The row over the gifts received by senior Labour politicians has been handled badly, damaged the reputation of a new government and now contributed to the resignation of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Sue Gray. Up until now, party management has been too slow to respond. But there is a growing risk of a dangerous over-correction. The first instinct of the Government was to dismiss the story and point to the behaviour of their predecessors. It is no doubt galling to be criticised on ethical grounds by those who said nothing about the behaviour of Boris Johnson. A defence based on whataboutery, however, generally only works with one’s most partisan supporters.
That is not to say that a useful and important distinction cannot be drawn between the current story and, say, Wallpapergate. The controversy over the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat is now little more than a footnote in an account of Johnson’s time in office; other scandals played a much bigger role in his downfall. But both then and now, third-party donors paid for expenses which could be described as personal to the Prime Minister and his family. The real issue was that, as Dominic Cummings put it, the flat refurbishment plans “almost certainly broke the rules on the proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way [Johnson] intended”. Transparency was the key point. Today by comparison, there may have been errors in complying with the declaration rules by the Prime Minister, but there is no evidence of any attempt to subvert those rules.
But that is not to dismiss the current matter. At the time of Wallpapergate, Labour did not limit their criticisms of Johnson to failing to abide by the declaration rules. Angela Rayner was perhaps most vociferous in complaining that a Prime Minister should be able to live off their own salary rather than ask for help from donors. There is more than a faint whiff of hypocrisy about Rayner’s arguments, just as there is about some of the Tory criticism of Starmer.
The argument that ministers are well enough paid that they should not accept gifts is one that will resonate with large parts of the electorate, especially when ministers are making decisions to limit entitlements to benefits. At the moment, it is the comparison between ministers receiving financial support for clothing and pensioners losing their winter fuel payments that is causing the Government most anxiety. There are, however, dangers in treating this argument as axiomatic. It is clearly right that we treat transparency as important. Any perceived or potential conflicts of interest have to be properly addressed, and we cannot have politicians beholden to third parties. Nor should politicians be insensitive – as ministers on occasion have been – to the charge that their positions of power enable them to live lifestyles totally alien to the population at large.
But there are risks in trying to force all politicians into a hairshirt. A prime minister is a human being. They are required to work very long and intense hours and nearly all of them in modern times (with one obvious exception) have done so. They also require rest and recuperation. We all know this, but it is becoming increasingly hard for a politician – and their family – to escape the pressures of the job. Starmer, for example, missed out on his summer holiday this year because of the riots. Those of us who enjoy watching football with our teenage sons (I must declare an interest here) can fully understand why the Prime Minister is determined to ensure that he can continue to do so in a manner that addresses the genuine security concerns. These are not small pleasures, and can contribute to maintaining some degree of normality in an otherwise abnormal life. It does not serve the country well if the role of Prime Minister becomes all-consuming.
There is a wider point about the demands that we place on our politicians, one that is easier to make having left the stage. By professional standards, it is not well-remunerated (a newly qualified solicitor in their mid-20s at a City law firm will often earn more than an MP and – in some firms – more than the prime minister). It has also become much more difficult to supplement a backbench MP’s salary with outside interests (a popular but unwise move by the current government). The demands and scrutiny placed on MPs are now greater than they ever were and, with a more volatile electorate, the job security has only diminished. Nobody should be motivated to go into politics to get rich, but the danger is that the vocation becomes so unattractive that it only attracts the already wealthy or the obsessive.
With talk of new rules governing donations coming into place, we should be careful about an over-reaction to the freebies row. Gifts should be transparent and we should be vigilant about undue influences. But if, in response to a populist, generally anti-politics mood, we treat the donation of (say) tickets to concerts or sporting events as some great scandal, we would be lacking any sense of proportion. And, in a small way, we will make a career in politics just a little less attractive for able and relatively normal people.
[See also: Don’t be seduced by the myths of the economic right]
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