It is one of the perversities of our times that the more our language is policed, and so-called harms and micro-aggressions are met with unforgiving zeal, the more egregious behaviour goes unpunished and, to many, unnoticed.
So it is that in the NHS, documents refer not to women, but “individuals with a cervix”, while managers evade responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of new-born babies. Prison officers refer to inmates as “clients” and cells as “rooms”, while allowing Islamist prisoners to control prison wings. Chief constables mouth pious platitudes while effectively decriminalising entire categories of crime and presiding over the widespread abuse of police powers.
And so it is in Westminster, where politicians wear a different lapel badge a day to show their virtue, propose new laws to criminalise belief and thought, and struggle in the name of progress even to define a woman in interviews, yet turn a blind eye to blatantly unethical behaviour by friends and colleagues.
Some of that unethical behaviour is now revealing itself. Tory MPs seem intent on performing a 1990s tribute act, with news of financial and sexual sleaze routine. There was the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal, and the failed attempt to overturn his suspension from the Commons. Imran Ahmad Khan was found guilty of sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old boy. And now Neil Parish has resigned after watching pornography in the House of Commons.
There are many other examples. There was the Greensill affair, in which David Cameron lobbied ministers and officials to support his employer’s questionable schemes. There is Rob Roberts, found guilty of sexually harassing junior staff, Jamie Wallis, who has been charged by the police with failing to stop after crashing his car, and David Warburton, accused of financial corruption, sexual impropriety and drug abuse, which he denies.
And of course, there is the Prime Minister himself, who broke the lockdown laws he imposed on others and denied doing so to Parliament. Johnson also denies any wrongdoing in appointing his friend Evgeny Lebedev, son of a former KGB officer, to the House of Lords, and denies accusations he used his position as Mayor of London to help his then mistress, Jennifer Arcuri.
The problem is not limited to the Tory benches. A parliamentary committee has recommended that Liam Byrne, the Labour MP, should be suspended after finding he had bullied his staff. Claudia Webbe remains an MP after being given a suspended sentence after threatening a woman with acid. Barry Gardiner, who has taken pro-Beijing positions in Parliament accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations from a woman the intelligence agencies have confirmed is a Chinese spy.
And in just the last week, we have been given reason to doubt the honesty and integrity of Labour’s leader and deputy leader too. Despite repeated denials by Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, we have learned that Starmer was accompanied by Rayner at an event last year where they have been accused of breaching lockdown rules.
There is undoubtedly a culture problem in Westminster, and whether sexual, financial or otherwise, the themes that run through these scandals are similar. They are about the abuse of power, the erosion of norms of civility and decency, the weakness of institutions and their ability to set and enforce rules, and a disrespect for democratic accountability. For those who might know what is going on and do not act, there is also an overriding loyalty towards – and sometimes fear of – their own party, its leadership and whips.
For if we are honest, just as with MPs’ expenses, bankers’ bonuses, tabloid phone hacking and many other institutional crises of recent decades, much of the wrongdoing is hiding in plain sight. Ask any staffers, MPs or journalists based in Westminster and they all have stories of abuses of power of different kinds. Nobody should want summary justice or trial by Twitter – false rumours and lies always abound too of course – but we should all have an interest in transparency and cleaning up our democracy.
So what might be done? First, we need leadership. Just as David Cameron took on his MPs over the abuse of expenses, so now we need the party leaders to get their houses in order. The whips already know plenty about their flocks, but proper investigation – always following due process – should root out problem MPs. Of course Boris Johnson has always survived his own scandals in part by avoiding moral judgement of others. But tolerating abuses of power means encouraging them: miscreants should be thrown out of their parties.
Second, we need new rules and laws. It is ridiculous that voters are in no position to recall MPs like Rob Roberts and Claudia Webbe. The barriers to recall – on grounds of personal conduct, if not policy positions – ought to be removed entirely. Equally, the rules and processes to judge MPs for their conduct need to be improved. Liam Byrne was found guilty of a “significant misuse of power”, yet faces suspension from the Commons for just two days. The transparency rules for donations, financial interests and tax affairs should also be tightened.
And third, the terms on which Parliamentary staffers are employed should change. MPs should be free to decide who they hire and retain responsibility for annual appraisals. But they should no longer be the legal employers of their staff. Parliament should become their employer, allowing professional support, pay decisions that reflect qualifications and performance, and grievance processes staffers can trust to be independent.
We should take care not to tar all MPs with the same brush as those who have abused their power and privileges. Most serve the public with noble motives. But neither can we pretend there is no problem. More than a dozen MPs from different parties are being investigated for sexual misconduct, and there is evidence of criminal behaviour and financial sleaze too. This is no introspective “Westminster Bubble” story. If we care about our democracy – and if the Tories care about their reputation for honesty and integrity – the operation to clean it up must start today.
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