Another week, another accusation of sleaze in relation to the Labour party. After initially winning some plaudits over the summer recess for his handling of the riots, the new Prime Minister is now fighting fire on several fronts – from growing unrest over the Treasury decision to limit the winter fuel allowance to questions over the wisdom of the party’s approach to settling trade union pay disputes. But the most striking of the criticisms is the ongoing standards row.
In opposition, Starmer regularly promised to ‘clean up’ politics and launch a ‘total crackdown on cronyism’. This pledge makes up a chunk of Labour’s election manifesto with the promise of a new ‘Ethics and Integrity commission’. He has said his government will ensure ‘the highest standards of integrity and honesty’ – with his aides contrasting their approach to the numerous instances of Tory sleaze that dominated the past few years.
However, Starmer is now having to face questions over whether less than 100 days in to his tenure, his own government is already falling short of his rhetoric. Henry Newman, former adviser to Michael Gove, has been charting civil service appointments on his Whitehall Watch blog including the appointment of figures with links to the Labour party to civil service roles. This has piled on pressure (‘Maybe Henry should be leader of the opposition,’ jokes a member of the shadow cabinet) over a spate of appointments such as a former Labour Together staffer (No. 10’s think tank of choice) to the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Constitution Group (PCG) and a donor, Ian Corfield, to the Treasury.
Despite Labour initially defending the latter appointment, Corfield – who has donated more than £20,000 to Labour politicians over the past decade – has now stepped down from his civil service role. He will instead work as an unpaid adviser ahead of the investment summit. Then there’s Waheed Alli, a longtime Labour donor from the Blair years, who recently gave Starmer £16,200 of clothes to revamp his political wardrobe. The Sunday Times revealed over the weekend that Alli had a 10 Downing Street pass – allowing him easy access to the building. This is apparently no longer the case but no one denies he did have one – though there is confusion about how long he had it for and for what purpose.
As I previously reported, the Labour peer – whose estimated net worth is £200 million – has long been spearheading Labour’s fundraising efforts including reinvigorating the party’s Rose Network, an exclusive club for Labour supporters who have donated thousands of pounds, which meets for briefings from members of the shadow cabinet. It points to how each appointment could be explained – Alli could have been in Downing Street to discuss fundraising efforts. Corfield no doubt given his financial background will have relevant advice for Reeves on attracting private investment.
What is more striking is that many in the party seem surprised, and in some cases slightly offended, that these appointments and decisions are facing even light criticism. Speaking on Times Radio, the former Labour MP Harriet Harman played down issues over Corfield’s appointment on the grounds that ‘he’s an extremely wealthy individual and I think that in the scale of donations that probably seems like a small amount of money for him but for everybody else that seems like a lot of money’. It’s hard to see Harman making that defence had it been a Tory donor being given an appointment.
In Labour circles, there is frustration that the summer recess has been dominated by these stories. In opposition, Labour aides and shadow ministers worked hard to dominate recess with stories – some wonder why this has not happened this time around. The hope is that stories about the inner workings of Whitehall have limited cut-through – though some worry about a ‘drip-drip’ effect. Yet there was always a risk in Starmer putting ‘cleaning up’ politics high on the agenda – as Tony Blair discovered himself.
The former prime minister initially wanted his government to be ‘whiter than white’. However, he came to regret repeatedly attacking John Major’s government on standards and sleaze – writing in his memoirs: ‘It was a media game – and in opposition we played it. The goals were easy, but the long-term consequences were disastrous’. In order to avoid coming to the same conclusion in a few years’ time, Starmer at the very least needs to stop more unforced errors – that means avoiding making decisions that were it the other way round and the Tories doing it, Labour would quickly go on the attack.
Comments