UK Politics needs a deep clean

 

The following is an edited extract from an article by John Penrose on the Capx web site

                      UK Politics needs a deep clean

Why Labour’s integrity reforms fall short

For example, the new rules to stop severance payments for Ministers who take plush jobs lobbying parts of government they were leading a few months before are welcome but too weak. They won’t stop anyone whose new job pays more than the severance they’re losing; they ought to cover senior political advisers as well as Ministers; and the equivalent rules for senior Whitehall mandarins aren’t always enforced properly either.

The transparency improvements which have been promised to show who has met Government Ministers and mandarins, and what was discussed, are essential and welcome. But they need to cover political advisers as well, and need to be searchable to ensure there’s no special treatment or access for people who’ve made political donations. And the same goes for the promised new rules controlling who sees secret Government briefings, so they can’t be shared for profit – as the police are investigating in the latest Mandelson case.

Equally, some rules on conflicts of interest look too narrow if they assume political favours are only done for profit. There are plenty of reasons why non-profits like charities, labour unions and religious bodies also want to bend the ears of Ministers, mandarins and advisers. Most will be fine but, inevitably, a few won’t. So assuming they are all pure as the driven snow just because there’s no profit involved is naïve and dangerous.

Political honours fuel charges of cronyism

Political honours should be included in the reforms and pared back sharply. Otherwise, every New Year and King’s Birthday Honours list will continue to attract accusations of cronyism. Such claims undermine what ought to be a joyful celebration of British achievement and public service. Instead of showing that our country is a genuinely fair and meritocratic aristocracy of talent, the current system reinforces the perception that we are a society where a gilded elite rewards its friends.

Last but not least, all these risks aren’t confined to Westminster and Whitehall either. Quangos, devolved governments and local councils are all vulnerable in one way or another, so any integrity reset needs to cover them thoroughly, rather than leaving reforms to an unspecified date that may never come.

If the Government is serious about tackling the integrity crisis in UK politics and restoring public trust, it will need more than symbolic reform. An integrity reset is still possible and, given this Government’s ever-growing list of scandals, it’s probably more important than ever. But this time, it will take an even bigger bucket of disinfectant to get the job done.

Money and Politics Public support for reform!

 38 degrees has published the following on their web site.   It should raise concerns with anyone who believes in democracy.   Time for Action!

38degrees.org.uk 

Money and Politics

The scale of the problem

In recent years, British political parties have become increasingly reliant on a very small number of extremely wealthy donors. These donations are legal, but their size and concentration raise serious questions about influence, access and fairness.

[i] In late 2025, Reform UK received a record £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a multi‑millionaire crypto investor who has lived in Thailand for around 20 years.

[ii] This single donation was larger than the total donations received by the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party combined in 2025. Harborne has now provided almost two‑thirds of all the money Reform UK has ever raised. In total, more than 75% of Reform's funding has come from just three men.

[iii] This pattern is not confined to one party. Big money is rapidly reshaping the base of all political parties. Labour In the year leading up to the 2024 general election, Labour received £13 million from companies — more than it received from all trade unions combined. This was the first time in British history that corporate donations to Labour exceeded funding from the trade union movement. The largest single donation in Labour’s history was made during this period: £4 million from Quadrature Capital, a hedge fund whose parent company is based in the Cayman Islands.

Conservatives In the same pre‑election year, just three donors provided more than half of the Conservatives’ £52 million campaign funds. The largest donor was The Phoenix Partnership, a company that supplies software to the NHS, which gave £15 million in a single year. Across all major parties, election campaigning is increasingly funded by a handful of individuals and corporations with extraordinary financial resources. This is no longer a party-political issue but a systemic feature of how British politics is now funded.

Why this matters

When political parties depend on a small number of very wealthy donors, several risks arise: Disproportionate influence – A few individuals can gain far greater access and influence than ordinary voters.

Policy distortion – Parties may become more responsive to donors’ interests than to public priorities.

Public trust – Large donations undermine confidence that politics is fair and not for sale. At a time when trust in political institutions is fragile, the perception that money buys access is profoundly damaging to Parliament’s legitimacy.

