If you’re looking for evidence of malaise in British public life, the saga of a Conservative donor who helped facilitate a personal loan for the prime minister appointed chairman of the BBC will do the trick. This is something the British do when things happen abroad.
But while the role of middleman Richard Sharp, the details of which were not revealed during the election process, has raised questions about the future, it also points to a bigger problem. It shows the consequences of narrowing the talent pool for public works to a level close enough to Boris Johnson to worry about his wealth.
Patronage has always run thick through the veins of the British body politic. Interestingly, BBC jobs often go to political partisans. For Sharp; Alumnus of Goldman Sachs; party donors with close ties to Johnson and Rishi Sunak, read Gavyn Davies; Goldman Sachs alumnus, Labor party donor with close personal ties to Gordon Brown and BBC chair under Tony Blair.
The Blair and Cameron governments faced uproar over “Tony’s cronies” and “Dave’s faves”. Blair’s patronage is sometimes surprising. He made an unelected former solicitor general, while Labour’s main donor, David Sainsbury, was appointed science minister. (In the end this was much praised, but he enjoyed the freedom and influence he gave to some other ministers). All governments ask for sympathetic figures for public projects and Sharp is approved by a formal vetting process. So of course Johnson and Sunak are just one step further down the road to excellence.
However, there are four main differences. First, Johnson is more than ready to break rules and norms. So far, ministers have not ruled out an independent commissioner who must approve public appointments, but Johnson reiterated when the first choice for one project was rejected and tried to pack at least one selection panel. Johnson also refused to allow the overseers to grant peerages to two close allies.
Second; post-Brexit the pool of candidates for major jobs deliberately narrowed to leave the establishment and Tory friends. This aligns with the third and fourth factors – using appointments to counter perceived liberal dominance of key institutions and curb the power of regulators and unelected officials.
The result was not only a Tory donor as chairman of the BBC, but a fellow Tory elected head of the communications regulator, Ofcom, and the man who ran Johnson’s first leadership campaign to be appointed head of the Office for Students. Gisela Stuart, Labour’s most prominent, is now the first civil service commissioner – her main role is to keep Whitehall’s appointments process going. Some of these candidates are qualified; others not so much.
The previous search for “reliable” candidates fished in a sea of more establishments than “big and good”. Many would argue that this field is too vulnerable to economic or liberal groups, but ministers are less dependent on party members or allies. However, the Tories see two establishments, one Leave and one Remain, and only the former should be mined. Exceptions are made, but only that. The truth is that Brexit has drained the talent pool for important roles.
The former public appointments commissioner, Peter Riddell, has expressed his concerns. “Just as political activity should not be a bar to appointment, it should not be a qualification.” He also regretted how Tory aides trawled social media, blackballing candidates for pro-Remain tweets, regardless of relevance to the post. Downing Street is trying to prevent Mary Beard, the famous classicist, from becoming a trustee of the British Museum because of her opposition to Brexit. Riddell’s successor as regulator, incidentally, is the Brexit-supporting William Shawcross, whose daughter, Eleanor, heads Sunak’s policy unit and had to resign from the new inquiry into Sharp. No suggestion of impropriety here but highlighting the ever-shrinking circle of options.
Johnson may be gone now but others who were part of this process remain. And once the convention is stretched, the elastic rarely returns to its original resting point. Some would argue with the principle of political primacy. But this depends on the power of the minister to the extent that it will not be accepted in the opposition.
The saga marks the further erosion of a system built on the codification of values rather than rules. The irony is that the weakening convention and obstacles in ministerial powers will lead, as before, to strict rules and strong watchdogs.
And there is a glaring gap in all this; parliamentary oversight. Because when the government talks about restoring political sovereignty, it must mean executive excellence. A new report from the Institute of Government recommends new safeguards, including requiring parliamentary sanction to override commissioner appointments and giving veto powers to select committees on sensitive constitutional work. The committee often holds hearings but hardly anyone can block the appointment.
One only has to look at the US to see the risks, but the select committee has generally shown it can do the job. With the erosion of shared values, the only solution is stronger safeguards. Better for that power to reside in parliament than with the executive.
It is true that ministers look beyond London or the traditional elite. But those who preach about the broader institutions of the state have limited their democratically important work to the tightest group.
robert.shrimsley@ft.com