The Labour government’s u-turn on freebies, its disclosure last night that it will no longer accept donations for clothes, is an admission that it has got it wrong. But ‘wrong’ in which sense of the word? Wrong in that they admit that they committed an error, or wrong in that they have behaved immorally? Their language would suggest very much the former.
Nearly two-thirds of all voters say Starmer’s decision to accept freebies for his wife was unacceptable
Keir Starmer’s allies concede that there was a ‘perception’ issue after the Prime Minister accepted clothing worth and spectacles together worth more than £18,000. This has been accompanied by similar gifts accepted by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister. Starmer, Reeves and Rayner all made clear last night that they will stop taking donations for clothes now that they are in office.
On its front page this morning, the Times says this u-turn represents ‘a significant reversal by Starmer’. But is it really? This decision will only apply to clothing and glasses, not to hospitality and other similar donations. This distinction is being made, no doubt, because the clothes donations have generated the greatest outrage, and presumably, the consequent drop in opinion poll ratings. This lies at the heart of this ‘significant reversal’. Labour is undertaking it not because they feel bad over the tawdry affair, but because it looks bad.
This decision exposes the amorality at the heart of the government. Starmer has previously defended the £100,000 he received in donations for clothing, gifts and hospitality by insisting that they were all properly declared. He was playing by the rules, so to speak. That is the defence one would expect from a cold, calculating lawyer. He makes an implicit, clinical distinction between illegality and immorality.
He will presumably still go to his Arsenal games for free and accept similar indecorous munificence, just as long as that doesn’t unfavourably affect his poll ratings or imperil his position: a new YouGov poll has found that one in seven of those who voted for Labour three months ago now regret doing so. Nearly two-thirds of all voters say Starmer’s decision to accept freebies for his wife was unacceptable.
For means of self-preservation, Starmer needs no more diverting chit-chat about free clothes that might arouse accusations of sleaze. As one cabinet minister told the Times: ‘He needs people who will make sure there’s not a distraction around this kind of thing so he can focus on the big issues.’
This u-turn has been prompted not by morality, but by expedience. He and his government show regret, but not remorse. One thinks of a cat caught on the kitchen table, its head in the butter dish. It looks alarmed, scared it has been found out. But it’s not sorry. Cats have no morality. They fear only repercussions. This is how Starmer and his cohorts are behaving.
Some protest that this whole affair is mere tittle-tattle, a distraction from vastly more important matters such the cost of living, the NHS, the growing rate of public borrowing, and so on. And the Labour government is making decisions with far more profound and potentially longer-lasting consequences, they say, such as the inflation-busting pay awards made to doctors and train drivers.
All this is true. But morality matters. It may not be appreciated, being by its nature an invisible force, but morality drives politics. For decades people have voted Labour on the tacit understanding that they are more caring and decent. This is why people, especially celebrities, are keen to boast that they support Labour: to demonstrate that they are more compassionate and virtuous souls. In contrast, to pronounce oneself a Conservative voter is to risk social death. This is the ‘nasty party’ after all, the party of sleaze and ‘back to basics’ hypocrisy.
Until now. And those from the oldish Labour guard, those with some integrity, know it well. Lord Blunkett, the former home secretary, has said that Starmer risked accusations of double-standards after repeatedly attacking the Conservatives over scandals while in opposition. ‘“One rule for them and one law for the rest of us”, which we used in opposition, applies equally to us,’ he said this week. Meanwhile, it has emerged this morning that David Lammy, the foreign secretary, took £10,000 from a Saudi-supporting PR executive months before he became foreign secretary. So much for cleaner-than-clean, holier-thou-than politics.
Other Labour members are as incandescent as Blunkett. As one MP told the Daily Telegraph today: ‘Loads of us are livid. This is what hypocrisy looks like.’ Yet even here the language of amorality shows through here: ‘looks like’. It matters less if a moral wrong has been committed, whether politicians have been behaving in an unbefitting or compromising manner. What matters more are the optics and the consequences. It’s not fear of doing wrong, it’s the fear of being judged as wrong.
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