These risks are intensified in an international context where billionaire‑owned tech platforms and cross‑border wealth increasingly shape political debate. Under current law, there is no meaningful upper limit on how much a single individual can give to a political party. This leaves the UK unusually exposed to financial capture. For example, if Elon Musk were to carry through with his promise to donate $100 million to a UK party, this would represent around 0.014% of his personal wealth — the equivalent of £5.60 for someone earning £40,000 a year — but could radically reshape British politics. The growing use of cryptocurrency in political donations introduces an additional risk: funds that are harder to trace, easier to move across borders, and more difficult for regulators and the public to scrutinise.

Public support for reform 

Public concern about big money in politics is strong and consistent. A Survation poll for 38 Degrees found that 57% of adults support a legal cap on political donations, while only 7% oppose it. Nearly one‑third (31%) say they strongly support a cap. 

A separate YouGov poll found that just 13% of people think individuals should be allowed to donate unlimited sums to political parties. Public mobilisation is already under way: So far, 84,267 people have signed a 38 Degrees and Democracy for Sale petition calling for a cap on political donations. 

These figures show a clear public mandate for reform. Action in the Elections Bill to address this issue would respond directly to a widely held public concern and demonstrate that Parliament is serious about tackling the role of big money in politics.

Meeting with Claire Coutinho MP - a great Conservative

 A Selfie with Claire Coutinho MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy at lunch organised by the Taxpayer's Alliance. She was magnificent, a true Conservative.   I am sure she will be a Star of the future!   Thank you to John O'Connell  and Clare Rusbridge for organising the lunch which was splendid.   The Taxpayer's Alliance is a great pressure group.   It does a terrific amount of essential research on all government expenditure and well worthy of support.

Rational Optimism - Can Government expenditure be cut? with Matt Ridley

 Rational Optimism - Mark Littlewood speaks to Matt Ridley:

Can Government Expenditure be cut?

Click on :  Mark Littlewood speaks to Matt Ridley

The Challenges Of Democracy by Jonathan Sumption

 

The following article comprises edited extracts from the book “The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law” by the former Supreme Court Judge:

Jonathan Sumption,

The Challenges Of Democracy

 Democracy is a way of entrusting decision making to people acceptable to the majority, whose power is defined and limited, and whose mandate is revocable.

Democracy can only work in a legal and social culture where there is freedom of thought, speech and association, uncontrolled access to reliable information and a large tolerance of political dissent.

The opposite of democracy is some form of authoritarian government.

It is of course possible for democracies to confer considerable coercive power on the state without losing their democratic character.   It has happened in wartime and it happened during the Covid-19 pandemic.   But there is a point beyond which the systematic application of coercion is no longer consistent with any notion of collective self government.   The fact that it is hard to define where that point lies does not mean that there isn’t one.   A degree of respect for individual autonomy seems to be a necessary feature of anything which deserves to be called a democracy.

The chief enemies of democracy are economic insecurity, intolerance and fear.   Economic insecurity heightens concern about inequality, yet inequality is an inevitable consequence of liberty.   It reflects the diversity, energy, ambition and enthusiasm of disparate human beings in any society in which these qualities are not artificially suppressed.   In particular, it is a natural consequence of innovation, which is a necessary condition of economic growth but inevitably disrupts the existing distribution of wealth.

What is clear is that when growth falters, people become more interested in the distribution of income and wealth.   This can poison democratic politics, whether it is justified or not.   Extremes of inequality can be socially disruptive, promoting resentments that undermine the sense of shared identity that is the foundation of any democracy.

Fear is another enemy of democracy.   People who are frightened will submit to an authoritarian regime that offers them security against some real or imagined threat.   Historically the threat has usually been war, but the real threat to democracies survival is not major disasters like war.   It is comparatively minor perils, that in the nature of things occur more frequently.   We crave protection from many risks that are inherent in life itself: financial loss, economic insecurity, crime, sexual violence and abuse, accidental injury.   Even the Covid-19 Pandemic, serious as it was, was well within the broad range of mortal diseases with which human beings have always had to live.   People call upon the state to save us from these things.

