Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head down. Research has shown that the integrity of governments and institutions has an impact on broader society. Competence and decency at the top affects the behaviour of the rest. In short, well-run countries tend to be happier, healthier, more prosperous places.
If those at the top misbehave then it sends a message down the chain – if the elites are corrupt and filling their boots, then why shouldn’t you try to do the same? Why should you treat the next guy fairly if you can’t be sure he’ll do the same to you.
I’d still hold that the UK remains a relatively uncorrupt country, but this has undoubtedly been a challenging week. As an unrepentant Blairite, the downfall of Peter Mandelson, and the actions that brought it about, have been tough to take. I liked and admired Mandelson as a political strategist and a policy thinker. He was central to the government that helped shape my political identity. The revelations about what he was up to behind the scenes have been not just disappointing, but upsetting.
We waited a long time for this current Labour government, too. Keir Starmer’s first speech on the steps of Downing Street was a moment of hope and promised renewal: “When the gap between the sacrifices made by people and the service they receive from politicians grows this big, it leads to a weariness in the heart of a nation, a draining away of the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future, that we need to move forward together. You have given us a clear mandate and we will use it to deliver change, to restore service and respect to politics, end the era of noisy performance, tread more lightly on your lives and unite our country.”
New year, new read. Save 40% off an annual subscription this January.
Well. Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth, and today Starmer is a heavyweight lolling on the canvas. The towel may be about to be thrown in. Service and respect have not been as prominent as one might have hoped. Almost every significant British institution has faced or is facing its own form of scandal, from the Royal family to the BBC to the Lords and beyond. There is still a weariness in the heart of the nation – in fact, it is growing.
You can see the calculation a growing number of voters are making: if you’re going to have a government led by chancers who don’t really know what they’re doing, then why not opt for the biggest chancers of them all? At least Nigel Farage and his crew are more transparent bullshitters. There is plenty to dislike, but then Reform UK don’t pretend to be pious or all things to all people. There might be an opacity to Farage’s personal finances and legitimate questions about who is funding his party, but that’s priced into the brand.
What of Scotland? There has been plenty of preening from the SNP about Mandelson’s downfall. The timing couldn’t be better for them, with the elections due in May. Scottish Labour have already been hamstrung by Starmer’s failures, and this latest outrage will not help. This week, a poll by More in Common found the SNP still on course to emerge as the largest party. It also found Reform only five points behind in the regional part of the Holyrood vote. Reform is the most popular party among unionists, supported by 31 per cent of those opposed to independence, ahead of Labour on 23 per cent.
So is Reform about to become the official opposition in Scotland? Perhaps. It’s worth making the case that this is not just down to Labour’s failures but to those of the SNP too. The past few years have seen the Nats avoid transparency and accountability whenever they felt it in their interests. They have developed bad habits of obfuscation and intransigence, the kind often seen in long-serving governments which develop an arrogant, born-to-rule tendency.
The government is currently, and unprecedentedly, being taken taken to court by the Information Commissioner after it missed deadlines to produce documents from an ethics investigation into Nicola Sturgeon, relating to the investigation into Alex Salmond. It is also being challenged for dragging its heels over implementing the Supreme Court’s decision last year which made it clear that single-sex spaces were for biological women only. The government is still arguing that trans women can be placed in women-only prisons.
There have been various scandals involving SNP ministers in recent times, from Michael Matheson’s iPad expenses to Angela Constance’s misrepresenting an expert on child abuse and grooming. Every time an SNP politician in the inner circle threatens to come a cropper, the wagons are circled, regardless of the strength of the evidence against them. Most of this might amount to political sharp practice rather than apparent corruption on the Mandelsonian scale. But remember that the Nats have still to go through the trial of Peter Murrell, its former chief executive and estranged husband of Sturgeon, who faces charges of embezzlement of SNP funds.
It goes without saying that we should try to be honest and decent in our daily dealings with one another. There are plenty of bad apples out there, but most of us are trying our best to live honourably. But if the fish rots from the head down, if we look to our leaders for an example of competence and integrity, then the UK and Scotland might be closer to low, dishonest nations than any of us should be comfortable with.
[Further reading: Peter Mandelson is gone, and so is New Labour]
Content from our partners