Regrettably lax morals and democratic government are not strange bed-fellows, or confined to a single country.
But in the case of the UK, as one commentator on its governance stated recently, “It is notoriously the case that the dying days of governments, of whatever persuasion, are marked by scandals involving lax morals and the abuse of power. John Major at the end of 18 years of Tory rule in the 1990s, Harold Macmillan at the start of the 1960s, and more recently Gordon Brown: all of them had to cope with the consequence of having been too long in government.”
The situation which confronts David Cameron the British Prime Minister is somewhat unusual. The Coalition government is already beset with problems which are usually associated with the terminal stages of government. Liam Fox had to go. He had well disregarded ministerial propriety with several breaches of the established code. When the armed forces were deployed in two theatres of conflict, the minister responsible for them lacked discipline himself. The issue has been competently handled by David Cameron, who was completely right to ask Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell – known by some as GOD – to conduct a thorough enquiry before reaching a final decision. The only good to have come out of the Fox affair, is that it has educated the public about how international lobby groups can purchase access to, and presumably influence over, members of the government.
However, in addition to Dr Fox, Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly has been accused of serious conflicts of interest involving his family’s business connections. Chris Huhne, the Environment Secretary, already facing embarrassing claims that he misled the police over a traffic offence, remains unpunished after being caught red-handed feeding journalists damaging material about his Cabinet colleague Theresa May.
That all this should come hard on the heels of a period when the accountancy practices of too many parliamentarians lacked probity is counter-productive to widespread acceptance of the standing of both parliament itself and government. The notion that those who exercise power at Westminster over their fellow citizens should demonstrate a morality consonant with that privilege can all too often today be sadly noted by its absence rather than its hallmark.
Part of the problem of the House of Commons and government is that many Members of Parliament have not had adequate or relevant life experience outside of politics. Too many so-called career track records comprise of student union and trade union positions, party appointments as researchers to an MP or political think-tank, or service as a SPAD – the new form of political adviser appointed by a minister to work alongside civil servants. These people have changed the nature of the body politic. Small wonder that the spinning of news, even to determining which days are best to release bad news, seemingly remains acceptable practice.
The sum of this situation is that when parliamentarians who have a well-informed moral conscience, actually articulate their concerns for the society they represent, their currency is devalued by those who have demonstrated scant regard for integrity in either personal behaviour or the public office they occupy. Those who legislate, and participate in setting the moral compass of their nation, must be held accountable for their example and their stewardship.
But in stating such, I am haunted by the words spoken quietly to me some years ago by a most respected Unionist politician, Lord Molyneaux of Killead, a staunch member of the Church of Ireland, when he felt he and his peers had been berated by the church leaders of the day for their lack of inter-party, cross-community endeavour in what were violent times in the north. He simply stated in his characteristic, gentlemanly, way that he didn’t think the churches, including his own, would emerge with much credit if he were to place the same challenges before their leaders on matters of inter-church division of a similar scale and nature to those which they had expressed to the politicians.
Houston McKelvey