Call it marking the territory. New prime ministers at the head of new governments have taken to holding news events in the Downing Street garden soon after their election.
In 1997, Tony Blair welcomed President Clinton in blazing sunshine. The two leaders claimed to have discovered a third way to do politics while a Daily Mail columnist compared the legs of Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton.
In 2010, a smiling David Cameron appeared with his new coalition partner and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. As so often, Andy Bell of Channel 5 had the best question, reminding the prime minister that he had recently identified Clegg as his “favourite joke”. Bell starred again at Sir Keir Starmer’s “rose garden” debut this week, thanks to his bronze medal Olympian daughter Georgia, who earnt Bell the only round of applause from the assembled hacks.
The atmosphere, literally and metaphorically, was very different for Starmer than it had been for Cameron or Blair. It was sweaty, windy and largely overcast, and not only because the prime minister was speaking on the first day back at work after a disappointing British summer. Fifty days into his administration, stuttering Starmer is having to fend off the first allegations of corruption against his government.
With the words “Fixing the Foundations” stamped across his lectern, Sir Keir said he had invited the country into his garden to tell them that the Conservatives had left the country in an even worse state than he, or the Office of Budget Responsibility, had expected. There would be more pain and taxes before a chink of hope peeked through the darkening clouds.
The prime minister pressed on grimly with his prosecution of his Tory predecessors: “This is a garden and a building once used for lockdown parties … this garden and building is now back at your service.” He insisted that he remains “determined to restore honesty and integrity to government.”
The problem is that there appears to have been at least one “party” in that garden since Labour took over. A modest affair, totally legal, not rule breaking, and associated with the teetotal Labour peer Waheed Alli, but enough for attack dogs in Tory ranks to bark “sleaze” and “cronies” and to demand to know why Lord Alli had a temporary pass to Number Ten.
It is a legitimate question in the current tit-for-tat politics. As are the issues being raised about quasi-governmental appointments by Henry Newman, a suave former aide to Michael Gove, who has set up a watchdog group called #TheWhitehallProject.
Newman, jokingly hailed as the new “real leader of the opposition”, has already had some success forcing a former businessman and Labour donor, Ian Corfield, to give up an appointment as a Treasury civil servant, to do the same job informally as an unpaid advisor.
In opposition, Labour did it to the Conservatives, so why shouldn’t the new government get a taste of its own medicine? It would be nice if Westminster could do better than uninspiring personnel sniping but I doubt it ever will.
In four decades as a political correspondent, I have got to know Waheed Alli and Ian Corfield, on and off camera, just as I know Michael Spencer, Michael Ashcroft and Lord Bamford on the Tory side, and numerous plutocrats active in support of various political parties. Most of whom I like and respect for their well-intentioned contribution in politics.
I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich donor to get a good press.
Some share Scott Fitzgerald’s deferential fascination that “the rich are different from you and me”. Others lean to Ernest Hemingway’s pragmatism: “Yes, they have more money”. Only Hemingway’s observation is indisputable. Those who have spare cash, or the means to work for nothing, are always going to be of interest to cash-strapped political parties.
Like the others before them, Corfield and Alli are individuals of proven talent who are now in a position to serve the party which they have long supported openly. Their past donations are on the record. Alli has been a Labour member of the House of Lords since 1998. Corfield was in consideration to be the Labour candidate for Halifax in this year’s general election.
Henry Newman is right that guidelines and guardrails for civil service appointments should be respected. It is pure cant to imply that it is improper to bring in as advisors and aides, within the rules. Newman was not so exercised about the access and influence enjoyed by his sometime colleagues, and political appointees, Dominic Cummings and Dougie Smith, to name but two.
Special advisors are political by definition. The outsiders brought in to serve on the boards of government departments are there to challenge civil service group think on behalf of the public. Then there will always be sympathisers co-opted informally or formally to quangos. Who can forget the last government’s attempts to stuff the board of the BBC with friends and allies?
In the garden, Starmer re-iterated his intention to stick by the rules for appointments while muttering: “Most of the accusations are by the people who dragged our country down”. They would not stop him “putting the best people into the best jobs”.
Lord Alli played a key role organising and raising funds during the election campaign. Afterwards, he moved into Downing Street to do “transition work”, according to Starmer, then “the work finished and he hasn’t got a pass”.
However innocent and well-intentioned, both men would probably admit with hindsight that it was a mistake to have put him into Number 10, even for a few weeks. New prime ministers often have to learn where the line should be drawn between their party and government, especially since they move from one to the other in a matter of hours.
Like it or not, the politically active rich are different “from you and me” because they are able to contribute more personally and to do so they get better access to the people in power. Those outside will always be jealous of such access but the real issue is whether it is abused with the privileged serving themselves rather than serving others.
For now, the main questioners from the BBC, ITV, C4, C5 and Sky News seem to think it is time to move on, nothing to see here. They did not raise Corfield and Alli with the Prime Minister.
Sir Keir was asked when he plans to deliver on his manifesto pledge to set up independent scrutiny of government ethics. He waffled. If he wants to demonstrate that this government is really different from its predecessors he should get on with it before the cynicism of experience sets in.
Among the mistakes he admitted after leaving office, Tony Blair included introducing the Freedom of Information Act and scoring “easy goals” in opposition attacking the Major government over sleaze because “the long-term consequences were disastrous”.
The sun struggled to shine on Sir Keir’s Downing Street garden event but daylight of any sort remains the best disinfectant.
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