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Our mistrust of the rich is absurd

Saturday, 21st July 2007

I have a column in today's Times on the cash for honours fiasco> Here's an extract:

...The Metropolitan Police have conducted an exhaustive 16-month investigation, have submitted their report to the Crown Prosecution Service, and no charges have been brought. And that’s it.

Throughout all the acres of coverage, bear that in mind. So why the assumption throughout this whole affair that sleaze is at the bottom of it? One word: wealth. OK, two words: personal wealth.

Lord Levy had a particular skill at attracting “high-value donors”, as Labour termed them. Rich people, in other words. Had he been in charge of attracting other donors – oh, let’s say trade unions, shall we? – and had he offered them legislation in return for their money, no police inquiry would have followed. No allegations of corruption would have followed. We know that, because none of the Labour members present at a meeting with trade unions at the University of Warwick in July 2004 has been arrested, or even investigated. Yet the upshot of that meeting was an explicit deal: unions would carry on affiliating to – and thus funding – Labour and, in return, the Government would frame policy with regard to public service reform and pensions as the unions demanded. Not cash for honours: cash for policy.

So organisations with a clear record of demanding favours in return for funding can pretty much do as they wish. When it comes to individuals with money, however, we instantly jump to the conclusion that they’re up to no good. They’re in it for themselves. They’re on the take.

Yet the evidence indicates the opposite. One of the first areas to come under suspicion by the police – an arrest was even made – was the idea of donors to city academies being given honours in return. Leave aside the point that such philanthropy is, surely, precisely the behaviour that should be rewarded. History suggests that there a many reasons why the wealthy endow schools – such as enshrining their good name, giving something back to their community or pure altruism. Corruption? Come off it. But the reaction to donors to city academies is, from many of us, to sneer.

Find a wealthy man or woman, and – inherited wealth apart – it’s a near-certainty that you have found someone with exceptional skills. Their money didn’t just turn up – they had to create a business, employ people and generate wealth. And in doing that, they do more for the common good than any politician. Indeed, find a modern politician and chances are you have found someone of, at best, mediocre calibre. So you might have thought that it makes sense to encourage men and women with exceptional skills to enter politics – to bring those skills to public service.

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carol 42

July 21st, 2007 10:28pm

I have always been more concerned with cash for contracts than cash for honours, that's what someone should be looking into.

David Duff

July 22nd, 2007 5:54pm

(This is off topic but as I have just written it for my blog which no-one ever reads, I thought it might strike a chord here!) Over brunch I read The Sunday Telegraph, and nearly choked on my black pudding, fried bread, fried potatoes, rashers, mushrooms, tomatoes and two eggs (the noise you might have heard was my arteries slamming shut), when I trod in Matthew d' Ancona's column! Again, you might find it hard to imagine that I could ever be diffident over disagreeing with an expert like Mr. d' Ancona but the fact is that he moves in high circles close to the stumble-bums who inhabit the British establishment and so I would hesitate, most of the time, from giving him an argument. However, when he writes that "it was foolish of the Tories to bill their candidate in the Ealing Southall by election as the candidate for 'David Cameron's Conservatives'" I am impelled to tell him that it was not "foolish" but indescribably stupid and a bloody cheek, too. The Tory party does not belong to Mr. Cameron, it belongs to the party members and Mr. Cameron is simply the temporary leader of it. Mr. d' Ancona fails to remind us that his 'dear leader' also picked a candidate, or to be precise, forced on the local constituency a candidate, who only joined the Tory party a week before the election campaign and who, three weeks prior to that, had made a handsome donation to the Labour party! On top of all that, Mr. d' Ancona admits that 'O0r wee Gordie' is seven points ahead of 'Camerloon', and that he has succeeded in a "campaign to outflank Mr. Cameron on the Right [my emphasis], especially on socially conservative issues". Given all that, and a lot more, Mr. d' Ancona still feels it right to head his column: "Better off without Dave? The Tories must be mad". Well, there is certainly some madness in the air and I can only hope that Mr. d' Ancona keeps taking the pills. Perhaps he might spare me some of them because last month I restarted my subscription to The Spectator of which he is the editor. Come back, Boris, all is forgiven!

Moderate Enlightenment

July 22nd, 2007 5:56pm

Well said Mr. Pollard. This attempted criminalisation of philanthropy has to be one of the more deluded investigations by our police in recent years. I agree with your broader point too - surely we want to attract talented, educated or entrepreneurial people to the public life - a successful CEO on the red benches is preferably to any number of 'social workers', failed teachers and other busybodies that currently populate the green benches.