In defence of political donors
Labour’s cronyism scandal has rightly led to calls for greater transparency around donors but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If anything, we need more private money in politics, says Henry Newman
Politics is sometimes called show business for ugly people. Aesthetics isn’t the only supposed difference between Westminster and Tinseltown. British politics certainly lacks the glamour of the red carpet and silver screen. But it has also got far less money behind it. Spending limits are quite low for most individual candidates at election, and parliament’s transparency rules ensure that donations to MPs are published online. That’s how we know, after all, that Sir Keir Starmer’s glasses and suits were paid for by a wealthy donor. But, despite the growing cronyism scandal in which the new government has become embroiled, our democracy would actually be stronger if there were more people giving more money to politics.
The new government has made a series of missteps when it comes to political donations. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, tried to appoint a personal donor, Ian Corfield to a politically-impartial civil service role. She then changed his role to an unpaid adviser, but only after it was revealed she had failed to tell the treasury about Corfield’s donation. Other ministers have brought individuals linked to donations they have received into the civil service . Donor Lord Alli was supplied with a rare Downing Street security pass and, reportedly, allowed to organise a party for other donors in the rose garden.
Undermining trust
Each successive revelation of cronyism has drawn opprobrium. Spotlight on Corruption has rightly warned that the “flurry of news stories about political appointees – including donors – taking plum civil service roles risks undermining trust”. The government needs to get a grip. It should start by setting out some basic facts. For example, what was Lord Alli’s role in Downing Street and why did he need a pass? And it should take steps to improve general transparency around civil service appointments, especially those made without a competitive process. But we must not throw out the baby with the bath water.
All governments need to bring people into the civil service to help them deliver their agenda. Whitehall would be better if there were more people employed there, who had experience of working in other sectors – business, councils, charities and so on. So the response to the cronyism row should not be to pull up the drawbridge, isolating Whitehall further. But there must be stronger checks to protect the political impartiality of civil servants and to avoid the impression that jobs are for sale. We should not have to rely on journalists exposing each twist and turn of these appointments. Instead there should be more transparency and a greater role for Whitehall’s regulator, the Civil Service Commission, specifically to approve external appointees who have recently worked in political roles.
This cronyism scandal has inevitably led to renewed interest in political donations. Political donors get a hard time. They can get dragged into newspaper exposes or accused of buying influence. Political rivals love to attack each other’s donors. It’s obviously important that donations are subject to appropriate scrutiny, particularly when it comes to new major players such as Labour Together which is operating as something of an American-style ‘Super PAC’. Yet without donors our politics would be impoverished – both literally and figuratively.
Donations pay for much of the basic mechanics of politics. Yes, for fighting elections – for online and billboard advertising, printing leaflets, hiring strategists, and paying staff members. But they also help support parties and candidates more broadly. Some donors pay for the costs of researchers to help develop a party’s policy programme or fund trips for politicians to visit other jurisdictions to study what they are doing right and wrong. Others pay for the ecosystem of think tanks, campaigning organisations and charitable institutions which support our national public policy debate. Getting this right matters. We should all want every political party to put forward a credible policy platform at elections. And we want ideas, claims and counter-claims to be tested in rigorous public debate. We need a democratic survival of the fittest.
The alternative is more taxpayers’ money
The alternative to donors funding policy development and politics more generally, is to put more taxpayers’ money in. We already have some public money available to opposition parties – it’s called Short money and has been around for over half a century. But we don’t have widespread taxpayer support for politics in the way some European countries do. In Germany there are even think tanks supported by the public purse. I think it would be challenging to defend significantly increasing the level of state support for politics, particularly given the current spending constraints. And that’s why it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the valuable role which donors play in our democracy.
It’s a quick clap line to say that we should drive the money out of politics. And while I would agree that Whitehall clearly needs stronger checks and balances, I disagree with those attacking political donations overall. The problem with our politics is that it’s run on a shoestring. There isn’t enough money around to fund a wider range of think tanks. We need more money to help politicians develop the best policy programmes and recruit and retain experienced staff. The money for politics needs to be drawn as broadly as possible, not just from a handful of rich businessmen or trades union barons. So we need to encourage more people to put private money into politics. Because the alternatives are worse – a weaker democracy, or all of us paying for politics through our taxes.
Henry Newman is a former advisor to Boris Johnson and editor of the Whitehall Project substack