A regular commenter on this blog asked the question of whether the present Labour government is the most corrupt UK administration, ever. It is an interesting one. Blair and his wife enjoy the trappings of office, and at the taxpayer’s expense, with a gusto that is certainly hard to take. Cherie Blair’s activities are particularly questionable, such as the fees she reportedly made for speaking on behalf of charity. The recent demise of David Blunkett, who resigned earlier this month as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in scandal about his financial dealings, underscores how socialists are often unseated by money.
But is this the most bent government ever? I don’t know. It would be nice if there were some sort of mathematical metric to judge the relative probity or venality of different administrations. The previous Major government had its share of pretty corrupt politicians. In the early 1990s we had the Matrix-Churchill affair concerning arms shipments to Iraq. Mrs Thatcher’s governments were relatively straight, although a few ministers did move remarkably easily into the top jobs of industries they had privatised. The Callaghan government, as far as I know, had few major financial scandals, although the Harold Wilson government had its low points, not least in Wilson’s unfortunate choice of friends. In fact, public life in Britain, at least as far as the history books are concerned, was fairly honest between the end of the First World War and the late 50s. We had the Profumo Affair at the fag end of the McMillan administration and a generation earlier, David Lloyd George caused outrage through the sale of peerages for hard cash. The Salisbury, Gladstone, Disraeli and Palmerston premierships were pretty honest, as was that of Robert Peel. It was during the Victorian age that the civil service was placed on a far more professional footing and the practice of buying commissions in the British Army was brought to an end (the Royal Navy, while not perfect, tended to be far more meritocratic. It had to be. Sailing a man-of-war takes a bit of intelligence).
So arguably, you have to go back to the early 19th Century and the 18th Century before you find governments as venal as the current one. Elections, in which only a tiny fraction of the adult population could vote, were frequently drunken, corrupt affairs. Rotten boroughs, financial sinecures and bribery were commonplace. Politicians as diverse as William Cobbett and Edmund Burke railed against corruption.
A secondary question though, is how much of a problem is corruption? Classical liberals like James Buchanan and the late Arthur Seldon might argue that if the state expands and gobbles a higher chunk of our money and regulates, taxes and disburses more subsidies, then it increases the temptation to bend the system, win favours and bribe officials. Jam attracts flies. In some parts of the world, government regulations and taxes are so oppressive that economies would break down without bribery. I have heard it said – and it rings true to me – that Italian laws and taxes are so bad that about a third of the economy is carried out in the black economy. And Africa is rife with this sort of thing, as all those spam letters you get from Nigeria suggest.
So corruption is as much a symptom as much of a cause of our current woes. It may be gratifying to see politicians like Blair and his ghastly wife brought down over corruption. But let’s not forget that the real challenge remains to cut back the state to size so that these folks don’t have the opportunity. And let’s not also forget that there have been many persons in public life who have been entirely free of financial corruption, but like Robespierre and Lenin, were corrupted by the charms of wielding power over other people to murderous effect.
Well, Jonathan, corruption is a big tent, Tony’s favourite abode.
Didn’t Tony have a 737 converted – at taxpayer expense, naturally; he didn’t pay for it on his own – for him and Cherie to fly round the world in comfort? They went to Singapore in it, if I remember rightly, to lobby for the Olympic games. Britain won despite their presence.
Does David Blunkett, sacked (a synonym for “resigned” in this administration) for financial maldoing this time – oh, and last time, too! along with improper use of influence – still have his limousine? Does he still have his driver? (I hope so, if he still has his limousine! The man’s dangerous enough on foot!) Does he still have his grace and favour minister’s residence?
I see thrice disgraced Peter Mandelson is on the Brussels gravy train for life. Oh, and the Hindujas did get their British citizenship, did they not? And Lakshmi Mittal got his Latvian steel company? And Bernie Ecclestone got a delay in the cigarette advertising bill? And doesn’t Tony Blair get a lot of gifts from Sylvio Berlusconi that he has to hand over to the government, although he can buy them back at the value one his cronies puts on it? So he gets Rolexes, say, for £249?
