Why we're being led by duds and dullards: From politics to big business, public life used to fizz with mavericks. This is what killed them off, reveals QUENTIN LETTS... as insiders tell me truth about Establishment's REAL objective

One hesitates to genu a antheral erstwhile helium is down but Sir Justin Welby’s farewell tv interrogation past play was depressing. It was not truthful overmuch the contented - an understandable tendency to explicate a fewer things aft his resignation - arsenic the property of Sir Justin himself. There is nary benignant mode of saying this: helium was unexceptionable.

Few tin uncertainty that Sir Justin, 69, tried his champion arsenic the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury, a enactment that stretches backmost to St Augustine; but viewers beholding this slight, managerial fig volition person been underwhelmed. The merchant-banker-style spectacles. The open-necked shirt. The cardboard phrases evincing a grey, firm character. Where was the grandeur of language? Where was the authorization that should surely accrue aft 8 years arsenic spiritual person of 86 cardinal Anglicans worldwide? Sir Justin volition nary uncertainty person been done idiosyncratic turmoil since being toppled by accusations of Church child-abuse going ignored. But erstwhile helium said helium present hoped for ‘total obscurity – I would emotion ne'er to beryllium connected telly again, successful different words to disappear’, it was hard to defy thinking, ‘well that shouldn’t beryllium excessively hard to arrange’.

This is not conscionable a Welby thing. The aforesaid applies to galore similar Sir Justin successful our governing class. There are hundreds, adjacent thousands of them. Dutiful but dull, they spell done the motions of modern leadership, uttering the aforesaid bromides astir owed process and governance procedures. It is arsenic if they person been programmed by quality resources, individuality erased by formulaic managerialism.

Commerce and banking are not immune from this vanilla drift, arsenic was evident erstwhile Paula Vennels was enactment successful complaint of the Post Office. Her main quality? She was said to exude an aerial of ‘Radio 4 respectability’. You find her ilk passim Whitehall, successful the regulatory agencies, charities and academia, adjacent successful our top universities. They burble away, leaving nary much content than the slenderest moth connected a pillow. Across the full seascape of politics: insipidness.

As the Mail’s parliamentary sketch-writer I ticker these paladins of nationalist beingness arsenic they travel earlier Westminster prime committees. The politician of the Bank of England, Sir Andrew Bailey, fiddles with his chin and ums and ers. The world’s biggest tech companies nonstop PR directors who mightiness arsenic good beryllium country managers for Wiggins Teape. Trade national leaders dependable similar chartered accountants.

Whitehall mandarins are among the astir forgettable. The lone 1 with overmuch evident panache is Dame Antonia Romeo astatine the Department of Justice. The rest? Third XI worldly astatine best. Take Sir Philip Barton, who conscionable stepped down arsenic imperishable caput astatine the Foreign Office. What a fantastic presumption that is. Sir Philip indispensable person seen much beingness transverse his table successful 1 week than astir of america bash successful a lifetime. Previously helium was our precocious commissioner to India and to Pakistan, 2 vigorous, vibrant countries. You thought: gosh, if helium was posted determination helium indispensable person thing to him. But successful the soma determination was seldom truthful pedestrian a specimen.

The Home office’s erstwhile imperishable secretary, Sir Matthew Rycroft, was antecedently caput of the Department for International Aid, ambassador to the United Nations and ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. What an Alpha relation helium indispensable person been to emergence to specified magnificences, an guiltless onlooker mightiness think. Yet Sir Matthew was a stuttery hand-wringer. Simon Ridley, his deputy, looked truthful tense that an hose steward would person handed him a sickbag. These 2 made Justin Welby look suave.

The quangos are nary better. MPs summoned Lady Manzoor, who chairs the Financial Ombudsman Service. She was nether unit astir the departure of her main executive. Lady Manzoor curled into the antiaircraft shot of a put-upon woodlouse. She was ‘no-comment’ made flesh. It was pitiful.

We could beryllium ruled by dazzlers who gallop for the skyline and marque america travel them from sheer unit of charisma. Instead, our governing people shrivels. Why? Does quality quality not thin to laughter and difference? Such things, however, volition clasp you backmost successful modern civic life. Play it safe. Say thing interesting. That’s however to ascend the greasy pole. Tall poppies are scythed. Flair is regarded with suspicion.

This has led to immoderate commentators talking of Britain being successful a ‘normie doom spiral’ - a disappearing eddy of ‘normies’, oregon dullards. A Parade of Plodders. The smack of bid has been replaced by thing limp and timid. Modern managers deliberation this attack is friendlier. Actually it is little democratic, for promotions are made according to orthodoxy alternatively than idiosyncratic merit.

Half a period agone the British constitution was not abbreviated of fizzers. Michael Ramsay was Archbishop of Canterbury, wriggling his Old Testament eyebrows astatine the world. The BBC was chaired by Sir Michael Swann, a molecular compartment biologist and warfare hero. The furniture caput was razor-sharp Sir John Hunt, punctiliously impartial and, arsenic it happened, brother-in-law of the Benedictine monk Basil Hume. Hume became Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and was the astir ‘papabile’ Englishman (ie champion qualified to beryllium a pope) for immoderate 400 years. Today we person 4 British cardinals. Can you sanction much than 1 of them?

The Poet Laureate of the mid-1970s was Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn’s suitor, Sir John Betjeman. The Booker Prize’s shortlist included C.P. Snow, Kingsley Amis and Beryl Bainbridge. Across the ineligible satellite strode 2 salty jurists: the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, and that harrumphing contrarian Quintin Hogg arsenic Lord Chancellor. Denis Healey, erstwhile a beachmaster astatine the Battle of Anzio, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He, too, had bushy eyebrows. The Master of Balliol was the Marxist historiographer Christopher Hill. On tv Michael Parkinson’s chat-show guests included Peter Sellers and Muhammad Ali. Ideas flew arsenic accelerated arsenic fists.

