Prime Minister May can learn much from President Trump about Negotiation
Auditioning for a punk band in the days of yore was a fairly straightforward business. You’d be asked if you could play the instrument you’d brought with you. If you responded – in the snarling way you had to – that you knew your way around your guitar, the response would be “You’re on drums”: Mainly because the manager’s girlfriend thought you’d look better on drums.
It often seems that the choice for a Minister of State in HM Government is rather randomly and hastily chosen. Not because of any particular skill that would be useful for that department, but because the Prime Minister’s decided the new minister will come across better to the public than the previous incumbent, who was likely publicly disgraced by some scandal or other. In fact a choice made with all of the finesse, intellect and careful thought that went into the assembly of a punk band.
For those of us who think that it might be better for ministers of state – or even the Prime Minister – to be able to bring something at least marginally appropriate to the table, the US experiment in voting a businessman – rather than a politician – to the post of president is eagerly watched. Firstly we’ve realised that President Trump’s initial hard-line stance towards a trade deal with China, an arms deal with North Korea and putting tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, is actually a tactical gambit as a prelude to tough negotiations, not his final position. And with a team of world-class negotiators – Wall St’s finest – who can say the President hasn’t made remarkable progress so far? So, treating a negotiation in a business-like way, using the right people, realising timeliness is important, playing tactically to one’s strengths and making sure that both sides feel they’ve come out with a good deal, seems to have moved seamlessly from the business world to politics in the US, and to great effect.
Compare and contrast with the UK’s Brexit negotiations. There can be no clearer or simpler objective; to completely leave the EU with the best deal we can get, in that order of priority. And we have an excellent hand to play: the EU is desperate for our money and desperate for our trade, the UK being their biggest market. Yet the PM, the person in charge, voted to remain. It seems her main objective is to maintain Conservative party unity, to somehow appease the remainers by redefining what leaving the EU means. Professional negotiators from the business world should have been brought in. Instead, the negotiations are being carried out by civil servants and politicians, not versed in the ways and rigours of professional deal-making, and led by David Davies whose rather chummy and overly modest demeanour and stance should be contrasted very unfavourably with President Trump’s.
Who knew that the forming of a punk band would have had so much in common with HM Government’s choices of people for particular jobs?