Doesn’t Cherie Blair accept free gifts from Donna Karen NY, and a big department store in Sydney and trundle through the Green Channel when she gets back to Britain?
Whatever happened to Geoffrey Robinson, by the way? Doesn’t Cherie go to DCand give talks as The First Lady of Downing Street, for large amounts of money, but stay at the British embassy free of charge? And get the taxpayer employee the British Ambassador to introduce her to the audience, free of charge?
These are just off the top of my head. There are dozens more.
However much I would like to attack Cherie Blair, I can’t. As far as I know, she has no official government role. If she can get paid for public speaking good luck to her.
Yes she does. She is the wife of the prime minister and is banned from exploiting her position.
I doubt C. Blair would be paid loads for speaking were she just another lawyer.
G. Robinson: no idea what happened to him. One damning fact about him was that he was a senior exec. at Jaguar in the 70s, when that firm lost its reputation for making decent cars. He also had a rather bizarre relationship with an old rich woman.
The significance of Blair’s corruption doesn’t lie in any personal gain he or his disgusting wife may have gained from office – that is only money.
The true measure of his corruption is the moral and ethical kind that has eaten away at our constitution like acid.
The proper comparison isn’t with the venal clowns who brought down John Major, but with country-wrecking tyrants, like Lenin. For a perfect example, see Guy Herbert’s post, above.
Verity, by the way, all the points you mention — off the top of your head! — are true. I would point out, though, that even if Blair was a model of honesty, this government would still be damned for its record. .
GCooper, exactly right. Which is why I mentioned the corruption of power in the final paragraph.
I agree with Verity on Cherie, the woman is utterly corrupt in a most venal way. She exploits her position as PMs wife, despite having no official position, in a way never seen before.
As far as the Government is concerned? When it comes to money, it is all petty stuff, although this is the most corrupt government since the reform acts. But power? When it comes to the corruption of power this is the worst government seen since our system was formed, two hundred years ago.
Surely the corruption is not the ‘old’ corruption you are talking about, it is the ‘new’ corruption. It is Political correctness, the fact that one does not believe official statistics any more, and when you read a press release from the government, you immediately disbelieve it, and ask ‘Well, I wonder what the truth is behind this?’ The entire civil service has been corrupted into presenting everything in a party political light, in order to please their masters.
As an archaeologist, I would point to English Heritage as being a prime example of this.
Andrew, could you say a bit more about English Heritage.?
Good comments on this thread. Of course, I agree with G Cooper, Chris Harper and Andrew Selkirk. But by their vile political corruption, they have made their petty financial corruption unexceptional.
Their corruption has spread with the grim inevitability of a stain creeping over the fabric of Britain. Remember Cherie’s friendship with that conman who helped her buy her apartments? OK, she has the right to be friendly with international criminals if that is her taste. But remember all the questions the newspapers asked? Remember Alastair Campbell and the Downing St press officer turning into Cherie Blair’s personal public relations agency as they defended her to the press day after day? And arranged for her to go on national tv and deliver a speech written by the Mandelson/Campbell team? Did Cherie and Blair ever repay the British taxpayer for these hours, days of services by the Downing St press office and Campbell? Did anyone insist? No. They let it slide.
Blair has corrupted the formerly incorruptible CS because joining the bullies and “special advisors” was the only way to save their careers. But they surely hadn’t joined the Civil Service in the expectation of being corrupted so.
And now oxygen thieves like Jack Straw and the rest of them are jumping up and down over that new book by former DC ambassador Christopher someone. Purveying gossip for money! “But it’s not f-a-a-i-r! He’s a civil servant! He’s not supposed to grass on us!” Well, hoist by your own petard, you cheap vipers.
“It would be nice if there were some sort of mathematical metric to judge the relative probity or venality of different administrations”
Corruption indices such as those published by Transparency International are far from perfect, but I believe they do tell us something. They have not been around for long enough to provide the sort of across-time comparison on which this post speculates. And being survey-based, they are impossible to reconstruct (you can’t survey the dead). An interesting question would be whether one could develop valid and reliable non-survey-based metrics that could therefore be reconstructed into the past. In principle, I don’t see why not.
