying interest groups, but not too much. It’s striking that Caroline Spelman was emphasising in the Commons that the “fears raised” by the forestry clauses in the Public Bodies Bill (seen by campaigners as laying the ground for a full-scale sell-off of forestry) were the problem… I heard no admission that the fundamentals of the actual policy were the problem.

Another school of thought is that the Government’s kidding itself if it thinks these U-turns don’t matter. They undermine authority, get replicated on bigger, more important measures, and you get shoved off course.