How detail-oriented do you expect a prime minister to be about trade deals?

[andrewducker]

Poll #25133

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 65

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A new, huge, trade deal has been hammered out

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I'd expect the Prime Minister to read all 1,246 pages in detail
7 (10.8%)

I'd expect them to read a very detailed briefing document - say 100 pages
43 (66.2%)

I'd expect them to read a detailed overview - say 20 pages
18 (27.7%)

I'd expect them to read a summary - a page or two
3 (4.6%)

Something Else I Will Explain In Comments
5 (7.7%)

Comments

[strange_complex]

I'd expect them to start from a detailed briefing document, and use that as a pointer to follow up on sections of the original deal which seemed likely to be particularly important or controversial.

[doug]

It depends what you mean by "expect". 10-20 pages should be enough if well drawn up. You want full time specialists working up that brief. (This is what the civil service is for and it still manages to do it despite continual attacks.) For this PM, though, I would expect him to demand only a single page and not to read even that.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I was wondering how much people thought a "normal" PM should do.

[dewline]

Boris Johnson? Yeah, he'd definitely try to make his staff whittle it down to one page if he thinks he can get away with it.

Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, is made of intellectually stronger stuff. I'd expect him to want anywhere from 20 to 100 pages in his briefing docs, with an option for deeper detail wherever he feels the need.

[rhythmaning]

Whilst I wouldn't expect anyone to read the whole thing, I would expect a prime minister to be well briefed and to fully understand the contents and the implications of it.

And not to lie and bluster about it.

[mountainkiss]

This, basically. I don't really care what they read. I care what they know and understand. I expect* them to:

(1) know what they've signed up to, in essence and in the round, and be convinced that it's what they intended.
(2) understand the implications for most important stakeholder groups and in particular those who will either undergo change and loss, and have robust plans for communicating and mitigating impact.
(3) be able to take and answer questions on it truthfully. Whether they choose to lie is the subject of a different post.

There are probably more. My point is that I don't care how they get to that place as long as they do. Relationships with advisors could be significant here.


* for the theoretical rather than practical value of expect, obvs.

[rhythmaning]

An alternative view. (Although he basically agrees - but reading the text should be the start of understanding, leading to the discussion with advisors.)

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/why-prime-ministers-and-ministers-should-read-the-legal-texts-for-which-they-are-responsible-and-not-leave-it-to-summaries-and-advisors

[mountainkiss]

I'm reading this now.

I don't know, though. I think of myself as reasonably fast and reasonably clever, but I know I couldn't do this properly. I mean, I could, but not in the timeframe required for political decision-making. Maybe if I became a cabinet minister, I'd have built the experience to be able to do so, but I'm not sure. People work with information in different ways.

[rhythmaning]

I think you're saying that the time for scrutiny of the deal was woefully inadequate.

But in general I agree with you. Perhaps I'm just a lazy reader!

[mountainkiss]

Not just scrutiny of the deal. There are other actions that would need to be taken too. There’s be a constant pressure for rapid response.

I do think DAG makes good points though.

[andrewducker]

I think the with trade agreements they tend to come together slowly, and be tweaked in to shape.
So a minister could, theoretically, read it over the course of months, keeping up to date with it as changes came in.

[rhythmaning]

Incidentally, it appears that the fish have read the whole deal, and they're happy and indeed excited by the prospect to be British fish.

[andrewducker]

I shall look forward to seeing if some of them are happy to be Scottish fish.

[simont]

"So long! And thanks, say all the fish."

[darkoshi]

:D

[mountainkiss]

So long and thanks for all the people?

[andrewducker]

I shall look forward to seeing if some of themthey're happy to be Scottish fish.

[spacelem]

I clicked "100 pages", but that should be full of highlights: a leader's job is to ensure that competent people are placed in charge, who can feed back the gist and any important bits. 100 pages is going to be many days of work to thoroughly understand, and he may not have the skill to comprehend the legalese (and 1,246 pages is someone who needs to be a professional in that area and devote serious time to it).

At least 20 pages though, about the length of an academic paper, enough to get a feel for it and a few important details.

[simont]

I don't have a very specific opinion on exactly how much fine detail the person at the top ought to know, in this case or in any other.

