WESTMINSTER GUBU (LAURA KUENSSBERG'S STATE OF CHAOS)

Five Conservative Prime Ministers in six years - sometimes you have to pinch yourself at the direction British politics has taken.

From the Brexit referendum result to the Daily Star testing whether a lettuce could outlast Liz Truss in Downing Street, we have witnessed Westminster go through some very weird, turbulent years.

Against the backdrop of all that turbulence, the BBC has asked its former Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg to make sense of it all in a three part documentary.

'Laura Kuenssberg's State of Chaos' is the latest in a line of Westminster documentaries on BBC2 that rely on interviews with politicians, special advisers and civil servants on the inside.

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In recent years, we've had 'Thatcher: A Very British Revolution' and 'Blair and Brown: A New Labour Revolution'.

So it's natural that against those two very impressive accounts of the Thatcher and Blair/Brown years, Kuenssberg's docu-miniseries will be measured. 

The expectation from admirers of those other programmes is that audiences will be given an inside track on the chaos that unfolded during Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss's periods in office.

To be fair, in their pursuit of that the programme makers have assembled an impressive array of insiders from various wings of the Conservative Party - Kwasi Kwarteng, William Hague, Nadhim Zahari, Jacob-Rees Mogg, Nicky Morgan, Sajid Javid, Simon Clarke, Philip Hammond, Steve Baker, Justine Greening, Amber Rudd, Gavin Williamson, Alicia Kearns, Charles Stewart, Matt Hancock, Wendy Morton and Nadine Dorries.

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Former UKIP leader and then Brexit Party chief Nigel Farage and veteran Labour MP Hilary Benn are also interviewed in an opening episode which focuses on Theresa May's struggles to secure Parliamentary support for her efforts to exit the European Union and the disastrous General Election result in 2017 which only weakened her hand.

Subsequent episodes deal with the chaos at the heart of Boris Johnson's Government during chief of staff Dominic Cummings' shake up of the Civil Service, the COVID pandemic, Partygate and the Chris Pincher affair, concerns about the Prime Minister's ability to admit the truth, the subsequent Tory leadership contest and the economic and political crisis sparked by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget and the farcical handling of a House of Commons vote on fracking.

Senior civil servants Helen MacNamara, Philip Rycroft, Josie Stewart and Lord Simon MacDonald contribute, as well as Gavin Barnwell, Fiona Hill, Nick Timothy, Guto Harri, Cleo Watson, Ben Gascoigne,  Matthew Sinclair - all special advisers from the three Prime Ministerial terms that Kuenssberg mostly focuses on.

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But does this docu-miniseries simply rehash an extraordinary series of events or shed any new light?

With a lot to cover, Kuenssberg and her team barely cover the end of the David Cameron Premiership or the initial events of Rishi Sunak's tenure.

Episode one focuses mostly on how Boris Johnson was outmanoeuvred in the post Brexit referendum leadership contest and how the caution of the eventual winner, Theresa May while in office and her willingness to include in her cabinet different wings of the party was used against her.

The picture painted is of a Prime Minister who was careful not to be bounced into rash action but who was also painfully slow at making decisions.

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Matt Hancock recalls endless meetings on policy with no real outcome.

Philip Hammond observes how Prime Minister May's favourite phrase appeared to be "let me think about it".

But while she trod carefully, Brexiteers were plotting her downfall, with Steve Baker openly admitting he briefed against her EU exit strategy, "absolutely waging war against the government" from his office at home dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops.

While Helen MacNamara expresses appreciation of May, Nadine Dorries insists she wasn't a good Prime Minister.

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Boris' fulfilment of his dream of occupying Number Ten is depicted as the polar opposite of Theresa May's tenure.

Swashbuckling in style, he set out to "Get Brexit Done" and coasted to a thumping majority in the 2019 General Election, smashing Labour's Red Wall of seats in the north of England.

However he also allowed his chief adviser Dominic Cummings to pursue a pet project of shaking up Whitehall, waging war on civil servants who he believed were resistant to Brexit and other key policies.

Kuenssberg's big revelation in the second episode is that senior Foreign Office mandarin Simon MacDonald told his staff he voted against Brexit and subsequently lost his job following media briefings about civil servants who were working against government policy.

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While Helen MacNamara describes the revelation about her colleague admitting his Brexit stance was "genuinely surprising.. I don't know why that would be a good or helpful thing..," Kuenssberg's scoop seems to overlook the point he was attempting to make that all civil servants have to put aside their personal opinions when implementing the policy of the government - whatever party is in power.

It leaves Kuenssberg open to allegations from some critics that by revealing MacDonald's personal views and making a huge deal about them her programme, she is perpetuating hard right conspiracy theories about bias in the Civil Service.

Reflecting on the Johnson years, MacDonald observes during the programme: "It was very clear from very early on that Dominic Cummings wanted to break things to try something completely new. It was destabilising."

