Passes for glasses: is cronyism undermining democracy?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

When in opposition, the Labour Party made great political capital out of accusing the Tories of ‘cronyism’ and of a ‘chumocracy’. Keir Starmer issued a pledge to ‘clean up our politics’, promising to restore ‘standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism’.

That was then. Within weeks of gaining power, the Labour government has itself become embroiled in controversy – unashamedly handing out special roles, privileges and Civil Service jobs to supporters, chums and donors. Labour peer Lord Alli’s financial donation to ‘work clothing’ and ‘multiple pairs of glasses’ (while being given an official pass to No 10) has made the headlines, alongside his £10,000 donation to help the son of Sue Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff, in a successful bid to become a Labour MP. Likewise, a growing list of controversial appointees has caused concern, like the shuffling of Jess Sargeant to a deputy director position in the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Constitution Group from her previous sinecure at Starmerite group Labour Together.

When the prime minister was challenged by journalists about the growing concerns about jobs-for-mates, he tetchily replied that ‘most of these allegations and accusations are coming from the very people that dragged our country down in the first place’. For many, the principle of Civil Service impartiality still matters – it was certainly important enough for the last Labour government to put it on a statutory footing in 2010. Its aim then was to ensure Civil Service positions are filled through a fair and open application process, overseen by an independent selection panel. Some suggest that legislation has become an unrealistic burden to the smooth running of government. Indeed, legislation or not, there seems to be a problem of bias within the Civil Service – from inactivity and feet-dragging during the Brexit years to pushing back at everything from the Rwanda Bill to any hint of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

Starmer might be being hoist by his own virtuous petard, but perhaps this exposé of self-righteous double standards is little more than tit-for-tat partisanship. After all, arguments to Get Something Done in government are nothing new – even if that means putting your own people in. Dominic Cummings promised to march through the institutions to get results. He might have failed, but is Starmer merely marching his own band? Should secretaries of state have greater powers of appointment to ensure their democratic mandate is not thwarted by The Blob? Or must we insist that civil servants serve the government of the day, whatever its politics or policies? And is this all a Westminster Bubble story that is not cutting through with the public in the same way that Partygate did?

SPEAKERS
Dr Tim Black
books and essays editor, spiked

Brendan Chilton
councillor, Stanhope Ward; chief executive, Ashford Borough council; independent business network director, Institute for Prosperity

Pamela Dow
chief operating officer, Civic Future

Henry Newman
former special adviser, director, The Whitehall Project

CHAIR
Jon Holbrook
barrister; writer, spiked, Critic, Conservative Woman