by I Fought the Law- A Riotous Romp in Search of British Democracy (epub)
Of course the only argument required to shoot down these ideas is to say that I’m being ‘anti-business’ or ‘lazy’, both of which are becoming akin to the cry of ‘Witch!’ in the sixteenth century. I’m harking back to a time that never existed, and it’s absurd to hold back the tide of ‘progress’. It’s as though anyone who dares to suggest that we may be getting the balance wrong is being absurdly simplistic, or is some kind of raving communist. But business existed in Britain’s communities for decades happily without destroying our towns. The independent shop sector has taken a hammering from the cver-powerful supermarkets. There is evidence for that which no-one can argue with. How many independent greengrocers and fishmongers do you have on your high street? How many supermarkets do you have in your town? Once we were a nation of shopkeepers, but not any more. The shareholders of all these supermarkets live all over the world, so the money from our communities is not even guaranteed to remain in Britain, let alone the local area. And we wonder where the fruits of our economy have gone. Is it socialism to argue that this is unfair and wrong? Or anarchism? Or, if David Cameron is anything to go by, conservatism perhaps? Or is it none of those political ideologies and just simple common sense to suggest that if things are allowed to continue the way they are going then Britain and the vast majority of its people are in for an uncertain and impoverished future?
Perhaps a sense of national pride might help us answer these questions, whichever political standpoint we adopt. Maybe that is the true role of nationalism. If we could get past the lazy interpretation of it as mindless thuggery, and reject the idea that there is something to be ashamed of in having a shared sense of belonging and pride in our nation and what it stands for, then we might be prepared to fight for it and for ourselves. Of course our economy would not grow at such an impressive rate if we were radical enough actually to put the health of Britain and the people who live here ahead of those seeking ever-increasing profits, but those of us who are not members of the CBI would all probably be better off financially.
If we can prove that commercial interests left unchecked are undermining our sense of community and personal happiness and turning Britain into a homogenized American outpost, then where do we go to make our voices heard? What if, like Dorothy’s opinion of Derby council, our MPs are of the view that ‘the interests of the community and the economy are the same thing’? A look at the register of MPs’ interests does little to challenge this assumption. If you are prepared to wade through it, you will begin to realize just how many of our MPs have their fingers in the great business pie. None of these details reveals anything illegal, and there is no suggestion that any of these MPs have broken any rules.
I would suggest, however, that if there is a distinction between the interests of those who live in Britain and those people who want to make money here, then our MPs should not have any outside interests if they are to behave with impartiality on behalf of the electorate that employs them.
Of course, in their defence, one could argue that if we want our high-flyers to enter Parliament we have to allow them to generate the kinds of salaries they could command in the world of business, otherwise we wouldn’t benefit from their expertise. We must expect them to have well-paid directorships to make up the difference. Personally, I think politics should be seen as a vocation like teaching or nursing. I don’t think we do want to poach these supposed high-flyers from the business world. I think that anyone seeking to be elected as an MP should have some knowledge of the nation they are about to serve through having journeyed around it and experienced what the reality of life is for the whole country, not just their constituency. To me, that seems more relevant to the role of MP than having a background in business. But, MPs might argue, they have uncertain careers and can only secure a four- or five-year contract, leaving them open to the perils of unemployment beyond that term. Well, that’s what the world of work has become for the rest of us these days thanks to the ever-expanding economy so I don’t see why they should be exempt. Living in the real world might make our MPs seem more relevant to us than they do now, with their ten weeks off over the summer and being allowed to vote on their own pay rises. We need to attract people who sec being an MP as something valuable for its own sake rather than a way to generate influence and power and pick up a few tasty directorships once they’ve retired.
Now there are MPs who do see their roles as a vocation. I don’t know of any offhand, but the law of averages states that there must be some. No doubt they are also the ones who put their constituents ahead of their own careers, which more or less guarantees that they will be kept well clear of important posts in the Cabinet where such a sense of privilege is elbowed out of the way by a desperation not to hinder progress up the greasy political ladder. If we did do something as drastic as ban MPs with directorships then the House of Commons would have eighty-seven empty seats, according to the List of Members’ Interests.
Conservative MP Tony Baldry comes top of the list with fifteen directorships including Angle Gate Ltd, a property developer in the UK; Red Eagle Resources, a firm that invests in agriculture and natural resources in Sierra Leone; Invicta Africa Ltd, a venture capitalist investing in Africa; Carbon Registry Services Ltd, a company that consults on carbon trading strategy; Symphony Global Ltd, which promotes business development between the UK and Eastern Europe; Black Rock Oil and Gas, which specializes in oil and gas exploration in the UK and abroad; Battlebridge Capital, an investment fund; Tiresias Ltd, which invests in Gulf States; and Saudi Arabia and Westminster Oil Ltd, another oil exploration firm. It’s a wonder that he has any time left to represent his constituents.
As we know, MPs have a tremendous workload. They attend debates in Parliament, they have to spend time in their constituencies, and if they are ministers they have even more things to worry about. How, then, do they find the time for any extra jobs? We’ve seen that it’s illegal for a company with shareholders to spend money that will not increase that company’s share price, so these companies must be getting something out of these eighty-seven MPs. Is it too outlandish to suggest that it is simply having close contact with an MP, with all the prestige and influence that implies, that some of these companies are actually paying for?