The problem of intolerance or when it reaches a sufficient scale, polarisation, in  many ways is the biggest threat to democracy.   It is not oppression by the state, but the intolerance of our fellow citizens.   John Stuart Mill foresaw that the main threat to democracy’s survival would be the conformity imposed by public opinion.

Demonstrations such as those organised by Extinction rebellion are based on the notion that the campaigners point of view is the only legitimate one.   It is therefore perfectly legitimate to bully people and disrupt their lives until they submit, instead of resorting to ordinary democratic procedures.   This is the mentality of terrorists, but without the violence.   Democracy can only survive if our differences are transcended by our common acceptance of the legitimacy of the decision making process, even when we disagree profoundly with the outcome.   This implicit bargain breaks down if people feel more strongly about the issues than they do about the democratic procedures for settling them.

Direct action assesses the value of democratic institutions by one criteria only, namely the degree to which the activists  programme has prevailed.   The contempt for politics expressed by so many activists is potentially a mortal threat to our democracy.

Aristotle put his finger on the reason why many people reject democracy. They feel alienated from the political class that democracies inevitably generate.   They do not regard politicians as representative of themselves, even if they have voted for them.

Citizens assemblies are currently the favourite proposals for circumventing professional politics, but they are not chosen by the electorate and are not answerable to anyone.   They therefore have no democratic legitimacy.   Citizens assemblies by definition lack the experience that enables professional politicians to assess what they are being told.   They are heavily dependent on the expert advisors who endeavour to analyse the options and their consequences.   The system is too vulnerable to manipulation and facile solutions.

Whatever one thinks of our politicians it is an inescapable truth that we cannot have democracy without politics or politics without politicians!   Democracy is an efficient way of getting rid of unsatisfactory governments without violence.

There are three reasons why people ought to believe in democracy.   It is the best protection we have for liberty.   The creation of a political class may well be the chief merit of democracy.   Democracies are usually more efficient.

Democracy requires a common loyalty to the decision making process, which is strong enough to transcend people’s disagreements about particular issues.  That depends on a common sense of identity and a large measure of solidarity.   This sense of solidarity exists only at the level of the nation state.

The transition  from democracy to dictatorship is generally smooth and unnoticed.   It is easy to sleepwalk into it.  The outward forms and the language of politics are unchanged.   Democracy is not formally abolished but quietly redefined.   It ceases to be a method of government but becomes a set of political values like communism or human rights which are said to represent the peoples true wishes without regard to anything the people may have chosen for themselves.  

The United Kingdom is slowly but surely going down this path towards an authoritarian state.   Will the people wake up in time to stop it?

 

 

Morality and Politics

Do Moral Principles affect our politics and if so what are they?

 

In his book The Righteous Mind the author Jonathan Haidt sets out six moral principles.   They are:

·   Care/harm evolved in response to the challenge of caring for vulnerable children.   It makes us sensitive to signs of suffering and need, it makes us despise cruelty and want to care for those who are suffering.

·    Liberty/oppression shows concerns about political equality and are related to a dislike of oppression and a concern for victims, and no desire for reciprocity.

· Fairness/cheating evolved in response to the challenge of reaping the rewards of cooperation without getting exploited by free riders   It makes us sensitive to indications that another person is likely to be a good (or bad partner) for collaboration and reciprocal altruism.   It makes us want to shun or punish cheaters.   It is primarily about proportionality.   When a few members of a group contribute far more than the others most adults do not want to see the benefits distributed equally.   

L Loyalty/betrayal evolved in response to the challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions.   It makes us sensitive to signs that another person is (or is not) a team player.   It makes us reward the team player and it makes us want to hurt, ostracize those who betray us or our group.

·  Authority/subversion evolved  in response to the challenge of forging relationships that will benefit us within social hierarchies.   It make us sensitive to signs of rank or status and to signs that other people are (or are not) behaving properly, given their position.

