Remember Dominic Cummings? The man who was the bête noir of the British Left after he led the victorious campaign to leave the European Union in 2016 was almost as hated as his boss Boris Johnson was, especially when he was hired as Johnson’s most senior adviser in number 10.
But now the truth can be revealed: the public (and media) had no right to discuss Cummings, however controversial his behaviour might have been. That comes from the horse’s mouth, from Keir Starmer himself, during an interview during his visit to the United States this week: “I’m not going to discuss individual members of staff, whoever they are. I don’t believe that my staff should be the subject of public debate like this, and I’m not going to play any part in it.”
Of course, the contexts of the controversies around Cummings and the recent criticism of Sue Gray, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, are very different. Gray finds herself in the spotlight partly because it has been revealed that she is paid more than her boss, which some people believe at the very least might justify the raising of an eyebrow or two. Cummings, on the other hand, provided acres of coverage during the early part of the last parliament by being constantly at the centre of various briefing wars between himself and the then Prime Minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson.
But now we have the authoritative line: a Prime Minister’s staff member is not to be discussed publicly, either by the Prime Minister himself or by the media. It is to be regretted, not least by Boris Johnson and Mr Cummings himself, that this new generosity towards special advisers has been extended by the Labour Party only recently, representing quite a marked change in tactics. For the party, when in opposition, was not slow to criticise any and every aspect of Cummings’ behaviour, and by implication, that of his boss, at every opportunity.
Still, perhaps we must extend some patience towards Starmer; he is discovering – and probably at a swifter and less comfortable pace than he expected – that governing is a bit harder than being in opposition. Perhaps he is only now placing himself in his predecessor’s shoes and starting to recognise how difficult it is to manage the various personalities in Downing Street while the ravenous media is constantly demanding to be fed.
There is, however, an alternative, less charitable interpretation of the Prime Minister’s words, which is that he has cynically decided that, now that the tables have turned and that he is in government and the Conservatives in opposition, a different set of standards should apply to him, his ministers and to his staff.
Unfortunately, this would chime more comfortably with the behaviour of both Starmer and his senior lieutenants in the last few weeks. In opposition, Labour never tired of seeking to accuse their opposite numbers of venality, of exposing their various acceptance of donations from generous benefactors as evidence of greed and corruption. They regularly announced, as if from a pulpit rather than from the despatch box in the Commons, that moral standards would be lifted to the heights of the angels themselves once the people had come to their senses and voted Labour at a general election.
And yet, once in office, and their own tendency to accept similar gifts from wealthy donors was examined, they resorted, not to a mea culpa or to self-flagellation for their own misjudgments, but to saying that when they did it, it was all fine because they had declared all their gifts in the Members Register of Interests.
It’s all Harold Wilson’s fault (bear with me).
Labour’s third ever Prime Minister, the victor in four out of the five general elections he fought in the 1960s and ’70s, may not actually have said that “a week is a long time in politics”, but he did say that “The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”
This inspired the comrades at the time and it has been doing so ever since. And that’s the problem: too many of them actually believed Wilson and thought that the comment was clever, virtuous and true.
It was not. It was a stupid thing to say because it is so obviously false. Labour is a political party, just like any other one. And like other political parties, it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. It does some good things and also some bad things. It believes some good things and it believes some bad things. It is for religious and evangelical organisations to undertake moral crusades; it is for political parties to govern the country and to try not to make too much of a hash of it.
But Wilson was exploiting the innate sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority that he knew resides in the hearts of most Labour Party members. No Labour leader ever became less popular among his members by exploiting their belief that they are better than everyone else.
The row over donations, the hapless and arrogant dismissal of the furore that ministers themselves have provoked, the Prime Minister’s outrage that his own staff be treated in the same way that Conservative government staffers were treated, the assumption that removing the winter heating allowance from some pensioners by a Labour government is somehow more acceptable than it would have been had a Conservative government done the same – all it reveals is that Wilson’s dictum is believed as intensely today as it was 60 years ago.
It is a damaging falsehood because it leads the party inexorably and inevitably towards a place where double standards shape the narrative of this government. And the longer that ministers and civil servants believe, despite all the evidence, that their behaviour is more acceptable simply because of the colour of their party membership cards, the less likely the voters are going to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Remember Dominic Cummings? The man who was the bête noir of the British Left after he led the victorious campaign to leave the European Union in 2016 was almost as hated as his boss Boris Johnson was, especially when he was hired as Johnson’s most senior adviser in number 10.