Which leads us into the murky world of lobbying. The Association of Professional Political Consultants doesn’t seem to like the word ‘lobbyist’ because it explains too well exactly what it is that they do. They’d much rather be thought of as ‘political consultants’ because then you’re scratching your chin to determine exactly what services they really offer. The association’s ‘rule’ number seven seems particularly optimistic. ‘Save for entertainment and token business mementoes, political consultants must not offer or give, or cause a client to offer or give, any financial or other incentive to any person in public life, whether elected, appointed or co-opted, that could be construed in any way as a bribe or solicitation of favour.’46 Well, we wouldn’t want any solicitations of favour in the world of lobbying, now would we? That would be awful. It’s clear, then, that all their clients pay them to ensure that they don’t get any special treatment from government; strict impartiality is what they are after.
Now who’s being naive? Of course our political parties get loaded money from businesses. They used to be called donations, but then people started asking too many questions about links between money and government policy, especially when Labour decided to make motor racing exempt from the ban on cigarette manufacturers sponsoring sporting events after Bernie Ecclestone happened to donate a cool million to the party. All those lofty ideals about being up front with the public about where their money was coming from turned out to be untenable under the pressures of actually being in power so they were soon in need of a loophole. Thankfully they had written one into their proposals: there was no mention of ‘loans’ when it came to disclosing who was giving you money.
The Committee for Standards in Public Life announced new rules for party funding in 2001, which incl
uded one to ensure that every donation over £5,000 was disclosed. Lord Neil, who chaired the committee, commented at the time, ‘Many members of the public believe that the policies of the major political parties have been influenced by large donors, while ignorance about the sources of funding has fostered suspicion.’ It seems laughably quaint to say this today, but giving money to a political party is supposed to be an act of pure altruism.
In July 2006, Labour’s chief fundraiser Lord Levy was arrested because of the cash for peerages scandal, and in November the Metropolitan Police sent letters to every member of the Cabinet in the run-up to the 2005 General Election with a view to learning what they knew about loans and nominations for peerages. Tony Blair has done his usual trick of fronting out the crisis by revealing how far his standards have slipped since becoming Prime Minister. ‘There are places in the House of Lords reserved for party nominees,’ he reasoned. So why not just hand them out to the highest bidders? The four party supporters in question are: Sir David Garrard, who gave a £2.3 million loan and who also ploughed £2 million into one of Labour’s new business academies (where a large injection of cash gives you a say in what gets taught in the college. According to Cindy Denise, a parent of two children at a new city academy in Doncaster bankrolled by Christian philanthropist Sir Peter Vardy, children at the school are disciplined if they don’t carry the Bible around with them on specific days, while Emmanuel College in Gateshead, another of Sir Peter’s schools, has been accused repeatedly of teaching creationism alongside science); Sir Gulam Noon, known as the Curry King, who loaned Labour £250,000 and got nominated for a peerage (Noon told the BBC that Lord Levy told him not to worry about mentioning the loan to the Lords Appointments Commission); Barry Townsley, who lent Labour £1 million and also gave £1.5 million to another of these new academies, but got turned down for a peerage by the Lords Appointments Commission; and Chai Patel, the chief executive of the Priory Group, who lent Labour £1.5 million but also got rejected by the panel. Incidentally, the day Lord Levy was arrested he was supposed to be meeting Phillip Green, with his fresh knighthood, to discuss funding for the city academies programme.
There does seem to be a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the securing of financial backing for the new specialist schools and academies involved promises of peerages from the government. It certainly seemed that way to Des Smith, who used to advise the government on their specialist schools programme. He told a court in East London that there was a ‘well-established link’ between backers of the programme and peerages, as he tried to get dispensation from a drink-driving charge that was caused by the stress he said his involvement in the scandal had caused. Then John Prescott managed to get himself into a tricky situation with a secretary, a cowboy hat, a pair of leather boots and a man who wanted to open a super-casino in the Millennium Dome. It certainly seems as though business and government are becoming entwined in ways that seemed at the very least unlikely back in 1997, when Labour joyously poked the Tories with the ‘sleaze’ stick. My favourite quote during Prescott’s troubles came from the man Prescott’s secretary was going to marry. When told that his fiancee had slept with the Deputy Prime Minister he is said to have replied, ‘I feel sick.’ Well, quite.
We were promised by Labour a new dawn of transparency and accountability back in 1997. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to have emerged. It’s not just Labour who have been made to look stupid, though.47 The Liberal Democrats’ largest donor, Michael Brown, gave £2.4 million to the party before the last election but has just entered a guilty plea in a civil case against HSBC for perjury and deception. He faces the prospect of a jail term. And God knows who gave the Tories their million-pound loans. These financial angels were promised anonymity so we will never discover if any of them, as is suspected, were not even British citizens, which would be against the law.
