The former justice secretary argues that David Lammy is pursuing a tempting quick fix without addressing the complex problems in our courts.
Alexander the Great has a lot to answer for. When faced with the tangled skeins of the Gordian knot he scorned the patient work of tracing, loosening and untying and took his sword to the whole damn mess. Ever since then, scything through complexity with a single blow has seemed the leadership thing to do.
The idea of one bold stroke resolving stubborn problems captivates politicians’ minds. All the more so if it can seem an act of courage from which weaker souls have flinched. Bring back the 11-plus and our education system will be restored to health. Rid ourselves of fossil fuels and the planet is saved. Repeal the Equality Act and wokeness will wither and die.
The seductive allure of the policy scimitar is difficult for many politicians to resist. But they must. Because most of the challenges modern societies face are multifaceted and not susceptible to a single, crude but effective, intervention. They are often what economists call “wicked” problems. A wicked problem is not an issue of moral weakness, although that is common in politics. Problems are defined as wicked if they are composed of multiple, variable, complex factors which all bear on one another and which need to be carefully unpicked if progress is to be made.
