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'Hain victim of rotten rules'

Published 05 December 2008

The idea Peter Hain's ministerial career should come to an end by fiat of some anonymous public official in a useless quango is a travesty, argues Labour ex-minister Denis MacShane

Peter Hain after his resignation on January 24, 2008 in London

The Peter Hain affair is in its own way as serious as the Damian Green business. Damian Green’s arrest and the invasion of the Commons by the police to seize confidential records from an MP’s office should never have happened.

We are still waiting for a clear statement from David Cameron about Conservative dealings with a civil servant who appears to have broken his duty of trust on the basis of a party political relationship with Tory front-benchers.

But Green has the support of his leader and most MPs, while angry at David Cameron’s refusal to come clean on Tory involvement in penetrating the Home Secretary’s private office, equally believe that Green should never have been arrested.

Compare that to the way Hain was booted out of office on the basis of a decision by that unaccountable, little-known, but lavishly financed outfit, the Electoral Commission.

Hain is no push-over and like any top-rank politician has his faults. But no-one had ever doubted his probity, his integrity, his work-rate and his core decent intelligence. The idea that his ministerial career should come to an end by fiat of some anonymous public official in one of the most useless quangos set up by any government is a travesty of democratic politics.

Worse will follow. Proposals to amend the current law on political financing are likely to make political life more complicated as they will allow the Electoral Commission to go into the homes of anyone who has stood or is standing for local or national elected office as well as any party activists who helps with fund-raising.

The Electoral Commission has destroyed Peter Hain's government career on the basis of allegations against Peter that cannot and never could have stood up in court.

But the powers they are seeking under the new act will further allow this unaccountable organisation with its massive £27 million budget to go into people's homes and take away documents on the basis of unproven allegations.

Peter Hain will not be the last minister who is forced to step down as a result of a flawed Electoral Commission investigation and Damian Green will not be the last MP or candidate who finds his family home raided if allegations are made which the Electoral Commission with its new powers decide to investigate. Peter has had long and distinguished service as one of the most hard-working, diligent, and honest ministers in the Labour government since 1997.

For the Electoral Commission to have the power to destroy Peter's career raises questions about its purpose and functioning. I amuse myself by asking MPs of all parties, local councillors, party workers and political journalists if any can name a single thing the Electoral Commission has done since it was set up. They look at me in blank indifference as the public confidence in democratic politics has gone down in exact ratio to the amount of money the Electoral Commission has been given. Now the Electoral Commission will be known for having ended Peter Hain’s ministerial career. Something the quangorats can be proud of.

In the end the answer as Tory grandee Norman Fowler has argued in a recent book should be democracy paying for democracy and an end to the outside financing of politics. Labour has tried to end the sleaze years of the Tories but the cure is worse than the disease. As we see the scandal of the Lib Dems taking money from a convicted crook, the existence of the Electoral Commission has made no difference.

Just about every other modern democracy has accepted the need for public financing of democratic politics and Britain should now follow suit. The £27 million of taxpayers' money going to the Electoral Commission would be a good place to start.

This view is not popular. The moment Labour came to power in 1997 I argued mainly privately but now and then using the Commons or a newspaper article that politics financed by outsiders would always lead to accusations that would smear all politicians of all parties.

Labour shouts about Ashcroft, and other Tory donors living outside the UK. The Tories' shout of loans for peerages and trade union cheques worth millions. Both the reds and blues shout at the Lib Dems with their holier-than-thou dishonesty about taking money from a man who defrauded innocent people to amass the cash to give to Nick Clegg’s hypocritical little party.

But this mutual abuse is pointless. The public is turned off massively. I cannot persuade Labour colleagues from ministers to MPs that the only reform that will work will be democracy paying for democracy. Until there is change of mind and heart the scandals will continue and there will be more Peter Hains whose career and service to the nation can be abruptly halted by allegations that cannot stand up in court.

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8 comments from readers

Anton Howes
06 December 2008 at 00:00

Dear Mr MacShane,

I am leader of a small, new political party called the

Social Liberalist Party.

Under your proposals, how on earth would we

procure the funding to go into elections and campaign

effectively? Unless we were given state funding as

well, how would this work?

Just because certain parties have already won seats,

why does that give them the right to procure funding

from government in order to keep those seats any

more than new parties who may be more deserving of

such funding?

Surely the point in democracy is to allow newcomers

the chance to appeal to the electorate with all the

input of their own merits. Don't we live in a

meritocracy? Or should we just be defending the

status quo?

...Unless of course you'd apportion these government

funds equally amongst every single party standing for

election. Unlikely I think.

Malcolm Todd
06 December 2008 at 09:07

Denis MacShane is quite right. Political parties belong in practice to the people who pay for them. That should be the party members and voters, no one else.

The idea that this simply entrenches the power of the existing parties is a red herring.

Firstly, funding should be tied to the number of votes received at an election not the number of seats, so even small parties will get a share. (Yes, I realise that means the BNP will get a small amount of state funding. Some principles have unpleasant consequences, but this effect is marginal in comparison with the corruption of our politics by the current system of funding.)

