That’s a recent newspaper article headline about the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his (apparently) indispensable advisor in-chief (or should I write “advisor-in-charge”?). A populist government like the current one appeals for votes by saying what people would like to hear, even when the benefits they promise are not deliverable or will even harm people.

We all know the slogans. “Take back control” was the enticing slogan for Brexit. As things stand, the UK is losing control of its reputation, its international standing and probably of its economy and much else.

The covid-19 pandemic is the current crisis. What the pandemic is showing is that you can’t fight diseases with slogans, especially muddled ones. You need competent and honest politicians in charge. They seem to have neither of those qualities within this government, whose members were selected for the strength of their Brexit dogmatism rather than for a proven ability to make the right things happen. When things go wrong – such as being caught “taking eye tests at Barnard Castle” – they tell us that black is white, because Dominic Cummings says it is.

Cummings’s Svengalian, hypnotic powers over much of Johnson’s cabinet and beyond is frightening. Our local MP seems to be beholden to his powers.

There are shades of Svengalian powers at Uttlesford District Council. The Residents for Uttlesford’s cabinet meekly adopted on Wednesday a Corporate (so-called) Delivery Plan; a statement of what they intend to make happen in the remaining three years of the R4U Administration. It’s taken thirteen months to emerge. It’s said to have been conceived at the start of its enormously long gestation by R4U’s own Dominic Cummings; a member of the public who has never been elected. But, like at 10 Downing Street, the elected councillors, it is claimed, do what the unelected advisor tells them to do.

So, they obeyed. The Corporate Delivery Plan is vacuous. There are few, if any, targets. Vague statements predominate, replacing measurable outcomes. There are too many caveats about work having been stopped or at risk of being ceased. Why? Well, the money may run out!

Now, it’s true that the Covid-19 pandemic has cut council income by large chunks. People are delaying paying their taxes. Car park payments and other income streams have collapsed, at least temporarily. Will they recover? No one is sure. Will Her Majesty’s Government come to the rescue by restoring the £millions it has taken away in recent years? For answers, it seems someone needs to ask the real Mr Cummings!

But where is the plan for what R4U wants the Council to achieve if the money does come good? It’s nowhere to be seen! The Council Leadership said it won’t set any ambitions in case they are held to account for unmet targets. So, what is the point of Residents for Uttlesford? Risk averse – except when they are risking £millions of borrowed cash on investments in shopping parades.

The local populists are NOT YET being held to account; and anyone who challenges them gets attacked for daring to ask awkward questions. (Just like the Cummings/Johnson duo attacks journalists for asking awkward questions that the people want to have answered.)

Such is populist politics.

I will shortly post about populism and the Local Development Plan.