On a slightly different note, one of my favourite academic books (now sadly out of print) is Susan Rose-Ackerman’s (1978) Corruption: a study in political economy. Her more receny (1999) Corruption and Government: causes, consequences and reform is more readable, but this comes at the price of some rigour. For example, it is content to assert things that were proved in the 1978 book.
Tim – Try going through the Green Channel without declaring “gifts” worth a couple of thousand pounds.
‘Couple of thousand pounds’ – it was FIFTEEN THOUSAND pounds – anyone else doing that would have been doing some really serious jail time for that!
Verity, as I recall the 737 BBJ conversion was provided to Blair by an arab company called Royal Jet Group, at a cost to the taxpayer of £400,000 for 72 hours, simply so that he and Cherie could travel in style for to Singapore for the 2012 Olympics announcement. That sort of thing went on all the time in the Victorian era – private yachts being provided regularly for MP’s and ministers on factfinding missions to India, massive bribes being paid to local commissioners to look the other way in India and other colonies etc.
I think the difference now is that under Blair these dreadful socialist animals no longer feel the need to hide their corruption from the public, thus demonstrating both their utmost contempt for the electorate and their insufferable conceit. Blunkett and Cherie’s blatant disregard for even the slightest modicum of proprietary is ample proof of this.
The personal financial antics of Greedie Boot and Bovine TB are important mainly as a demonstration of their lack of propriety which, in turn, informs the behaviour of his government members and party creatures.
Julian Taylor writes:
“….couple of thousand pounds’ – it was FIFTEEN THOUSAND pounds – anyone else doing that would have been doing some really serious jail time for that!
Indeed – and what is even worse is that she is supposed to be a bloody judge !
I wonder if there is any scope for private prosecution here, al a A. P. Herbert?
Julian Taylor – so fat Cherie lumbered through the Green Channel weighed down by £15,000 worth of goods and the Customs officer didn’t think to say, “Right! Over here, madam, if you would, please!”?
“… demonstrating both their utmost contempt for the electorate and their insufferable conceit.”
Oh, yes.
Lindsay, thanks for the link.
It seems that el Phonio has had to put Imelda’s earnings from her speaking engagements in his entry in the list of MP’s interests, so he has had to accept that the only reason she gets this cash is because she is his wife. The Bliars have thus managed to nationalise the role of Prime Minister’s consort, another triumph for the Projekt.
We will probably find that dear old Blunkett will still get his armoured car and government residence for “security” because of his status as an ex Home Secretary. The “security” justification is the reason ministers don’t have to pay a benefit in kind tax on their company cars like the little people do. You see, they’d just love to take the bus, but the beastly old terrorists just force them to make do with an armoured Jaguar and official driver. The sacrifices they make on our our behalf!
Julian Taylor – so fat Cherie lumbered through the Green Channel weighed down by £15,000 worth of goods and the Customs officer didn’t think to say, “Right! Over here, madam, if you would, please!”?
Would you if you were a civil servant? Their role is to put in the hours until they can draw their index linked pension. They can mess with the little people, but no public sector wallah with an ounce, sorry 28 grams of common sense will mess with Imelda when she returns to the country after a shoe frenzy abroad. Who in his right mind wants to end up in a wood with a blunt penknife?
The Bliars and their NuLab cronies are the Boss Class, and civil servants now know why they have “servant” in their job title.
As Sir Hartley Shawcross said, “We are the masters at the moment, and shall be for a very long time”, sometimes condensed to “We are the masters now.” If you want to understand NuLab, that just about sums it up.
I read the Guardian, and came on here to read some sophisticated, well argued opinions. But you’re the same old bunch of political hysterics (Tory Blair is Lenin? Give us a break!) with incredibly short and selective memories.
I read the Guardian
You do? How impressive. We are not worthy. If I promise to eat my five a day and only use real nappies will I be deemed a good serf?
Illustrating my point.