Of course, parties that have just come into being would get nothing, which means that parties can't come from nowhere with a huge donation from a wealthy individual, a la James Goldsmith and the so-called Referendum Party. But parties, including new creations like the 'Social Liberalists' (do check out their website - they're a bit barking and in love with profit, but genuinely interesting and not the neo-Tories they first sound like) would still be able to raise money from their own members and private individuals, subject to a pretty strict limit so that individual wealthy supporters don't count for more than a large number of ordinary people.

Financial support could also be based on support in local elections, so that the situation at the last general election isn't simply frozen for five years, and a provision built in for reallocating some funds when there is a major split in an existing party. The whole amount for each party could also be capped (so that the main two generally get the same amount of support) and bottom-loaded so that small parties' voice is not squeezed out.

It wouldn't be perfect and it would never be uncontentious, but it could be made much better than what we have now.

George Mitrovich
06 December 2008 at 16:05

As an American I was shocked by Dennis MacShane's article. Why would Britain, of all places, allow a government agency to hold such sweeping powers? The power to destroy a man's public career by innuendo. Shameful, that.

Where was the prime minister in all this? What steps are he and his cabinet taking to right this grievous wrong? Surely, by the power of Labour’s decisive numbers in the Commons, they posses the Parliamentary means to forcibly address the issue.

Observing British politics far afar (I’ve been watching Prime Minister Question Time since it debuted here in Mrs. Thatcher’s time) I have never thought Mr. Brown Tony Blair’s equal as a dynamic leader, but he has always impressed me with his decency. But if he and his government fail to act in the Peter Hain matter, then one may whether the prime minister’s “decency” is merely apparitional.

George Mitrovich

San Diego

William
06 December 2008 at 16:47

I did not follow the storyline of the misfortune befalling Peter Hain through the intervention by the Electoral Commission. Though the Quanngo has given the idea that the EU relishes the general populace distancing itself from Politics, therefore giving the ruling elite carte blanche.

MH 06 December 2008 at 20:18

Have a look also at the Standards Board for England and the Model Code - both were introduced by Labour in 2001.

The Model Code has severely undermined local democracy and turned local politicians into the elected arm of the civil service.

The Code is badly drafted and catch-all "offences" of alleged "lack of respect", "bullying" and "intimidation" result in elected members being tied up defending their reputations on accusations of trivialities.

When a High Court judge in the Ken Livingston case rules their behaviour is without legal foundation, with an arrogance that defies comprehension they assert that they will simply change the rules to let them carry on as before.

As a result of the MAodel Code and the Standards Board good people will not put themselves forward for any public office subject to its authority.

As such, Labour's meddling through the Electoral Commission, the Standards Board, and the various Codes its civil servant flunkeys have drawn up have severely undermined the democratic process in Britain.

We need simple rules - bad, rude or ill-considered behaviour is a matter for the electorate to decide on in the privacy of the ballot box; theft, fraud, assault, etc. are the preserve of the criminal law and politicians are subject to that law and the same procedures as everyone else.

That is how it was before Labour started to meddle, and common sense says that is how it should be again.

Roland Baker
07 December 2008 at 08:54

Peter Hain resigned from Cabinet in January 2008 because he was late, due to his own admitted incompetence, in declaring that he tried to raise £103,000 to cover the cost of his campaign for Labour Deputy Leader. Hain was the next to be eliminated after Hazel Blears. She got less than 12% in the first round and he got just over 16% in the second.

John Cruddas got to the fourth round with over 30% of the vote and not a word said against the way he ran his campaign. Like Harriet Harman, Hain ran a dirty and doubtfully funded campaign to keep John Cruddas out and Hain lost.

Would I respect a Cabinet Minister who spent over £100,000 campaigning for office so ineffectually? No I would not. He was in charge of the biggest spending department. His judgement on appropriate spending is in serious question. The DWP spends nothing on helping people get work. It spends all its money devising ever more ingenious ways to make Jobseekers feel humiliated. There is no evidence to any Jobseeker of "core decent intelligence" at the DWP, only the most excruciating incompetence and malice. McShane's sympathy for Hain is misplaced. Getting rid of Hain from office is one decent achievement for the Electoral Commission.

Cleaning up political funding, after the cash for honours investigation, is an important job and the Electoral Commission should be given all the powers it needs to do it. Denis McShane should let it.

Freeman
07 December 2008 at 19:39

Am I being naive when I say I can't see any rreason

why I, as a taxpayer, should support the crew of

charlatans, liars and oddballs in their ambitions to

rule me? It's bad enough that I should have to

support them when they win power. If they want to

run for Parliament let them build parties that can

secure a mass membership to support them.

Mr_ah
10 December 2008 at 12:24

1. There is state funding of political parties. It is called policy development grants. The three big parties get £450,000 each per year. Four other parties get £150,000 plus each year. They squander the money. Denis MacShane knows this.

2. Hain broke the rules. He managed to get out of an investigation through a loop hole in a law invented by the Labour party. The Electoral Commission, as always gets the blame for a shoddy law: The Political Parties and Referendums Act.

3. As far as 'quangos' go, the Commission is the least financed. It has little in terms of money and resources. Mr MacShane needs to get his facts straight.