·   Sanctity/degradation evolved initially in response to the dilemma, and then the broader challenge of living in a world of parasites.   It makes us wary of a diverse array of symbolic objects and threats.   It makes it possible for people to invest objects with irrational and extreme values- both positive and negative – which are important for binding groups together.

 It appears that people rely upon these principles in different ways or to different degrees.   Socialists rely primarily on the Care and Liberty principles. Whereas those on the right of politics use all six.   If so, does that give Conservative politicians a broader variety of ways to connect with voters?

The political left tend to rest most strongly on the Care/harm and Liberty/oppression principles.   These support ideals of social justice, which emphasize compassion for the poor and a struggle for equality among the groups that comprise society.   Social justice groups emphasize solidarity – they call for people to come together to fight the oppression of bullying domineering elites.

Everyone cares about Care/harm but the political left turn out to be more disturbed by signs of violence and suffering compared to Conservatives.

Everyone care about Liberty/oppression but the left are most concerned about the rights of certain vulnerable groups ( e.g. racial minorities, children, animals) and they look to government to defend the weak against oppression by the strong.   Conservatives, in contrast, hold more traditional ideas of liberty as the right to be left alone and they resent programmes that use government to infringe on their liberties in order to protect the groups that the left most care about.   For example, small business owners support Conservatives because they resent government telling them how to run their businesses under its banner of protecting workers, minorities, consumers and the environment.

The Fairness/cheating principal is about proportionality.   It is about making sure that people get what they deserve.   Everyone cares about proportionality, everyone gets angry when people take more than they deserve, but Conservatives care more. Employees who work the hardest should be paid the most.   The left are ambivalent but Conservatives in contrast endorse this enthusiastically.

Conservatives think it is self evident that responses to crimes should be based on proportionality, as shown in the slogan “Three strikes and you’re out”   Yet the political left are uncomfortable with retribution.   After all retribution causes ham and harm activates the Care/harm principle.

The remaining three moral principles show the biggest and most consistent partisan differences.   The political left are ambivalent about these principles at best, whereas Conservatives embrace them.

The political left embrace the three moral principles of Care/harm, Liberty/oppression and Fairness/cheating but are often willing to trade away fairness when it conflicts with compassion or with their fight against oppression.   Conservatives believe in all six moral principles although they are more willing to sacrifice Care and let some people get hurt in order to achieve their many other moral principles.

Moral psychology can help to explain why the Labour Party has had so much difficulty connecting with voters, whilst Conservatives speak more directly to the voters because they have a better grasp of the theory of moral principles because they trigger every single principle.

One of the great puzzles about democracy at the moment is why rural and working class voters choose to vote Conservative when it is Labour that wants to redistribute money more evenly?   Labour often say that Conservatives have duped  these people into voting against their economic self interest, but from the perspective of Moral Principles, rural and working class voters were in fact voting for their moral interests.   They don’t want to eat at expensive restaurant, they don’t want their nation to devote itself primarily to the care of victims and the pursuit of social justice.

For 130 years the Conservative Party understood these Moral Principles  and targeted the voters accordingly, which is why it dominated UK politics during this period.   Unfortunately it lost sight of them in the last 25 years and has suffered accordingly.   The question is can it recover and get them back?

The Conservatives have one further problem.   They have allowed their membership to decline to an insignificant level.   This is fatal.   People love groups, we develop our virtues in groups, even though these groups necessarily exclude non-members.   If you destroy your group you dissolve all internal structure, you destroy your moral capital.

Real Conservatives understand this point.   The subdivisions add up to the greater whole.   Edmund Burke said it in 1790:

To be attached to the subdivision (e.g. Christian Conservatives, Conservative Friends of Israel etc.)  to love the little platoons we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections.   It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind.

Mark Littlewood of Popcon talks with Jonathan Gullis of Reform

 Mark Littlewood of Popcon talks with Jonathan Gullis.   Click on the heading below:

 Jonathan Gullis talk with Mark Littlewood

So That Was 2025

                                                     So That was 2025

A Tale of Two Cities

by Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, 

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, 

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of Hope, 

it was the winter of despair.