There are two (other) sorts of corruption which mark Blair out, and they are linked.
First, there is the corruption of language. I swear to got Alan Milburn can speak on national radio for five solid minutes without actually saying anything.
The second is the corruption of power: the use of power and corrupted language principally to humiliate the listener. That’s always the hallmark of authoritarian regimes: it’s not enough that they talk rubbish, they have to get you to assent to that rubbish, even though you know it’s rubbish.
I’d say this is by now pretty much standard play for the Blair administration. Every time they ban something, they’ll justify it by some assertion which is pretty plainly bogus, and very often stridently self-contradictory. Banning smoking from pubs, for example, on the risible grounds that they have to protect the landlords.
Or another recent example: the explanation that extending pub opening hours for 24 hrs a day heralded – nay, was justified as – a big crackdown on “binge drinking”. The point is its not just stupid and insincere, it’s blatantly and in-your-face stupid and insincere. Why do they do it? It’s an assertion of power, a non-too-carefully sublimated desire to humiliate the electorate. This is why not only is the message cringingly stupid, so, increasingly are the messengers. (Hazel Blears for example – you know, I honestly believe she might be as stupid as she seems to be.)
That’s corruption.
Hey, be nice to the Guardian-reader. Even by visiting, he may be tentatively pushing open the bars of his ideological cage. Or he may just be having fun. Both of which should be encouraged.
And as a bonus, he’s almost certainly he’s taking time off from a government-paid job. Should this be welcomed? On the one hand, if he’s here with us, he’s not busy regulating. On the other hand, I pay his wages. . . . Tricky.
Wrong on so many counts. Though being wrong is not something you lot seem to contemplate in your own little cage of certainty. Sorry, I forgot, you’re all so free.
What on earth has gone wrong with Samizdata’s spam filter? I just tried to post a perfectly ordinary comment (no brand names, nothing else that should have started a bot worrying) only to have it rejected as possible spam.
Time to turn down the wick a bit, maybe?
Graham – what’s wrong on so many counts? You realise that simply saying so doesn’t make it so. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten us with your worldly wisdom, rather than seeming to exist
I don’t work for the government; don’t regulate anybody (than God); you don’t pay my wages. Enough for a start?
My point was that there is a lot of paranoia and over reaction above; and that the comparisons being made are ahistorical. And I dislike, I presume like yourself, being patronised. Funny, as well, reading the Graudian seems to be a thought crime. What newspapers to you recommend to help with my education?
Comparisons:
Neil Hamilton took cash in a brown envelope from Mohamed Fayed and failed to get him a British passport = sleazy/ Peter Mandelson took money for a project Labour were (then) trying to associate themselves with and the Hinduja family got their passport = not sleazy.
Jonathan Aitkin had a hotel room paid for by a business contact and lied about it = sleazy/ Peter Mandelson (him again) had a house financed by a businessman who’s affairs he was subsequently responsible for investigating = not sleazy.
Jeffrey Archer lied about his relationship with a woman = sleazy/ Tony Blair lied about seeing Jackie Millburn play, about flying to Barbados, about not introducing university tuition fees, about WMDs deployable within 45 minutes, etc. etc. etc. = not sleazy.
Kenneth Clarke is a director of BAT = sleazy/ David Blunkett became a director of a company that had dealings with his previous department = not sleazy.
Alan Clarke had a problem keeping his fly buttons done up = sleazy/ David Blunkett (again) had the same = not sleazy.
An anonymous Conservative MP was found dead with a bag over his head and his (dis)honourable member in his hand = sleazy (but funny)/ Ron Brown went for an innocent walk (not looking for anonymous gay sex) on Clapham common and got mugged = not sleazy (and even funnier ‘cos no one died).
I’m bored now, but there are plenty more like these. If its not sleazy and its certainly not honest, it must be corrupt.
Graham, go and read my original article and you will see that I have tried to put the issue of corruption into a historical context rather than just beat up on Phoney, enjoyable though that is. Corruption is a symptom of a problem: Big Government and too many stupid laws.
