It seems that one of the great posts in British politics has been filled at last. The title of ‘Minister for Sticky Wickets’ was held by the likes of David Gauke and Michael Ellis during the Tory years. Now, with Keir Starmer on the back foot over freebies, it is Ellie Reeves filling that role. The Cabinet Office minister was today sent out to defend the government on an Urgent Question. It followed further allegations this weekend about the role of ministers in Taylor Swift’s security arrangements.
Reeves opened the batting for the government, explaining how it proposes to change the ministerial register of interests. She was up against John Glen, whose speech largely consisted of listing a litany of Labour’s crimes and misdemeanours from the past 100 days. ‘Can cabinet ministers continue to party in DJ booths?’ inquired the Shadow Paymaster-General, to jeers from the Labour benches. He sighed at ministers’ failure to answer his written questions before musing whether they would receive free tickets to the Oasis tour – ‘or was it just Taylor Swift that was a freebie too far?’ ‘Where is Labour’s new ethics and integrity commission?’, he demanded, before moving on to Lord Alli and his talks with Sue Gray. The whole speech resembled something of a Tory bingo card: ‘cash for croissants’, ‘Operation Integrity’ and ironic mentions of ‘country first, party second’, ending with the inevitable dig at a Prime Minister who ‘can’t clothe himself without gifts from others’.
Anything Glen could do, Reeves could do better. Her own response bordered on the scathing as she barely bothered to maintain the pretence of answering her shadow’s questions. ‘We will take no lectures from the party opposite on ethics’, she intoned. ‘What shattered trust in politics was the behaviour of the Conservatives in 14 years’, Reeves declared, with Labour MPs popping up to offer helpful examples: partygate, Covid contracts and the Owen Paterson debacle. ‘That’s the difference between this government and the last one – we are strengthening the rules,’ she insisted, noting how the ministerial register of interests is less onerous in its declarations than that for MPs. Ordinary backbenchers, Reeves noted, must declare the listed value of interests within 28 days: ministers meanwhile, have only a quarterly declaration with no estimate put on their gifts.
It was a fair point but one that did not deter various Tories from pointing to more recent difficulties. Gavin Williamson offered one of the better interventions when he gently asked Reeves about Lord Hermer’s role in Swiftiegate. Could the minister tell MPs ‘why the Attorney General was asked to give advice and what question the Attorney General was asked to answer?’ No, it seems, with Reeves insisting that ‘policing is something for the police so not something I can answer.’ Andrew Murrison offered a more evocative slant on events when he replied that it was only ‘less enlightened realms’ that prefer to ‘ferry entertainers around’. Luke Evans received no answer when he asked if Reeves’s colleagues would follow Starmer in reimbursing thousands of pounds of hospitality. Richard Holden’s best effort meanwhile came in heckling Clive Efford’s complaint about ‘the sheer brass neck of these Conservatives’ – ‘like the brass in your pockets!’
Yet despite the efforts of the dozen-odd Tories in the House, the presence of so many Starmtroopers gave Reeves an easier ride than she might have feared. Some, like Josh Simons, enjoyed her about a second jobs clampdown, amid speculation it would prompt ‘the sad possible loss of Members opposite’. Others preferred to feast on successive scandals from the Johnson, Truss and Sunak regime. A ‘carnival of corruption’ and ‘grotesque endemic corruption’ were some of the more damning epitaphs as the likes of Neil Coyle and Rachel Blake queued up to criticise Lord Lebedev and VIP lanes. Gareth Snell landed a good line too, welcoming the Conservative party’s conversion to the cause of ‘transparency and ethics’. Reeves listened thoughtfully to each contribution before agreeing solemnly that, yes, she quite agreed, the previous government was indeed much worse.
Anything Glen could do, Reeves could do better
Her best moment though came when she was asked by Greg Stafford if Labour were not guilty of that greatest British sin of all – hypocrisy. ‘Let me say something about hypocrisy’, she began. ‘Hypocrisy is when people in Downing Street, including the former Prime Minister, were partying during lockdown’, she continued, to rising cheers from Labour as she listed various iniquities from lockdown, including ‘fathers not being present at the birth of their children’. ‘I won’t take lectures in hypocrisy from those on the party opposite’, she finished, to roars from her backbenchers.
It offered a reminder of the difficulties that the Tories will face in future in trying to score points in the freebies issue. The public may despair of Starmer’s woes but the Conservatives’ record on standards is far from perfect too.
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