Labour sleaze
Edward Gibbon would recognise it: the air of decadence, the smell of death which hangs over the New Labour empire this week. The impotence of Emperor Blair is a pitiful sight. His protestations of the innocence of Senator Blunkett — which once would have swung the public behind him and turned the condemnation upon Blunkett’s accusers — now inspire contempt. Another who would recognise the position of the government this week is John Major. Several times in the dying months of his government he found himself similarly overwhelmed by charges of sleaze; he would defend his minister to the death, then the minister would be forced to resign anyway. The inevitable question then was: and how long before you, too, fall on your sword?
No doubt the Prime Minister will view the resignation of the Work and Pensions Secretary as a minor matter. Under New Labour the disgrace of resignation from public office, for which John Profumo had to atone with a lifetime of charitable works, has been reduced to a few months in a sin-bin from which, like a basketball player caught treading on an opponent’s toes, a minister can soon return to the action. Even if Mr Blunkett is unlikely to return to the Cabinet, he will undoubtedly pop up in some public position — say, as Governor of Bermuda or ambassador to some agreeable South American state, which is even better paid than his Cabinet job.
Sympathetic voices within the BBC, too, were dismissive about the significance of David Blunkett’s resignation. A few minutes after the resignation was announced, a correspondent on News 24, James Landale, was making the preposterous suggestion that the Prime Minister would emerge stronger from it, on the grounds that it would give him a chance to freshen up his Cabinet before the conclusion of the Conservative leadership election. Some hope. There is nothing fresh about the Blair government, and nothing that could be done to make it appear to be anything other than what it is: a dying administration. Back in its early days Mr Blair and his ministers inspired the public by appearing to represent the antithesis of grubby Tory politicians who used their office merely to line their pockets. Labour MPs were hardly supposed to be politicians at all, but real human beings who would be open and honest about all they did. The descent towards David Blunkett’s resignation this week has been alarming, and a warning to any political party which, as Labour did in 1997, attempts to portray itself as a high moral alternative to its sleazebag opponents.
That David Blunkett infringed the rules by failing to consult Parliament’s advisory committee on his appointment as director of DNA Bioscience may seem a somewhat dry matter. But it is the nature of the appointment and his acquisition of shares in the company that say much about the culture of this Labour government. DNA Bioscience is a private company whose shares cannot be bought by the public through the stock exchange. When the company floats next summer, Mr Blunkett’s shares, which he has now disposed of, will, on current valuations of the company, rise from £15,000 to between £60,000 and £300,000. Were the company, which manufactures paternity-testing kits, to be awarded the contracts by the Child Support Agency for which it is expected to bid, Mr Blunkett stands to gain even more.
It has not escaped our notice that a company which tests for DNA might also appear to be in a good position to bid for government work in relation to David Blunkett’s great pet project: ID cards which will carry biometric information on every citizen in the country. We have argued all along that ID cards are both illiberal and a huge waste of money, and that they will cause inconvenience to the public while doing nothing to reduce crime or terrorism. Our concerns on those scores have not been answered. Yet now to discover that David Blunkett followed his resignation from the Home Office by scurrying off to a plum job in the DNA business puts the plans in an interesting light. Did it really not occur to David Blunkett that it might be inappropriate for a former Cabinet minister who has such an inside knowledge of the government’s use of forensic science to take a job and buy shares in a company well placed to bid for contracts? Ignorance of the finer points of ministerial etiquette is no excuse for what appears to be a serious conflict of interests.
Too often in the past the House of Commons has been used by MPs as a hiring shop, declared John Major, attempting to reform ministerial codes of behaviour in the face of sleaze allegations in the mid-1990s. For all his qualities, his likeable nature and the personal hurdles over which David Blunkett had to climb in order to achieve high office, that, sadly, is how he too has come to treat the House of Commons.
But the saga does not just reflect badly upon him. Tony Blair has for some time given the impression of flapping around in desperation for a ‘big idea’ with which to round off his premiership. None has emerged. And now it appears he has even given up on the little idea which helped him win office in 1997: raising standards in public life.
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