GCooper, there’s nothing wrong with allowing the odd lefty on the site. We need to keep our ideological muscles in trim.
Yes, indeed, Michael Taylor. I think the death of Dr Kelly, for which Blair is directly responsible and that is why he turned white on the plane to Japan when he was told of it, is the sleaziest and most tragic example of Blair’s deep, systemic corruption. He’s a foul piece of work.
Graham, welcome to the real world and we hope you will find some food for thought here. Yes, we hold that certain things are very certain indeed, but we go by evidence, not Guardianista “feelings”. I can’t speak for my fellow Samizdatans (if that term is acceptable to the owner of the blog; see, there are no rules around here), but I don’t regard reading The Guardian as a thought crime. A foolish waste of time, yes. Although if you seek predictable, oft-repeated radical left opinions to reinforce your own, there is no better.
Anyway, enjoy your stay!
Oh, and I seem to recall that Jack Straw was stopped for going 104 mph on a motorway? And blamed his driver? And was never fined for this? I believe that in Britain, people going five miles over the speed limit are fined, but not the nomenklatura.
Graham,
Welcome. Sometimes comparisons go over the top here, but then they do nearly everywhere. After all, how often does a commentator in the Guardian assert the nonsensical and ignorant equation, Bush = Hitler? Even if it is expressed in a more sophisticated manner? And don’t forget, you got George Monbiot, the original and uber moonbat.
Verity can be a little forceful in her views, although she often hits the nail on its head, Euan presents an alternative view, and most everyone else just keep the discussion flowing by presenting divergent perspectives, although most of us tend to be anarchists, minarchists and propertarians of one sort of another. In general the discussions tend to avoid personal insult to one another, although the dishonest, disreputable, deceiteful, duplicitious, disgusting, despicable and just plain ugly slimes who rule us are considered fair game. A guardianista who is willing to join in the spirit of the site, and who could bring a whole new perspective to the discussions, would probably be welcomed.
Y’all come back now, you hear.
I’ve just read that Blunkett will indeed be keeping the house and car for “security” reasons. Hope all the serfs waiting for buses and trains get a warm glow about the fact that they are paying for this corrupt politician’s grace and favour house and armoured Jag. The standards of political corruption and cronyism in this country do seem to be rewinding ever quicker to the 18th Century.
John K., I would just point out that anyone who has held the post of Home Secretary over the past 30+ years has police protection, such as Michael Howard, who lives close by my flat in Pimlico, or the likes of William Whitelaw, Leon Brittan, etc. However, there is no earthly reason why Blunkett should have a grace-and-favour house in London. He should live in a house from his income, like the rest of we mortals.
I know this will sound very harsh, but I am not inclined to give Blunkers a pass for being blind. I see that even his biographer Stephen Pollard has damned him.
Jonathan, Yes, his grace and favour house and his limousine and driver should be removed from him. He is not a government minister and is no longer entitled to such privileges from the taxpayer. This is beyond ridiculous.
I don’t mind him having police protection if they all get it. But it’s unacceptable that he kept his grace and favour (read taxpayer paid-for) residence when he resigned last time for improper behaviour. And this time. This guy’s a real pro at keeping his seat on the gravy train.
His security is not more important than that of Michael Howard, who lives in a home he has paid for himself, or that of any other former Home Secretary.
This is one more example of Blair venality: diverting taxpayer money to help out a friend. If he wants to help out his friend, he must use his own funds to buy David Blunkett a house and buy him a car and pay for a driver for him. The British public has no role in this. Blunkett has been forced to resign twice – serial resignations are another feature of the Blair regime – for improper behaviour, such as stealing from the taxpayer. (If he hadn’t paid the train fares back, he’d have been arrested.)
I wonder what he has on Tony Blair.
Verity,
I had no idea about the customs thing. Thanks for the info. I’m not going to criticise Cherie for that, but the officers who it seems dealt with one member of the public in a different way to another.
However, I stand by my general view. If you make speeches as the PM’s wife, that’s your business. How many of us would like to have our freedoms curtailed by association?