Cummings' subsequent dismantling of the Civil Service leadership and the reverberations those actions caused is perhaps the most fascinating storyline in the entire 'State of Chaos' series.

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Following not far behind is the personal animus that developed between him and supporters of Johnson post Brexit - divisions which ultimately led to Cummings' downfall.

Sajid Javid, who resigned over Cummings' attempts to make him sack six special advisers so the chief of staff could assert greater control, pointedly reflects on his time in office as: "At best it was like having two Prime Ministers, and sometimes they agreed and sometimes they didn’t. 

"At worst it was like one Prime Minister – it just wasn’t the elected one,”

Boris Johnson's evasiveness over allegations of partying in Downing Street during the COVID lockdowns is cited as a crucial factor in the draining of support away from him by Cummings and others.

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However the Prime Minister's dramatic hospitalisation in April 2020 with COVID sparks one of the most illuminating moments of the docu-miniseries when Helen MacNamara conveys the sense of panic in government as Dominic Raab temporarily took over Prime Ministerial duties.

"There is not a manual for this," she admits.

"I was extremely worried about the impact it would have if he (Prime Minister Johnson) was gone and the shock it would be for the country and how on Earth we were going to manage if the worst happened?"

Rough notes about what would occur in this scenario were hastily turned into a discussion document by McNamara to "create the illusion" that Government had a list of actions prepared.

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However a steady stream of news stories and leaks around Partygate and the Prime Minister's repeated denials that regulations were broken ultimately was his undoing, resulting in public support ebbing away from him and his party.

Johnson's appointment of Chris Pincher as a Government whip despite allegations of sexual misconduct against the MP and his subsequent denial that he knew anything about them would seal his demise.

As with May, Kuenssberg pointedly asks after showing clips of Johnson's resignation speech if he was a good Prime Minister?

Initially struggling with the answer and nervously smiling, Cleo Watson rather tellingly says after an awkward pause: "I think he was right for a certain stage.

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"I don't think COVID suited his strengths and he's set a precedent for, I think, what the public are prepared to have in their leaders."

William Hague is much more forthright in his verdict: "No. It turned out that he was deeply flawed as a Prime Minister - tragically, as he had many great qualities that could have been Prime Minister for a long time."

The third episode moves from the downfall of Boris Johnson to Liz Truss's staggeringly brief tenure.

A Prime Minister in a hurry, her first few days in office are disrupted, like her predecessor, by an unforseen event - in this case the death of a serving Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

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However the programme argues when the country emerged from national mourning, Truss's exclusion from government of opposing voices in her own party and her refusal to respect norms when radically changing economic policy led to her spectacularly swift combustion.

One year on, it's still stunning to watch Kwasi Kwarteng uncomfortably running the gauntlet of a press pack stunned by the spectacular nosedive in the financial markets as a result of his September mini budget.

It is equally jaw dropping to see clips of Truss's bullishness about tax cuts for the wealthy and significant public sector cuts on Kuenssberg's BBC1 Sunday morning politics show from the Conservative Party conference and Michael Gove's gutting of her remarks on the same show.

However if 'Laura Kuenssberg's State of Chaos' contains some gems, there are questions too around some of the editorial choices the programme makers have made.

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It seems odd to exclude voices from most of the other parties from the show and have Hilary Benn as the only non Tory.

Where's the Corbynista perspective of someone like John McDonnell on the 2017 and 2019 elections, given they were the main voice of Opposition against May and Johnson?

What about the SNP and the Liberal Democrats?

Given the DUP's crucial role in propping up the Conservative Government from 2017-19 with the Confidence and Supply Deal for Northern Ireland and their MPs' alignment with the Brexiteer lobby on crucial votes, where's Arlene Foster, Nigel Dodds or Jeffrey Donaldson?

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And while there are scenes of Kuenssberg as the BBC Political Editor receiving phone calls briefing her on the turbulence in the Conservative Government, there's no real attempt or desire to examine the relationship between spin doctors and the Westminster press pack.

Does 'Laura Kuenssberg's State of Chaos' measure up well to 'Thatcher: A Very British Revolution' or 'Blair and Brown: A New Labour Revolution'?

Not quite.

Yet it's still an entertaining watch if Westminster is your thing.

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It is, at times, informative.

However, depending on your perspective on the events Laura Kuennsberg is describing, you may also find it frustrating.

If anything is clear from the programme, it is that whatever happens at the next General Election, the tumult of the post Brexit referendum years has ensured British politics will never be the same again.

The wounds opened by Brexit across the political spectrum and specifically within the Conservative Party are going to take a long time to heal.

It will take a skilful set of leaders across the political divide to marshal that. Good luck to those willing to take up that challenge.

 

('Laura Kuenssberg's State of Chaos' aired on BBC2 between September 11-25, 2023 and is available on the BBC iPlayer)