But now the truth can be revealed: the public (and media) had no right to discuss Cummings, however controversial his behaviour might have been. That comes from the horse’s mouth, from Keir Starmer himself, during an interview during his visit to the United States this week: “I’m not going to discuss individual members of staff, whoever they are. I don’t believe that my staff should be the subject of public debate like this, and I’m not going to play any part in it.”
Of course, the contexts of the controversies around Cummings and the recent criticism of Sue Gray, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, are very different. Gray finds herself in the spotlight partly because it has been revealed that she is paid more than her boss, which some people believe at the very least might justify the raising of an eyebrow or two. Cummings, on the other hand, provided acres of coverage during the early part of the last parliament by being constantly at the centre of various briefing wars between himself and the then Prime Minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson.
But now we have the authoritative line: a Prime Minister’s staff member is not to be discussed publicly, either by the Prime Minister himself or by the media. It is to be regretted, not least by Boris Johnson and Mr Cummings himself, that this new generosity towards special advisers has been extended by the Labour Party only recently, representing quite a marked change in tactics. For the party, when in opposition, was not slow to criticise any and every aspect of Cummings’ behaviour, and by implication, that of his boss, at every opportunity.
Still, perhaps we must extend some patience towards Starmer; he is discovering – and probably at a swifter and less comfortable pace than he expected – that governing is a bit harder than being in opposition. Perhaps he is only now placing himself in his predecessor’s shoes and starting to recognise how difficult it is to manage the various personalities in Downing Street while the ravenous media is constantly demanding to be fed.
There is, however, an alternative, less charitable interpretation of the Prime Minister’s words, which is that he has cynically decided that, now that the tables have turned and that he is in government and the Conservatives in opposition, a different set of standards should apply to him, his ministers and to his staff.
Unfortunately, this would chime more comfortably with the behaviour of both Starmer and his senior lieutenants in the last few weeks. In opposition, Labour never tired of seeking to accuse their opposite numbers of venality, of exposing their various acceptance of donations from generous benefactors as evidence of greed and corruption. They regularly announced, as if from a pulpit rather than from the despatch box in the Commons, that moral standards would be lifted to the heights of the angels themselves once the people had come to their senses and voted Labour at a general election.
And yet, once in office, and their own tendency to accept similar gifts from wealthy donors was examined, they resorted, not to a mea culpa or to self-flagellation for their own misjudgments, but to saying that when they did it, it was all fine because they had declared all their gifts in the Members Register of Interests.
It’s all Harold Wilson’s fault (bear with me).
Labour’s third ever Prime Minister, the victor in four out of the five general elections he fought in the 1960s and ’70s, may not actually have said that “a week is a long time in politics”, but he did say that “The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”
This inspired the comrades at the time and it has been doing so ever since. And that’s the problem: too many of them actually believed Wilson and thought that the comment was clever, virtuous and true.
It was not. It was a stupid thing to say because it is so obviously false. Labour is a political party, just like any other one. And like other political parties, it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. It does some good things and also some bad things. It believes some good things and it believes some bad things. It is for religious and evangelical organisations to undertake moral crusades; it is for political parties to govern the country and to try not to make too much of a hash of it.
But Wilson was exploiting the innate sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority that he knew resides in the hearts of most Labour Party members. No Labour leader ever became less popular among his members by exploiting their belief that they are better than everyone else.
The row over donations, the hapless and arrogant dismissal of the furore that ministers themselves have provoked, the Prime Minister’s outrage that his own staff be treated in the same way that Conservative government staffers were treated, the assumption that removing the winter heating allowance from some pensioners by a Labour government is somehow more acceptable than it would have been had a Conservative government done the same – all it reveals is that Wilson’s dictum is believed as intensely today as it was 60 years ago.
It is a damaging falsehood because it leads the party inexorably and inevitably towards a place where double standards shape the narrative of this government. And the longer that ministers and civil servants believe, despite all the evidence, that their behaviour is more acceptable simply because of the colour of their party membership cards, the less likely the voters are going to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt.