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The uncomfortable truth about ‘freebie-gate’ Political hypocrisy is an inevitability

His dad was a toolmaker. (Credit: Darren Staples/Getty)

His dad was a toolmaker. (Credit: Darren Staples/Getty)


September 25, 2024   4 mins

If politics is showbusiness for the ugly, then party conference season is their Oscars. It was tempting to stand on the side-lines of the carpeted entrance of Liverpool’s convention centre and shout “Who are you wearing?” as successive cabinet ministers swept by.

By the media’s assessment, many this year will have been cloaked in political hypocrisy, the past week having only provided more data for the robust rule of thumb that with the Tories the problem is always sex, and with Labour always money.

It is hard to escape the feeling, though, that “freebie-gate” has so far been sustained by the motley quantity, rather than the quality, of the evidence it relies on. The long-standing generosity of Lord Alli has combined loosely in the public imagination with the outputs of an undignified briefing war within No 10 to create the feeling that Labour ministers aren’t holding themselves to the standards of sober probity they so righteously affirmed in opposition.

While any one accusation could be litigated, perhaps successfully, on its merits, the slow accretion of new stories, in the manner of a pointillist image, creates a hazy, hard to dispel, impression of malaise. Not noticing this, or perhaps not knowing what to do about it, a number of ministers pursued oddly unpromising lines of personalised defence while under pressure in Liverpool’s media zone.

Among the most grimly plausible of the responses, Bridget Phillipson suggested that her 40th birthday party (funded by part of a £14,000 donation) had actually seemed to her to be very much celebrated in a “work context”; then, in an impressively cut-throat piece of buck-passing she blamed her own child for her accepting free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. Not to be outdone on brazen front, Angela Rayner suggested that her declared reliance on Lord Alli’s largesse while visiting New York was in fact evidence of “over transparent” behaviour.

“Hypocrisy is a feature, rather than a bug, of our parliamentary system.”

Whatever schadenfreude this might afford to those watching such contorted responses delivered half-heartedly to camera, it is probably worth recognising how overblown the litany of accusations has become. Perhaps Keir Starmer does have questions to answer about the historical, and possibly undeclared, use he made of Lord Alli’s London address. But the following is much more doubtful: that it is in principle scandalous that the prime minister wears clothes he hasn’t picked and paid for himself, that security requires he use a director’s box at football stadiums, and that his school-aged children escape the pre-election media buzz around their family home while taking exams.

Media has a responsibility to hold political figures to standards of transparency. But it is difficult to see how the current lines of questioning do anything but make Britain seem a parochial backwater whose media class is wilfully out of touch with the exigencies of political office. An American politician of Keir Starmer’s rank, for example, who refused the trappings of stylists and security would not be viewed as an honest broker but, at best, an eccentric.

Outrage over the perks of political power plays into a perennial theme — one especially indulged during conference season — that politicians should be just like ordinary people. Politicians themselves are guiltier than anyone for encouraging belief in this strained fiction: Keir Starmer’s awkward reminiscences about his tool-making father and Rachel Reeves’s foghorn reminders that she went to comprehensive school being just two claims to trenchant normality this government has been trying to condition the public into never forgetting. It’s a depressingly anti-elitist line which creates the expectation that front-line politicians should enjoy no special status or resources, even when representing their country in the eyes of the world.

Though some will find it controversial to say so, it is tempting to think that public practices of accountability lead most people to seriously overestimate the moral significance of hypocritical behaviour in public life. As a matter of ethical theory, the second-order question of whether one has flouted one’s own principles is arguably much less important than the primary question of whether one has transgressed any further principle of importance in doing so.

At the institutional level, however, hypocrisy is a feature, rather than a bug, of our parliamentary system, with the Opposition operating under a standing incentive to hold the Government to a standard of behaviour higher than that it might instinctively apply to itself. Of course, once in office, the gulf between stated aspiration and the necessities of political reality grow starker still. A front-line politician who resolutely refused the option of hypocrisy under such circumstances would have a short career.

As Keir Starmer and his colleagues are currently finding out, accusations of hypocrisy are particularly popular with the media not because they are overwhelmingly important, but because they are so easy to prosecute. All it takes is a saunter down the archives to find an incriminating phrase or action. A simple contradiction is enough. Basically, they’re looking for a contradiction. This is far easier to land than arguing from first principles that a position they occupy, while not strictly inconsistent, is nonetheless mistaken.

Easily lost in all this is the idea that a certain measure of public hypocrisy is likely a constitutive feature of political life in the kind of well-functioning, open democracies one should wish to live in. Somewhat inevitably, these also tend to be countries in which there is inbuilt pressure on leading media figures to whip themselves up into a fervour over moralised criticisms that on reflection they would find hard to take at all seriously. After all, as we all know, if anyone loves a freebie more than a politician, it’s a journalist.


John Maier is an UnHerd columnist and PhD student at the University of Oxford

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Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
2 months ago

Nicely put. We all love having someone to blame! But it distracts from actually finding solutions to the countries problems.

On the other hand, does hypervigilance over relatively small hypocrisies guard against corruptions of the scale that can actually affect national economies?

Mike Carr
Mike Carr
2 months ago

On your second paragraph, my answer would be yes it does provide a guard. Singapore compared to Malaysia is a good lesson.

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
2 months ago

Starmer is a hypocritical pig trougher who failed to encourage interethnic cooperation during his conference speech despite the riots being fuelled by grooming violence, street level sexual harassment and violent murder in their communities.

Instead all he promoted was interethnic competition with his failure to call out the sources of interethnic tensions with his two tier approach.

In his two tier way, he thinks he is a deserving pig trougher when a majority of the demos does not think he is a deserving pig trougher.

His actual hypocrite is on the basis of principles now that it is very apparent he hasn’t got any. Is that what you meant by primary.

An unprincipled man who is currently shielded by the State and one who has control over £1trillion in state money.

Worse still, his hypocrisy is being justified by his self righteous belief in himself due to protecting ethnic minorities all his life so he can’t even see that he is two tier along with all the interethnic competition. That makes him a dangerous man especially in terms of national interethnic unity.

So what’s his label for violent interethnic groomers and violent interethnic murderers and what’s his label for himself?

Matt M
Matt M
2 months ago
Reply to  Steve Gwynne

Hey! Hey! 2TK!* How many bungs did you take today?

*Two-tier Keir

Mike Carr
Mike Carr
2 months ago

It is not only the issue but the response that shows a sign of true character. The current crop of politicians haven’t really done much thinking judging by their responses which doesn’t give me much confidence about their characters.

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago

This author seems almost naively unaware about the reality of anti-corruption legislation in the USA and by extension to other countries like the UK.
Anyone who works for a US-based company here in the UK (quite a large number of people) will be well aware of mandatory anti-corruption training and the very strict limits on what is permissible when being offered gifts and incentives by potential suppliers. And equally the penalties for infringing these rules.
Why should the politicians – who passed these laws – be expected or permitted to operate to a lower standard than the rest of us ?
This is not only about the hypocrisy, disgusting though that is. It’s equally importantly about keeping corruption out of public life.
He also implies that Labour politicians could sue about the relevations coming out. Funnily enough, there’s no sign of that happening. I wonder why ?
Starmer also repeatedly claimed to meet the highest standards of conduct. He’s now being judged against his own claims. And found wanting.

mac mahmood
mac mahmood
2 months ago

Only the gormless hold birthday parties. Those who are worthy have their birthdays celebrated by others.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago

These transgressions are quite small and not really indicative of real corruption. But the media will say it’s a question of character and trust, they themselves being paragons of virtue. Members of the public will take part in cash jobs that benefit both parties, but jump up and down when someone they don’t like does it. That’s the reality of this issue; people just detest politicians and they’ll jump on them for the slightest infraction. They’re fed up with the blatant lies, the waste and destruction they leave in their trail. Unfortunately, once again, it’s water off a duck’s back. To be a politician is to be immune to the people, who in turn are happy to see them savaged by the other dog in the game, the detestable, slimy, dishonest media.

Claire Grey
Claire Grey
2 months ago

This article is simply wrong.

The central argument illustrated thus,

“An American politician of Keir Starmer’s rank, for example, who refused the trappings of stylists and security would not be considered an honest broker . . .”

This is utter nonsense, no one is against Keir Starmer having stylists or security, these are generally accepted as part of the PM’s position, what is unacceptable is receiving expensive gifts and favours from lobbyists like Lord Alli. That is corruption.

Also, why ever would we hold our politicians to the American standard in the first place where lobbyists and corruption are rife ?
This is Britain, we have different standards, maybe the writer would prefer us to be more like America, if so that would be very foolish.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago

But the larger point, apart from Labour hypocrisy, is the potential and actual corruption that lobbying and lobbyists represent, for they are the ones who provide so much of this largesse and boast to their client of their access to politicians in all parties. Cameron said he would outlaw their activities but did nothing, and neither will Starmer, not least because they donate so much money, provide free luxuries, and provide a revolving door in and out of politics.

A Robot
A Robot
2 months ago

Great article! Some wonderful phrases that I intend to pinch. Bridget Phillipson’s buck-passing, blaming her own child for accepting Taylor Swift free tickets, was impressive, but not as good as the SNP’s Michael Matheson, the one-time “cabinet secretary for NHS recovery”. He claimed back £11,000 for data roaming expenses whilst on holiday, claiming it was work-related. It was noticed that he must have been working particularly hard whenever Glasgow Celtic were playing, because that was when most of the £11,000 was blown. It was particularly admirable that he should have been working so hard during those football matches because he is a Celtic fan. Eventually, he was forced to change his story. It was his kids who were watching the football and he did his best to protect them from publicity by pretending to be working (whilst at the same time claiming all the £11,000 back from the taxpayer). Eat your heart out, Bridget Phillipson!

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
2 months ago

Five suits, five shirts, five ties, five pair of socks, five pair of shoes. That is all he needs for the work week. We are talking about Keir Starmer not about Karl Lagerfeld. 160.000 GBP per annum should be enough to satisfy his sartorial needs. What Mrs. Starmer wears is entirely irrelevant.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago

160k?