Hillary Clinton’s television commercial during the Democratic leadership race last year posed the big political question: “When the phone in the White House rings at three o’clock in the morning, who do you trust to answer it?” America gave her the unwelcome reply: “Barack Obama.”
Morning, noon and night, a hotline is now ringing in every British political leader’s office, but it rings loudest at No 10. Public regard for politicians was already low after 15 years of sleaze and spin. But the torrent of scandal unleashed by the publication of MPs’ expenses is overwhelming the Commons. The voters are entitled to one great expectation: that the prime minister of this country show leadership in a crisis.
Margaret Thatcher had her Falklands moment when she made a stand and fought for the recovery of the islands. Tony Blair took command when the royal family lost the plot amid the hysteria after the death of Princess Diana. It was and is Gordon Brown’s duty to get a grip before the moral authority of this parliament and his government withers and dies. In the latest Politics-Home poll, MPs are rock bottom in popular esteem for all occupations. This is a crisis for Labour, too: a YouGov poll for The Sun gives the governing party its lowest ever national poll rating: 22%. In the European elections it is challenged by UKIP for third place.
“No time for a novice,” jeered Brown in mockery of David Cameron – and the putative leadership challenger David Miliband – at the Labour conference last year. This is no time for a nervous Nellie.
The parade of humiliation at Westminster – the admissions of guilt, the false repentances, the lame excuses and the repayment of ill-gotten gains before the television cameras – would be comical if it weren’t so serious.
It’s as if Evelyn Waugh’s satirical report of a high-society revival meeting from Vile Bodies had come to life. “Barely had Lady Everyman finished before the Countess of Throbbing rose to confess her sins, and in a voice broken with emotion disclosed the hitherto unverified details of the parentage of the present earl . . . The Archbishop of Canterbury, who up to now had remained unmoved by the general emotion, then testified that at Eton in the Eighties he and Sir James Brown . . . The Duchess of Stayle next threw down her diamond and emerald tiara crying, ‘A guilt offering’, an example which was quickly followed by the Countess of Circumference and Lady Brown until a veritable rain of precious stones fell on the parquet flooring.” For precious stones read MPs’ £1,000plus cheques.
The drama will soon move to angry constituency parties and, in some outrageous cases, the law courts. There is an awful warning from Italy about underestimating the anger of voters. Themani pulite, or clean hands, scandals of the 1990s led to the demise of the ruling parties and the end of the First Republic. Granted, our politicians aren’t guilty of gangsterism – though peers who accepted cash for amendments should have been driven out of public life – but they are playing with fire. A recession on and we simply expect fair play here.
The Labour MP Tony Wright got the historical perspective spot on: “At various times in our history we have had the Long Parliament, we’ve had the Rump Parliament, we’ve had the Good Parliament, we’ve had the Addled Parliament. If we are not careful we shall finish up with the Moat Parliament or the Manure Parliament.”
Cracks about moats, manure and manor houses are clearly more damaging to the rich of the Conservative party than Labour. Cameron saw the danger and came out fighting. Stories about taxpayers’ support for maintaining grand country estates are toxic for his modernising brand. In his press conference on Tuesday he took the initiative by forcing his shadow cabinet to repay claims. “Politicians have done things that are unethical and wrong. I don’t care if they were in the rules – they were wrong.” At last, someone was speaking for England.
“He was quick, decisive and courageous.” That was a former Labour minister, not a sycophantic Tory, speaking.
By forcing his own parliamentary aide, Andrew MacKay, to resign (for double-claiming his housing allowances) before the story was plastered all over the front pages, Cameron showed steel. In his speech to the Scottish Conservative party on Friday, he rightly argued: “We cannot convincingly talk to others until we put our own house in order.”
And what did the PM do? For a fortnight his chief whip and confidant Nick Brown sat on the story of the former minister, Elliot Morley, who claimed £16,000 for a mortgage he had already paid off. Prompt action by Brown might have calmed the hysteria.
Nick Clegg, too, is having a good war. Openly contemptuous of Westminster’s fusty ways, the Liberal Democrat leader channels public anger. His lieutenant, Vincent Cable, soars spotlessly above the dung heap. Yet the political mainstream may suffer from the general disillusionment in the European elections on June 4.
Mischievous Lord Tebbit suggests voters should avoid the three main parties because of their scandalous misuse of allowances. Back UKIP or the Greens, I suppose, if you agree with their views. But speaking for those who want reform, Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University, urges the disaffected to “join the party that best reflects their political convictions, and call for a vote of no confidence, deselecting any MP whom they think has abused the system”.
For that the parties would have to open up and adopt primary elections, on the US model, to get rid of dead wood. The like-minded democracies of Canada and Australia also make their MPs accept external supervision.
The man nominally in charge of the clattering train is the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin. He is not up to the job. For all his vaunted working-class roots he behaves like a reactionary Bourbon king: he has learnt nothing, forgotten nothing.
He has learnt nothing from the failure of his every attempt to defend bad old practices. Had the Commons under his leadership opted for the Scottish parliamentary system of transparency on expenses, at least the slate would have been wiped clean. While defending the indefensible, the Speaker has nursed his grudges against uncorrupt MPs such as Kate Hoey who challenge his authority. His old-fashioned inverted snobbery, glaringly unpleasant towards his officials, is tasteless. He forgot to defend parliament’s real liberties when the police came calling for Damian Green.
Tomorrow, independently minded MPs led by the Tory Douglas Carswell will attempt to vote Martin out. If Nick Brown and his deputy, Tommy McAvoy, Martin’s friend, prop him up, the shame will rebound to the organ grinder behind this monkey, the prime minister. Brown should have saved MPs from themselves, and he could have saved himself. He should have invited Cameron and Clegg down to Chequers long ago and hammered out a deal for reform. He tried to bounce his own unworkable solution on them at the last moment. Instead of driving Clegg into Cameron’s arms for a joint press conference on the Gurkhas, he should have been on the doorstep at Downing Street with both younger men, making a united stand to clean up politics.
Yet last Wednesday at prime minister’s questions, when the scale of the disaster was apparent, Brown couldn’t help looking for another dividing line with the leader of the opposition: he attacked payments on mortgage interest, of which Cameron is the beneficiary. At a time of crisis, what the public wants is political leadership, not politicking.
Gordon Brown has virtues. He is an intelligent man who kept his head in the economic storm. But we expect something special from a prime minister, a quality related to martial virtue. In battle the leader adopts the fierce mask of command. The PM, alas, doesn’t know how.
All the worst managers are self-absorbed bullies. Brown simply doesn't get it. At every opportunity he has had to show leadership and statesmanship he has instead resorted to realpolitik. He could yet avoid living the rest of his life as a political joke by standing aside.
Charlie, Redditch, UK
Mr Brown may be clever, though I don't see how he can be that clever if can't see the writing on the wall. And how clever is it to deny 500 years of economic history by claiming the end of boom and bust. No he is average, but quite good at labour party politics.
Mark , Shrewsbury,
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