Come the hour, come the man… and woman, too, it seems. Just when we’d lost all hope in this generation of British politicians, it seems that there are still a few rare figures determined to put public interest before personal ambition and, when it comes down to the wire, vote with their consciences instead of their calculators.
It has been a blistering couple of days at Westminster following the government’s decision to remove the whip from any Conservative MPs who vote against a No-deal Brexit in Parliament, and banning them from standing as Tory candidates in any forthcoming election, effectively throwing them out of the party.
The former justice secretary David Gauke has already confirmed that he will be defying his party whip for the first time in 14 years as an MP, telling the Today programme, “In the end, if we are in a privileged position to be able to influence things as MPs, and if we don’t step in to try to prevent no deal, we will be complicit in something that would be very damaging for this country.”
Former chancellor Philip Hammond has joined him in defying the party leadership, saying on Tuesday, “This is my party, I am going to defend my party against people who are at the heart of this government who care nothing about the future of the Conservative party” (in a clear dig at the machinations of Johnson’s henchman Dominic Cummings).
And another former Cabinet minister Justine Greening has added her name, pre-empting the cull by saying she won’t be standing again as a Tory MP.
There are 20 more names to add to these, all praiseworthy whichever way the vote turns this week. As politics.co.uk website editor Ian Dunt comments on Twitter, “It takes an extraordinary degree of bravery to stand up to a bullying govt, to the attacks you’ll get online and offline, and to face the potential end of your career, because you’re going to act in the national interest.”
The reason this bunch appear so dramatic, so unlikely and impressive, is because they emerge at a time when our faith in politicians’ ability to behave this selflessly is at an all-time low. After two decades, which have encompassed an expenses scandal, cash for questions and allegations of sexual harassment within the sacred Westminster corridors, the bar is low. As Jeremy Paxman relished asking for a documentary this week, in the parlance of his adopted Channel 5, ‘Why are our politicians so crap?’
He was quick to point out that neither side of the Chamber is immune from his broad description of our current crop as “dreary, uncharismatic jobsworths, whose priority is looking after number one”. On the right, he gestures towards “a classics-spouting clown” whose knack is for stunts and getting attention. A man Paxman says “you wouldn’t trust with your sister” is now trusted to run the country, and there we are. On the left, meanwhile, is Jeremy Corbyn, whose chief skill is sitting on his own allotment fence when it comes to Brexit, and is so busy failing to attend to the anti-Semitism within his own party that he is failing to score at the gaping open goal offered by the current Government.
Rory Stewart, whose unusual cultural hinterland gives him a rare insight into the foibles of Westminster, offers the opinion that these two have risen to the top because “they play in primary colours”, ie they are a more dramatic version of what people want at either end of the political spectrum. The logical conclusion to this – the cartoon colours of the White House – makes it likely but depressing. The common thinking is probably along the lines of, “They’re just as bad as everyone else, but at least they’re fun.”
It does mean we have to look hard for those more outstanding figures of the past, compared with the current crop. Today, Labour elder statesman Roy Hattersley lamented to Paxman, “Too few believe in something,” while Ken Clarke opined that one of the reasons for Margaret Thatcher’s continuing appeal was the electorate’s recognition of her belief in what she was trying to do, whether or not they actually agreed with it.
So if Johnson and Corbyn’s rise to the top is a symptom, what is the cause of all this modern mediocrity? Lord Dobbs, author of the original House of Cards, says 95% of his Machiavellian Westminster thriller was based on truth and that politicians have ALWAYS been vain, scheming and ambitious. Jonathan Aitken, former Tory minister who ended up in Belmarsh Prison after falling on his own sword of truth and landing in a perjury pit, attests to the sin of pride that can puff up the most pious of politicians and leave them feeling infallible and even above the law. He calls Parliament “representative of the same saloon bar idiots and sexual culprits as everywhere else. All human life is there.”
And we should probably heed the words of US investor Charlie Munger, the 95-year-old financial guru and Warren Buffet’s right-hand-man, when he reflects, “There’s a tendency to think that our present politicians are much worse than any we had in the past. But we tend to forget how awful our politicians were in the past. I have a rule for politicians. I always reflect that they are never so bad you don’t live to want them back.”
However, things do seem to have got particularly bad.
Alistair Campbell presided over an era of spin from within Tony Blair’s government, when the electorate became disenchanted by the belief they were being sold ‘presentation, not product’. In turn, he blames the media’s evolving obsession with personalities and process in place of policy, and also for substituting straight political reporting with more opinion-making. Throw in social media and the limits of a 140-character rant on Twitter, and you can see how he might have a case for the lost cause of the nuanced argument, but then he was also responsible for the dark art of training politicians what to say.
Paxman is by no mean the first to ask what happened. In her book ‘Why We Get the Wrong Politicians’, Isabel Hardman highlights the disappointments in the life of the well-meaning MP. She charts their journey from the initial noble aim to do good – the path from trying to help constituents, to realizing this requires remaining in office, needing support from the central Party office, adhering to the instructions of the Whip in turn, having to vote more circumspectly than conscience might sometimes dictate, and all the while juggling constituency duties with the hamster wheel of the House, just to stay in a job.
Which brings us to this week’s extraordinary events, and why the actions of the Tory rebels are so remarkable. The good news is that Philip Hammond’s integrity has already been recognised by his own constituency association, who have said they will be selecting him as their candidate for any forthcoming election.
If those of the other rebels go the same way, this will mean something far more significant than the loss of Johnson’s Government majority, or even the fracturing of the Tory party. It will mean the first tectonic shift in influence from Westminster whips to local political associations and so to the electorate. It might even be a step on the path towards proportional representation, a fracturing of the behemoth two parties, and a future of independent politicians coalescing by issue rather than by tribe. How European. How ironic. But let’s not hold our breath for that one, and instead applaud the actions of a brave but significant few this week proving that not all politicians are crap, whatever Paxman says.