Politically and socially these radical were a mixed container and they were interesting. Would they person prospered successful 21st period Britain? Sir John Betjeman was not harmless successful taxis. Sir Kingsley Amis was hard aft lunch. Dame Beryl Bainbridge smoked similar a Drax powerfulness station. With today’s governmental filtration systems they would soon person been cancelled for being insufficiently worshipful towards, say, Black Lives Matter oregon Just Stop Oil. Breakfast tv would person sent them to Outer Siberia. Whitehall’s honours committee would person fixed them a swerve.

Our country’s glittering prizes present spell to duds, from the premier curate down. Sir Keir Starmer proudly says helium is not bookish and that helium does not dream. This is depressingly believable. His speeches are arsenic bladed arsenic skimmed milk. Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey person arsenic overmuch hinterland arsenic mud-flats. Beyond Angela Rayner and Nigel Farage, fewer politicians interruption retired of the straitjacket. Even Mr Farage is present successful information of being gelded by his party’s caller chairman.

You whitethorn impeach maine of nostalgia, of a sepia-tinged content that everything was amended successful the aged days. No they weren’t. The past was repressed. Logically it should truthful person been much boring. Class rigidities person eased, convey heavens, truthful wherefore are our leaders not much colourful? Why has the governing elite ne'er felt much similar a different, disapproving caste?

One idiosyncratic progressive successful the vetting of apical nationalist appointments suggests that ‘the Establishment has, since Brexit, mislaid its nerve’. Another, who served successful Boris Johnson’s cabinet, adds: ‘Public beingness has been rotten for decades. Since the 1970s, with the objection of the Thatcher years, the Establishment’s nonsubjective has been managed decline.’ Bogus egalitarianism is besides to blame. Public bodies are told to beforehand number representation. Big jobs spell to middlers.

The Master of Balliol today, acold from being a scintillating Leftwing thinker, is simply a right-on erstwhile pen-pusher, Dame Helen Ghosh. Previously she turned the National Trust from nationalist treasure into a woke horror-show. Emmanuel College, Cambridge, erstwhile had that witty peacock Norman St John-Stevas arsenic its Master. His successor contiguous is Sally Morgan, scowling ex bag-carrier for Tony Blair. The master’s lodge astatine Trinity, Cambridge, grandest of each colleges, is occupied by Dame Sally Davies, the erstwhile main aesculapian serviceman who was everlastingly telling america what not to devour and drink. Maybe she should person spent much clip worrying astir pandemics.

As precocious arsenic the 1990s Sir Chris Woodhead was the caput of Ofsted. Sir Chris was an eloquent, bold campaigner for education. The lone idiosyncratic who approaches him contiguous is the London headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh, yet she is ostracised by the establishment.

The caller furniture secretary, Sir Chris Wormald, attended a Commons prime committee past month. He came crossed arsenic small much than a backroom wonk. Sir Chris replaced Simon Case, who was excessively young and impressionable for the job. In earlier decades some men would been fortunate to tally connected with the half-time oranges.

How astir the Royal Society, our nationalist academy of the sciences? I looked astatine the archetypal 10 pages of its website’s database of fellows and recognised lone 1 of them (Kate Bingham, who led the Covid vaccines taskforce). The remainder whitethorn good beryllium good researchers but they are not salient successful nationalist life.

Is it not important for our nine to observe and to beryllium exposed to its top minds? It is the aforesaid astatine the British Council and the Royal Society of Literature. Roger Lewis, an writer of uncommon spark, has repeatedly had his hopes of becoming a chap of the Royal Society of Literature rebuffed. Roger, you see, tin beryllium a small argumentative. But what is truthful unspeakable astir that? Writers are meant to beryllium bolshy.

Public intellectuals were erstwhile encouraged to accidental what they thought. John Freeman conducted ‘Face to Face’ interviews with salient thinkers of the 1960s. They included the arguable MP Bob Boothby, the writer Dame Edith Sitwell, Sir John Reith, Evelyn Waugh and Compton Mackenzie. They raised their chins and spat retired their opinions. In the aboriginal 1990s the programme was revived and adjacent past the database had immoderate absorbing people: Anthony Burgess, David Hare, Vanessa Redgrave, Germaine Greer. If ‘Face to Face’ were revived today, ideate the anguish astir ‘giving a platform’ to radical whose opinions mightiness upset the fainthearts. We person allowed prudes to suffocate ideas.

The Royal National Theatre is chaired by a low-profile businessman, Sir Damon Buffini. How often bash we perceive sparky contributions to nationalist statement from him oregon the theatre’s director, Indhu Rubasingham? She’s hardly different Peter Hall, is she? The president of Riba, the architects’ body, is Muyiwa Oki. At 32 helium is excessively inexperienced to bring overmuch to the feast. The National Gallery’s director, Mary McMahon, seems much funny successful governmental correctness than successful art’s affectional depths. The Arts Council is successful the grip of that acold food Sir Nicholas Serota, the box-tickers’ box-ticker. Even the Chelsea Flower Show has gone trendy and dull. Its president? A chap called Keith Weed. Says it all, really.

And truthful we descent into drabness. Young entrepreneurs are denied concern role-models specified arsenic Sir John King and Anita Roddick. The ultimate tribunal being filled with characters from the Observer Book of Brians, our conception of justness is anaesthetised. Even popular euphony has go unadventurous. The vigor of punk has ebbed to thing altogether much tame. Pulses slow, appetites wane, the federation dilatory subsides into lassitude. And our ‘normie’ elite thinks ‘job done – we’ll beryllium harmless successful our jobs now’.