Strayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

Am I alone is reaching a state of desperation about the current state of our politics? Specifically, politicians who refuse blithely to accept accountability for the decisions and actions of their department and instead sacrifice the careers of civil servants tasked with implementing the policies born from politicians themselves.  Politicians who say or do, either that or what, which would have been indefensible just a few short years ago.  Politicians who seek visibility but hide when they become visible for the wrong reasons.  Politicians who do not measure up to standards set by Anthony Nolan’s “Seven Principles of Public Life.”

This week, two long-serving and, as far as we know, previously high achieving public servant lifers – Sally Collier, Chief Executive of Ofqual, the exams regulator, and Jonathan Slater, permanent secretary at the Department of Education – both lost their jobs in the aftermath of the exam grades fiasco.  The imposition of an untested grading algorithm on a cohort of lesson-hungry students stuck at home because of covid lockdown regulations was never going to end well.  But the decision to proceed with the dreaded algorithm was policy, which is always the result of a political decision and a political direction.  In short, the decision to proceed was made by some combination of the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, “Gav” as his aides call him – it seems to fit somehow - and the School’s Standards Minister Nick Gibb.  They both remain firmly in post, backed by Prime Minister BoJo for reasons surely passing understanding, while Ms Collier and Mr. Slater are dispatched to spend more time with their pensions.

Gone are the days, much lamented, when politicians resigned their posts as a matter of honour if they presided over a total horlicks in their department, or if they dropped a clanger that affected the public’s confidence – think Edwina Currie, a dozen eggs and salmonella, John Gummer stuffing burgers in his young daughter’s mouth during the Mad Cow crisis, or even Lord Lambton, caught smoking a joint in bed with a prostitute, filmed by a secret camera hidden in a Teddy Bear.  For reasons of competence, confidence or perception they all had to go.  And, looking back at them now, their crimes seem comically small when compared with the chaos precipitated by Mr. Williamson in England and (let’s not let the SNP off the hook) by John Swinney north of the border.  In 2002, Labour Education Secretary Estelle Morris resigned because “I judge my performance as not quite good enough.”  Such candour and humility feels quaintly out of step with the shameless norms of today’s politics.  But it shouldn’t be.

And at what point does the responsibility that comes with election to public office end?  Can a politician ever be considered “off duty” in respect of what they say and what they do?  I do believe politicians are entitled to a private life – their families, loves and lives outside politics should be of no interest to the public and, in my opinion, strictly “off limits” to the press.  However, assuming public office ought to bring with it the requirement of certain, higher standards of behaviour.  For example, racism, hate speech and sexism are never ok, in any circumstance.  Ergo, politicians of any party, elected to any office, can’t be afforded the luxury of drawing their own lines of distinction between the public and private realms of discourse when discussing these topics.  Whether they like it or not, in today’s hyper-connected ‘internet of things’ social media obsessed world, they are “always on.”

I’ve written in this column before about the case of Darley Parish Councillor Ernest Butler, whose unreconstructed personal views on immigration created a froideur (think tumbleweed…) among Harrogate’s chattering classes.  I won’t rehash the specifics, save to mention that his views were nonetheless deemed to fall outside the purview of the local Councillors code of conduct.  Which is to say that no means exists to make the public servant  man accountable for the unacceptable private views he expresses.  Saying you have no charter to punish the culprit simply becomes the means to inaction.  It seems to me that the answer is a radical overhaul of the code of conduct, this to recognise the contemporary realities of public life, conducted as it is, in full and transparent view for all to see and hear.

The issue here is that modern politics is as much about perception as it is about reality.  I wish this were not so but it’s not my call, nor is it the call of politicians, drawn to publicity, like moth to flame.  Our own Andrew Jones MP had a great photo op when, in December 2018, he visited Porsche specialist second-hand car dealer Gmund Cars Ltd and hailed “an amazing business.”  What he did not know is that six Porsche owners who talked to the Stray Ferret and who had placed their cars with Gmund for sale

allege that their vehicle’s ownership had been transferred without permission and did not receive a penny for the sale of cars worth over fifty grand apiece.  Gmund went into administration 6 months later in July 2019, with more than £1 million worth of cars missing.  A police investigation followed.  An “amazing” business indeed.

In his photo op, Mr Jones was pictured standing next to Gmund owner Andrew Mearns and his wife Samantha, a significant Gmund shareholder and company secretary until December 2018. Mrs Mearns is a Harrogate Borough Councillor and a case worker in Mr. Jones’ constituency office.  Not quite a Lord Lambton moment, but none too reassuring.  Councillor Mearns has made it clear she has not been questioned by the police.  Andrew Jones has kept his counsel, neither supporting publicly his Conservative colleague and office employee, nor commenting on the alleged irregularities in Gmund Cars Ltd. He does, however, have an irate constituent or two, each light to the tune both of tens of thousands of pounds and their cherished Porsche motor cars.

 

However we look at all of this, it makes a mockery of The Nolan Principles, to which public office holders are meant to adhere.  For the record the seven principles of public life are Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership.  Whether in Westminster or Knapping Mount, these standards seem absent lately; to the point of depressing irrelevance.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

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