But, I do hold ministers and MPs to account. Sadly, I think most of the public really don’t care enough about the dealings of this corrupt bunch. Just wait until the economy collapses, and they’ll want blood.
Tim – No, there has been real concern about Cherie Blair exploiting No 10 Downing St, which she is not allowed to do. She has had herself billed as The First Lady of Downing St, which she knows bloody fine, she is not. She is giving talks in Washington and Oz not as Cherie Booth QC – as though anyone would turn up! – but as Cherie Blair, The First Lady of Downing St. She is writing about life inside No 10. This is against the regulations, but it is just one more thing these greedy, arrogant, ignorant hulks have trampled over.
In DC, on her business speaking trip, she stayed at the British Embassy. It’s not a hotel. It’s for official diplomatic business. She had the British ambassador introduce her talk. That is not his function.
You write, with regard to Cherie going through the Green Channel laden with goods from overseas: I had no idea about the customs thing. Thanks for the info. I’m not going to criticise Cherie for that, but the officers who it seems dealt with one member of the public in a different way to another.
How frightfully sporting of you. The only thing is, the cow’s a High Court judge.
Everything the sleazy Blair’s touch, they bring into disrepute by association.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“GCooper, there’s nothing wrong with allowing the odd lefty on the site. We need to keep our ideological muscles in trim.”
Where did I suggest there was? Are you imagining comments I haven’t posted?
GCooper, apols. I was referring to someone else who wondered why a Guardianista was on the site. Doh.
Verity,
In his annual declaration David Blunkett confesses to receiving some £100,000 in total fees, salaries, and assorted
bribesfreebies, in addition to his declaration of rental income from his flat in London. Now we all know that he earned a little bit more than that (no mention of £300,000 income from Home Office DNA labs I note) but shouldn’t he at the very least contribute the income from his let flat to the taxpayers’ costs incurred in housing him to the security standard required by the police protecting him no doubt from angry no2id supporters?However given the Grauniads incompetence in discerning the difference between a 4 bedroom end-of-terrace Chelsea townhouse and a dingy SouthWest London flat, as per their article on Samizdata, I fully expect that poor old Blunkett probably lives in George Galloway’s spare room than in a magnificent Grace and Favour apartment.
Julian Taylor, thank you so much for that snippet on this repulsive man. If he wants to retain his grace and favour residence, he will have to pay a fair market rent to the British taxpayer.
I note that no Tory MP has made an issue of this in these days of Za-NuLab censorship of anything that might derail their agenda. Blunket knows bloody well that he has absolutely no conceivable right to be in a grace and favour residence or be riding around in a grace and favour car driven by a grace and favour chauffeur – all as a generous gift from the British taxpayer. He knows he has no right to these gifts.
Anyone with the tiniest moral fibre would either not be accepting these privileges to which he isn’t entitled (the way he accepted 1st class rail tickets to give to his girlfriend. It did say Spouse on them, just not whose). But our Dave’s a bit of a greedy lad with a deep sense of entitlement.
I wish a Tory MP would make an issue of this because it is absolutely outrageous and deeply dishonest. And totaly consonant with T Bliar’s “government” (read “shambles”, aka le Petit Trianon).
Attention, tous le monde! Blunkett, I am certain, for his transparent dishonestly, venality, greed and corruption will get appointed to the House of Lords. Lord Blunkett of Greedyshire.
It astounds me that the Brits are so stupid that they let Blair transform the Lords under his personal “Modernising Tony” imprimateur when he actually catapulted it back into the Dark Ages.
We have to get rid of all these appointees and have an elected 2nd chamber. Tony’s cronies should be required to dodder out to pasture to try to find a company that needs a rank, slightly suspect, name on their stationery. “Lord” Ali Wotsiqqui for example, could sit on the board of the corner halal butcher’s shop (before halal butchery gets banned by elected representatives under pressure from the electorate). At the same time, end this absurd “life peerage” scam. They’re not real lords; just pretend and everyone knows it.