There is, of course, no hard evidence that companies donate or lend money to political parties in exchange for peerages, favourable legislation or a reduction in the effectiveness of proposed legislation that might harm their businesses - apart, that is, from the rectangular bit of paper on which they write out a number followed by lots of zeros that gets handed over to their preferred political party. We all know favours are being traded, but because there is no ‘smoking gun’ evidence we all act as though it isn’t happening. But we don’t have to find the smoking gun of corruption or even uncover seedy loans to notice corporate interests getting a little too chummy with our government. You just have to keep an eye on ministers once they’ve left office and see what jobs they move on to.
By coincidence, many of these ministers seem to go and work for companies that were given large government contracts. EDS, for example, the company that provides the computer system that pays RAF crews, chose Michael Dugher to be their chief lobbyist. Before taking up this new position, Dugher was the then Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon’s special adviser and his chief responsibility was ‘procurement’. At the time he was working for the government in that role, EDS was chosen to run the payroll system and given the £2 billion ‘information infrastructure’ programme for the MoD. Lord Robertson, the former Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General, now enjoys a directorship with the Smiths Group, which makes parts for warplanes. According to the Guardian, he isn’t alone. ‘More than a third of the 92 ex-ministers who resigned or were sacked since May 1997 are enjoying nice little earners’48 in the private sector. There is nothing wrong with Mr Dugher working for EDS or Lord Robertson going to the Smiths Group under current rules, but it might be nice in future if no MP was allowed to work in any capacity for a firm that was given lucrative contracts while they were in office. It just doesn’t look good.
This glance at our MPs’ interests and party funding may not prove any wrongdoing, but it does show that there is no clear water between our politicians and business interests. It is clear to me after my journey around Britain that the short-term interests of the business world are not the same as the long-term interests of the communities in which they operate. But it’s becoming impossible to question any aspect of the globalized economy without coming across as some kind of Marxist dinosaur. So how did we get to the stage where it is suicide for political parties not to have some financial contact with business interests?
The reason our politicians are in bed with big business is fear. Our politicians- are only desperate to keep the economy growing nicely because we want them to. That’s why New Labour promised to stick to the Tories’ spending plans when they came into power all those years ago, and that’s why David Cameron and George Osborne parroted out the ‘economic stability before tax cuts’ line at the Tory Conference in October 2006. It was to reassure us that they wouldn’t screw up the economy. But why are we so desperate to have a thriving economy if things aren’t working in our daily lives? If we’re all in debt, if we work so hard that we only get to spend an average of nineteen minutes every day with our children, and if we’re all so stressed out from overworking and over-consuming that the number of anti-depressants being prescribed by the NHS has gone up by a bewildering 33 per cent in the last six years alone to 29.4 million? Why are we so terrified of upsetting the economists and brokers of the Square Mile? Why do we want the huge companies listed on the FTSE 100 to get larger? Why are we reassured when these corporations make bigger profits, whatever price our communities, or we as consumers, increasingly have to pay?
The only reason I can find that explains why we’re all so desperate to carry on pushing the economy forward is because our lives literally depend on it. That’s why the government keeps telling us to save more and more money for our future in stock-market pension plans. You see, the working mindset doesn’t stop when we retire. Indeed, that’s when it actually gets into its stride. But having a pension fund and being a shareholder means taking your share of the blame for a supermarket giant destroying your community; for the Riverlights development, for the road-building programme of the eighties and nineties; for places like Sp
ringthorpe being laid to waste; for all the crap towns up and down the country; and for all the decisions the politicians have made to keep our economy moving whatever and whoever it crushes in its path.
It all comes down to our relationship with work, or in this case what my friend Matthew DeAbaitua calls ‘the secular afterlife’. If you live in a country with low taxation where everyone spends most of their time working and people who need help from the state are described as layabouts and spongers by the press while corporate spongers who take vast profits out of the country but don’t bother paying any tax get rewarded with knighthoods, then things will continue to break down. Of course retirement was a good idea when people had jobs for life and we didn’t live as long as we do today. It was the carrot that went with the stick of work. If you put in long hours while you’re young you need the prospect of a comfortable retirement to keep you from going mad. But there are no jobs for life now, apart from MPs’ directorships perhaps, and some people who have paid into their pension plans for decades are discovering when they are ready to retire that all their money has vanished. I’m thirty so I find myself being bombarded with adverts from the government screaming at me to get a pension — although not as many as I get from banks screaming for me to get into debt, which shows precisely the problem. That is the catch 22 of our economic nightmare. We have to keep the economy going at a relentless pace, by overworking and over-consuming and getting into ludicrous debt and turning a blind eye to greed and global atrocities, because that is the only way we can keep the stock market afloat, which in turn we hope will keep us in work and keep our economy thriving, which we pray will eventually help us retire with a healthy pension. The minute you tie your future prosperity to the stock exchange the very idea of living in a sustainable way becomes akin to a turkey voting for Christmas. Why would you do something to threaten the economy if your future prosperity relied on it, especially if you’ve been paying into that stock market for decades? So we all keep going, hoping it could be us when it comes to the lottery but that it isn’t us when it comes to the companies we work for going bust before we get to retire.