| January 16, 2008 | Wednesday | Muharram 06, 1429 |
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Another day, another scandal
AS Peter Hain, the minister for work and pension, continues to slowly twist in the wind under the bright glare of the media spotlight, Britain is going through its periodic soul-searching over ethics in politics.
When I tell my British friends that ‘ethics’ and ‘politics’ are two mutually contradictory concepts, they are a little shocked at my cynicism. On my part, I am often surprised and amused at how willing people here are to trust politicians. Thus, when Toby Blair took his country to war over patently false information about Iraq’s famous but non-existent WMDs, there was shock and horror over the fact that he had lied to parliament and to the public.
My friends, an intelligent, widely-travelled and well-read bunch, expressed genuine anger over being so blatantly lied to. As the full extent of Mr Blair’s deceit unfolded, disenchantment with the system set in. Tony Blair had been widely seen as a popular, upfront kind of person who represented a generational change, away from professional politicians like Margaret Thatcher.
So I’m afraid I took a lot of pleasure in deflating this image. I often quote Bakunin, the 19th century anarchist philosopher, to my friends: “To govern is to exploit.” The truth is that almost by definition, politics is about spin: politicians hide their errors and magnify their successes to enhance their chance of re-election. This is the nature of the beast, and no amount of pontification is going to change it.In Hain’s case, his sin is that he did not disclose a hundred thousand pounds donated by private individuals to finance his bid for election to deputy prime minister last year. According to the rules, all fees, donations and other payments made to MPs are supposed to be entered into the Register of Members’ Interests maintained at the House of Commons. Any sum above 5,000 pounds intended for election purposes has to be reported to the electoral commission.
Mr Hain did neither, causing the present firestorm when the ‘oversight’ came to light. Perhaps the most curious aspect of the case is that much of the money was channelled through an outfit called the Progressive Policies Forum, a hitherto unknown think-tank that has not produced a single piece of paper to justify its existence.
Nobody is suggesting that Hain pocketed the money, or that it influenced his performance as a minister in any way. The thrust of the two ongoing inquiries is into the reasons the politician did not report the donations within the stipulated period.
By the standards of sleaze in other countries, this may seem like a storm in a teacup. Hain’s supporters claim that the error was basically an oversight by a busy politician, and those responsible were his staff who should have brought the matter to his notice earlier.
Gordon Brown has lent qualified support to his cabinet colleague by saying that “it would be a great loss if Mr Hain had to leave the government”, but that “the matter must rest with the authorities.” In a leading article, the Guardian notes that this is “a strange comment. In this matter Mr Brown is the final authority…”
The newspaper goes on to declare: “That the work and pension minister broke the rules on a serious scale is not in doubt. Nor is the fact that his response has been glib… For several months he did not admit to, or did not know about, 17 donations amounting to more than 100,000 pounds which were spent on a personal campaign…
“Not every breach of regulations requires a resignation; there is something horrid about snuff-movie politics, with the media baying for ministerial sacrifice. But if the prime minister does not take a decision on Mr Hain’s position, then the electoral commission must. On the facts as they stand, he cannot outlast its verdict. Mr Brown is a moral man and he surely cannot really think otherwise.”
After such damning comments in the mainstream media, particularly in a Labour-supporting newspaper like the Guardian, it is difficult to see how Mr Hain can survive. But it just takes another scandal or a crisis for the media spotlight to move on, and Peter Hain could well retain his cabinet position.
Luckily for Tony Blair, this storm broke when it did, for it overshadowed the ex-PM’s somewhat dubious entry into international banking.
According to a recent announcement by JP Morgan, America’s third largest bank, it has retained Mr Blair as an adviser at a reported salary of a million dollars a year. Add this to the ten million dollar book deal signed for his memoirs, and you have a retired politician who is not exactly struggling to make ends meet.
And then there are the speaking engagements at a hundred thousand dollars a speech that make Mr Blair a moneymaking machine on the move between New York and Jerusalem.
While obviously, nobody is suggesting that Blair does not have the right to make this kind of money, there is a tinge of envy in the sniping that has come his way. Commentators have asked what services he would provide to JP Morgan, beyond making his wide network of high-level contacts available to the American bank. Others ask whatever happened to the spirit of public service that saw retired public figures doing charity work, well out of the limelight.
But this view overlooks Blair’s fascination for the rich. During his decade in power, he was frequently the guest of wealthy businessmen and show-biz celebrities. He holidayed at the luxury villas of the likes of Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-prime minister of Italy, who has a huge media empire, and is currently facing several corruption charges.
The truth is that human greed is a universal fact of life, and rules have to be put in place to keep it in check. Unfortunately, as we in Pakistan have seen too often, those in charge of enforcing the rules are the very ones with their hands in the public kitty. In our context, who is going to oversee the work our National Accountability Bureau has been doing these last eight years? Who will bell the cat?
