Keir Starmer, Lord Alli and the good chap theory of government

Lord Hewart - see my review of Neil Hickman's book on him in the current Liberator - had little time for the argument that, because the Civil Service has such high standards, we shouldn't worry about civil servants being ungranted unexamined, quasi-judicial powers.

In a paper written for The Constitution Society in 2019, Andrew Blick and Peter Hennessy gave this attitude to government more generally a name:

In the UK, we have trusted politicians to behave themselves. We have long assumed that those who rise to high office will be 'good chaps', knowing what the unwritten rules are and wanting to adhere to them, even if doing so might frustrate the attainment of their policy objectives, party political goals, or personal ambitions – the argument being that 'good chaps' (of different sexes) know where the undrawn lines are and come nowhere near to crossing them: hence ‘the good chap theory of government.’

I thought of this theory when I saw the defences of Keir Starmer decision to put himself in Lord Alli's debt that Labour supporters mounted on Twitter this morning. They boiled down to the claim that we needn't worry about it because Alli is a good chap - all he wanted in return for his donations was the election of a Labour government.

This may well be true, but another maxim that developed out of the rulings of Lord Hewart is that justice must not only be done: it must be seen to be done. In this case I think that means that though we may accept that Starmer has done no favours for Lord Alli, he still should not have put himself in this position.

My chief feeling about this affair is one of surprise that Labour had not seen that it might damage them - Private Eye noticed some time ago that Starmer has a fondness for freebies. Similarly, though it has been inflated by the media, I don't know what else Labour thinks it has given them to talk about since coming power. They seem to have gone from obsessive media management under Blair and Alastair Campbell to giving up any attempt at it.

And, yes, the Tories were far worse, but I've already argued here that whataboutery won't get Labour out of trouble here. I suggest Labour examines the idea of putting a frugal limit on how much an individual can donate to a political party. Until last week at least, many of their supporters seemed keen on it.