What I do have a strong opinion about is that they should be aware how much they don't know, and how much the things they don't know might matter. Any detail they don't know, they should not dismiss as insignificant. If you don't know 99% of the details, you should have a very, very strong intuitive feeling that that makes one hell of a lot of places where a devil could be hiding and you wouldn't know about it (yet). So when someone comes to you and says, it turns out this particular detail is no longer a fine detail but a Really Big Deal that we need to do something about, you pay attention, and you don't assume they're making a mountain out of a molehill, and ideally you don't even treat it as a surprise, more a sort of "ah, yes, I expected something like that would come up sooner or later, probably sooner".

[hilarita]

While, in general, I wouldn't expect a 100-page briefing about even a major trade deal (I'd expect a 1-page summary for something small, to be put in his red boxes, and maybe 10-20 pages for a big trade deal with e.g. the US or China), for the Brexit trade deal, which undoes the way we've done trade with our nearest neighbours for over 25 years...I would expect that 100 page document, light on details in the less controversial details, full of details on the bloody fish, transport of food, origin regulations etc.

Ideally, he'd read the whole damn lot, all 1200+ pages, but I am prepared to admit that there may be other things a PM should attend to, such as the huge epidemic we're having right now.

[redbird]

My answer was "expect"="predict". I would _want_ them to read a very detailed briefing document, but think they'd be more likely to read 20 pages and then, ideally, ask questions about it.

[autopope]

I'd expect them to read the detailed breakdown and check against the full text to confirm accuracy, but if the PM in question is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson he'd read -- oh look, it's a hot blonde with big knockers! Cowabunga!

[calimac]

I'd expect a normal PM to read a detailed briefing document, and then have a detailed briefing with the experts.

I'd also expect the PM's fisheries minister to be particularly familiar with the fisheries sections, but that may be just me.

[stormclouds]

I clicked on the whole thing but I suspect I just want to punish Boris. Or whoever ended up being PM when this shitty thing finally went through.

[symbioid]

I'd say for 1200 pages, you'd need a couple hundred to really suffice. Mayybe 100 could work. But I think 200-300 would really be necessary (but I also am visual so my "overview" would require more than just a lot of text - but charts/graphcs, explanations which would take more space).

[nickbarlow]

I went for a combination of 100 pages and SEIWEIC, because I'd expect him to have a detailed brief in the 20-100 page range at the end of the process, but I'd also expect him to have been keeping on top of the details of the deal as it evolved, so a lot of that briefing would be confirming things he already knew and had been briefed on before. I've had political responsibility for very complicated things before (not quite international trade deal level) and I wouldn't expect to know all the details, but I would expect to have been kept abreast of the most contentious issues and know how things have changed. I'd also want the answers to key questions (like "how screwed is X industry as a result of this?") so I was prepared for the questions that will come.

Well!

[lsanderson]

I'd expect a fearful leader would read a summary - a page or two and be thoroughly briefed by and question the team negotiating the deal.

[reverancepavane]

I'd expect the PM to at least read the cover sheet of the civil service briefing paper of the actual trade deal. If conscientious he might read further, but then trade deals are highly specialist and technical documents. It's not his job to know the details.

On the other hand his political staff would probably provide a private briefing document that is much more politically orientated, including talking points and possibly even pointing out things the PM doesn't really want discussed in Parliament (although this is dangerous since this research can leak, so it will generally concentrate on the positive).

[beckyc]

Normally just a high level overview.

When they’re one of the main instigators of large scale destruction of our existing arrangements, I jolly well expect them to know what they’re replacing it with!

[jack]

Although I guess in this case, my main objection is that the one sentence summary is "it's very complicated with lots of lots of specifics, most of them are a PR disaster waiting to happen, some which will all detonate simultaneously next week" and the PM resolutely refuses to understand even that much. So presumably more details would not help.

[jack]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his continued projection of churchillian bonhomie and morally bankrupt clinging onto the back of the far-right tiger depends on his not understanding it"

[penta]

This is a great question. I think one thing commenters above me might not realize: The British PM, the US President, national-level leaders like that?

Their time is scheduled in 15 minute increments (or at least that was the case, prior to Trump, at the White House), with ideally every minute of the working day accounted for somehow.

I don't really think, therefore, that a PM could hope to read even 100 pages on one topic - there's simply too much else to do and read, no matter how important that trade deal might be.

The 1246 pages goes to senior civil servants.

The 100 pages goes to ministers, devoted to their ministry's area of concern.

The PM gets 20 pages, 30 if they're a really fast and efficient reader. They simply do not have the time to read more than that, particularly on short notice.

The page or two summary goes to the media.