“Lord” Ali Wotsiqqui for example, could sit on the board of the corner halal butcher’s shop
I’m not so sure. Lord Ali, for example, is a gay Asian media tycoon. An ideal Islingtonian clone you might think, yet he opposed the fox hunting ban, and I think he might be sound on the slave card issue.
Don’t forget, Princess Toni has a very short attention span, and does not think things through. He thought getting rid of hereditaries and appointing his friends would give him a compliant House of Lords. Two problems with this:
1) He has no friends.
2) The hereditaries were loath to vote against government legislation, as deep down they knew that their role in the legislature based on the deeds of long dead ancestors had no real legitimacy. The life peers are appointed because of who they are and what they have done. They thus feel, rightly in my view, that they have a right and obligation to bring that knowledge and experience to bear. And because they are in for life, there is nothing el Phonio can do, he has no whip hand over them.
An elected second chamber would tend to be filled with the same sort of duds and placemen as we find in the Commons. I’m quite attracted to the idea of a second chamber which is not full of people whose sole aim in life is to please the Leader and get their scrawny arses inside an armoured Jaguar.
Don’t forget, the Founding Fathers did not want the Senate to be a popularly elected chamber, and until 1913 (I think) it wasn’t. Has American democracy improved since then? Maybe the dead white males were on to something.
John K, you’ve hit on one of, if not the, biggest mistakes in our constitutional history. The 17th amendment did indeed take effect in 1913. It was in the very next election cycles that majorities shifted to favoring big handout (ie agricultural subsidy) programs.
Prior to that, senators were effectively state’s ambassadors to a general assembly. They were appointed by individual state officials who generally knew them personally and much discussed with others the merits of different candidates.
Before the 17th amendment, the senate represented state’s governments, therefore state’s powers. States have to compete for citizens. After the 17th, it became a contest to buy votes from the citizen voters. It finished a process that started in the civil war. All power moved to the national government. Votes are bought with promises and campaign fund donations.
Whatever you do, don’t turn the Lords into a popularity contest. The same thing will happen there.
It must stick somewhat in Our Little Tony’s graw that he does not have sufficient control over the House of Lords. Originally governments and Prime Ministers appointed peers to the upper house who were grounded in experience of both law and of politics, mixed in with the occasional significant party benefactor. Obviously under Lloyd George this system failed but overall it has functioned quite neatly – the Lords continues to do its job of curbing the government’s excesses and badly thought out legislation. Under Blair any rejection of his badly drawn up policy or legislation by the upper house is viewed as a direct personal criticism by a man who, as we have all see too often, is completely incapable of accepting criticism of his actions. Therefore it does seem logical to someone like Blair that the only way of dealing with his critics is to make bulk appointments to the Lords of those who would not dare say boo to him.
Under Thatcher £250,000 got you, if you were lucky, an invite to a Buckingham Palace garden party and an OBE or maybe a very minor knighthood. It’s a sign of the times, and Our Little Tony’s desperation, that the same sum will now clearly buy you a life peerage AND you get to keep the money – just invest it into one of Ruth Kelly’s hairbrained private investment in schools schemes.
As Verity says, what better way to ensure that you get your authoritarian legislation through than to create one of your completely unprincipled, socialist and corrupt buddies as a life peer?
Tony’s bundled in more cronies than any PM in history. I tried to Google the number but couldn’t find it easily and gave up. But I think all by himself, he’s stuffed the Lords with around 300 friends. Soon, every second person in the Labour Party will be a lord.
The irony, which gives us a mean smile of satisfaction, is, once they’re in the Lords, they have nothing to lose. It can’t be taken away from them, so they can take their tongue out of Tony’s lower intestine and vote according to their own pleasure.
“Thatchers government was straight….” Come on. The vitriol against Tony & Cherlie Blair is totally biased and blinkered. GCooper is right about some of the posts. Anyone who isn’t one of your own is bad. Archer commited perjury. Aitken found guilty in court. etc etc. You can’t expect the PM to travel by bus – Thatcher rightly didn’t either and she (rightly) receives police protection because of lot of people would wish her harm BUT SHE WAS ELECTED AS WAS BLAIR.