Corruption and the social contract

So many parties at Downing Street now one wonders if Boris had misunderstood the entire concept of a political party... 

Some level of corruption in government is, alas, inevitable. There is simply no way to get hundreds of people into a high-pressure, high-stakes situation for protracted periods without some of them doing something underhand. Can't be done. A lot of idealists cling to the idea that with total transparency and accountability, everyone would behave like saints. They won't. Human beings just aren't like that. There is a fundamental need for privacy even in politics; sometimes it's necessary to say things - unpleasant things - privately that could not possibly be said publicly. If you don't have a degree of privacy, you won't have a functional political system, and it's enormously naïve to think otherwise.

To put it another way : politicians are just like everyone you've ever met. How many of them are totally innocent, incorruptible under any and all circumstances ? How many can resist all temptation and follow every rule ?

None of them. Not one.

But...

That's not a justification. It's not even an excuse. When you get found out, you pay the penalty. A real, tangible, direct consequence, not something as ephemeral as a change in the mood of public opinion. You lose your job. You pay a fine. You might even be imprisoned. You may well recover afterwards, but you take a hit. You don't carry on as normal.

Not all corruption is equal. Greasing the wheels when negotiating with foreign dignitaries is wholly different from enriching yourself from the public purse. If in a crisis you negotiate a contract, for, say, PPE, and you speed things up by going directly to your friend, then as long as you get a reasonable deal then most people will probably forgive you. Your penalty might, in such a case, be nothing more than an apology. 

(But even then, you do apologise. You don't avoid the fact that this was not the ideal course of action.)

Of course, if you don't get a good deal - if, say, you have to throw all the PPE away because it doesn't meet the required standards - that's different. In that case the deal has been good for exactly no-one but yourself.

If some corruption might be excusable by necessity, some definitely isn't. Breaking the rules because you lack even the rudimentary self-control to avoid a piece of cake - frickin' cake ! - and then feel the need to cover this up afterwards is inexcusable. The fact that people thought you deserved a surprise birthday party in the midst of your own lockdown speaks volumes about how seriously they don't take you.

In some ways it's the sheer pettiness of the lockdown parties that I find most offensive. Birthday parties, Christmas quizzes, leaving dos... these serve no purpose at all apart from gratification. They've not corrupt for a higher purpose. They're not even corrupt for anything special at all. At least if someone had been found in bed with a cocaine-snorting hooker you could understand why they felt the need to lie about it, even if the act itself was far more morally dubious. But lying and obfuscating because they had cake ?

If you're going to lie about something that petty, if you don't even have the courage to admit that really rather minor misdemeanour, what the hell else are you hiding ? You ask people to do far, far more than avoid birthday parties, but if you as leader can't even avoid that... you are contemptible. It doesn't matter if you were there for only ten minutes - if you can't bear to avoid even something that petty, how can you expect people to avoid the things that really matter ?

The privilege of being the ones who get to set the rules has obvious, tangible benefits besides the power itself. As such a prominent figure, you can reap enormous financial rewards through lectures, books, interviews etc. This is easy enough so long as you have the competency to actually run the high office to which you were elected. And that's absolutely fine, your perspective in that case is valuable.

But if you aren't... if you're only there because of corruption rather than in spite of it, then resorting to underhand practises for your own enrichment becomes all the more probable. That's why the current scandals engulfing Westminster speak so much to what we all knew from the start : that the current administration is rotten to the core. This is not normal. This is a case, I think, in which it's the individuals who are to blame more than the system.

If you have to have corruption, it can't be like this. It can't be egregious. It can't be over petty personal issues like cake. It's can't amount to admitting the rules were broken but then sticking two fingers up to the public and then ignoring them.

The price paid for the responsibility of high office is twofold. First, you have to do the job competently. The rules you set must make sense and serve a clear purpose. Second, at least for the duration of your term, you have to set a higher standard than you might expect of the general public - if you expect the majority to meet your requirements, you yourself must exceed them. This Tory government has played fast and loose with the first, especially lately as it flagrantly lifts restrictions as a distraction, and consistently failed miserably on the second.

We should not expect perfection. Some minor breaches can be forgiven, if they are admitted swiftly and with an apology. We can't expect divine perfection from anyone. But - blimey ! - we can expect better than a government that actively tries to justify breaking its own rules rather than apologising, who continuously lie and deceive and conspire. Who want others to avoid funerals but themselves can't even avoid birthday cake. Quite simply, they have to go.