Time to draw Partygate and Beergate to a close
Read Philip’s column every week in the Western Morning News
THE suggestion that people in glass houses should avoid throwing stones ought to be engraved on every politician’s heart. Yet, sadly, most are only too happy to pile in and hurl half-bricks at a beleaguered member on the opposite benches, even when the likelihood that they would find themselves caught in a similar unfortunate situation ought to have persuaded them to keep their counsel.
The best politicians are the ones who avoid talking about their opponents altogether. Big up your own policies, don’t run down others, would make a good slogan for the wall of many a party HQ. Most voters don’t want to hear how bad you think the other side are – they want to know why they should back you.
Partygate has shown the folly of going in too hard too early when an opponent finds himself on the wrong end of a police interview. Journalists know the danger of suggesting someone is guilty before they have even been questioned; wait until conviction before reporting the crime in its full gory detail, is the sensible legal advice.
Sir Keir Starmer demanded Boris Johnson quit as PM as soon as it became clear he was facing questions. He amplified the call when the PM, and others in Downing Street and Whitehall, were issued with fixed penalty notices.
But now, facing his own investigation by Durham Police for drinking beer and eating curry, he has been backed into a corner. What could he do but say that, if he gets a ticket, he’ll quit as Labour leader?
For my money, it would be extremely harsh to find the Labour leader in breach of lockdown rules for glugging back a beer and shovelling down a curry at the end of a long working day.
But I have never been able to get terribly het up about the Downing Street ‘parties’, either. I fully respect those people, particularly if they lost loved ones, feeling aggrieved that, under the rules as interpreted by the Metropolitan Police, Boris and chums went too far in cutting a cake or nursing a warm glass of white wine while the rest of the population missed out on important events in an attempt to stick to the rules.
But it has seemed to me to be an over-reaction to suggest that behaviour should cost us our Prime Minister. He might not be the best man for the job and, in due course, he may get his marching orders.
But I wonder how Partygate will be viewed by historians a century from now, if Boris is brought down by birthday cake and a bottle of wine? Leaders have committed far worse ‘crimes’ in my book and got away with it.
In just the same way, Keir Starmer should not have been forced to put his political future on the line for a beer and a curry. We all need to eat, even in a pandemic, and the fact that he shared a hurried meal with work colleagues after a hard day’s election planning seems to be out of step with the very real possibility he might lose his job.
I can see why, for political advantage, Keir chose to pledge to resign if he gets a fixed penalty notice. Having called on the PM to quit when his ticket was issued, the Labour leader had nowhere else to go but offer to put his own head on the block if he is found to have been in breach of the rules. But step back a bit, and it can easily look as if we have taken leave of our senses over this issue.
MPs looking to get rid of Boris on the basis that Partygate cost them dear at last week’s council elections seem, at time of writing, to have gone a bit quiet. In truth, while the Tories got a beating, it is not quite obvious that it was all down to illegal parties in Downing Street and Whitehall. Labour’s inability to make up lost ground in so-called ‘red wall’ areas muddies the water still further.
Our best hope is that this madness subsides in the coming weeks; that Tory MPs conclude now is not the time to kick out a sitting Prime Minister, and that Durham police decide a beer and a curry don’t constitute a breach of the lockdown laws. Let’s get rid of errant politicians, by all means – but for the right reasons.
‘Sharing a hurried meal after a hard day’s work seems an unfair reason to lose your job’