Remembering to tell the truth need not be so tricky
INTEREST-GRABBING opening paragraphs can be elusive. This week, however, I had two. First, the famous lines of the half-mad 15th century rebel leader Jack Cade in the RSC’s recent production of Shakespeare’s Henry VI: Rebellion.
No, not the invariably applauded “let’s kill all the lawyers”, which is actually addressed to Cade, not by him.
Rather, “Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the parliament of England”.
Then, warned he may have uttered something “false”: “Ay, there’s the question; but I say ‘tis true.”
Ring any bells? You’ve possibly guessed where we’re heading, but patience, please.
First, back to my demoted opening paragraph, recalling a column of some three years ago about choropleth maps – posh jargon for using pretty colour shading to illustrate the value of the statistic being measured.
I like them, and the Post’s editors kindly indulged me by illustrating the page with both a choropleth map of electoral registration across the West Midlands and, unrequested but much appreciated, a photo of then quite recently deceased Professor Anthony King, the University of Essex academic and broadcaster who first introduced me to such things.
He features again this week, as an original member of the (Lord) Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life, established in 1994 by then Prime Minister John Major – and once more in the news.
Nolan was Major’s response to a perceived deterioration of said standards under his watch.
And numerous embarrassing ‘cash-for-questions’ revelations, of Conservative MPs taking bribes to ask parliamentary questions and otherwise demean themselves on behalf of the likes of Harrods owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The questions – “participating in parliamentary proceedings” – were the problem.
Yet, even under the current Standards Committee’s proposed new rule-tightening ‘Code of Conduct’, MPs can still work for companies and organisations prepared to pay presumably for their ‘insider’ Parliamentary knowledge and contacts.
Just don’t do it as blatantly around the Palace of Westminster as North Shropshire’s disgraced ex-MP, Owen Paterson. Anyway, back in 1994, Lord Nolan made an immediate impact by having his committee of senior politicians and ‘independents’ like Professor King sit not in private, as Major apparently intended, but in public.
They then produced what became famous as the seven Nolan Principles of Public Life, obviously – but unfortunately not here – with definitions. They too have been in the news recently.
Back then, though, they were soon incorporated into the Commons new Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, and became a code of practice for anyone either elected or appointed to public office, nationally or locally – including the police, courts, probation, education and health services, and charities.
Interestingly, Major also tagged them on to something else currently in the news, the Ministerial Code – a set of previously unpublished rules and principles outlining the standards of conduct expected of government ministers.
That was about it – conduct expected. The Code had no legal status, nothing about dismissal – just comply with the law and don’t confuse public and private interests.
As (mainly) ‘good chaps’, Ministers might be expected to resign if/when they “knowingly mislead Parliament”.
Any ultimate enforcement, though, was left up to the PM, even if/when the PM personally was/is the chief serial offender – and the current one has now weakened it still further.
The Ministerial Code had kind of existed for ages, but unpublished pre-John Major, who tagged the Nolan Principles on at the end of it as an ‘Annex’, or possibly just ‘Afterthought’.
Which brings me to my personal Nolan thing. For reasons never really explained, the seven principles are almost invariably listed in the same order: SIOAOHL – Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty, Leadership.
I presume there was some rationale, but my objection, expressed to by then my fellow academic colleague ‘Tony’ King, was that I (and I’d bet many MPs) found them tricky to remember in that order. Personally, therefore, I used a pronounceable acronym – HALIOSO.
For two reasons. First, I could easily remember Halitosis, and work from there. But, even more importantly, I actually thought Honesty should come first, because it’s surely the first, and single most important, value most of us would have learnt as children.
So, to the present. The PM’s next Parliamentary Partygate truth hurdle will be set eventually – once the Met Police finally complete their stuff – by the reputedly ‘powerful’ but Conservative-dominated Commons Privileges Committee.
They will examine – at excruciating length – whether Johnson knowingly misled Parliament, with any sanction, up to and including suspension or expulsion from Parliament, then requiring an overall Commons majority.
The farce, or tragedy, of all this is that the truth boat sailed yonks ago.
Ministers have been knowingly and calculatedly misleading Parliament on at least a monthly basis throughout this present Parliament without apparently feeling any need to ever apologise, ever explain.
I have numerous specific examples, but am already out of space.
There are several authoritative sources, but my chief one would have been Full Fact, the well-established news and social media fact-checking charity founded by (Conservative supporting) businessman, Michael Samuel.
Full Fact have recorded at least 27 factually false statements to this Parliament and its committees by the PM (17) and other ministers that have gone uncorrected and uninvestigated – on Downing Street parties obviously, but also on far more important subjects: refugee numbers, crime rates, Covid boosters, the economy.
The ‘powerful’ Privileges Committee, however, didn’t require any of these Ministers even to produce the Jack Cade defence: “Ay, there’s the question; but I say ‘tis true.”
Ministers have been knowingly and calculatedly misleading Parliament on at least a monthly basis throughout this Parliament