‘T here is such a thing as society — but it’s
not the same as the state’ is the best of the David Cameron soundbites. The row about the funding of political parties offered the Tories an opportunity to put this belief into practice, but they have passed it up. Political parties exist on the principle of voluntarism. They are not organs of the state, but vehicles for citizens to band together to advance their beliefs and interests. Their ability to raise money is a rough index of their success in winning public support, and the methods they choose are a good test of their fitness for government. Generally, it proves hard to raise money. Faced with that problem, any normal charity or church or campaigning group would ask itself how to win greater loyalty from its supporters, how to persuade potential donors of the importance of their cause. Political parties react differently. Believing that their time is much more important than that of their donors, they curse the rich people to whom they suck up, and can’t be bothered to go out and win over the poorer masses. Modern politicians are always pointing out that people today do join organisations interested in public affairs Friends of the Earth, the Countryside Alliance etc. — but not political parties. The funding row is part of the reason why: it is so blatant that parties are self-serving, not serving others. So the solution that naturally enters the parties’ minds is state funding: we have to pay and their lives are easy. In this latest row, the main parties have emerged as morally the same. By choosing pure voluntarism, the Conservatives could have marked out, for the first time, a real difference.
Strange how, in scandals such as these, the bit that is truly scandalous so quickly gets forgotten. Labour were not wrong to try to get contributions from rich people. In fact, they were positively right to do so, because this moved the party away from dependence on the trade union movement. They weren’t automatically wrong to accept anonymous donations or loans, though anonymity tends to raise doubts. They weren’t necessarily wrong to give peerages to donors, since donation to political parties should be seen as public-spirited. They were wrong if they sold honours, and it looks as though they did, but this is not proved. No, the only absolutely clear wrong is the stinking hypocrisy. It was under pressure from Labour that John Major introduced the disastrous Nolan process which was supposed to clean up public life. Ever since, MPs and parties have become like schoolboys, trying to get round rules they have allowed to be imposed upon them, instead of consulting the sense of honour which is the only way an elected law-making assembly can truly regulate itself. It was Blair who insisted on transparency about donations and Blair (and yes, it does seem accurate to speak of him personally here, rather than just his government in general) who approved a system of loans designed to get round the rule he had himself invented. Now he wants a law to ban anonymous loans, thus criminalising his own device because it has been exposed.
Last week I asked if the Blairs could afford their mortgage — £3,467,000 on Connaught Square and £472,500 on their flats in Bristol. Subsequent conversation with a mortgage expert deepens the doubt. Even at 6 per cent (a very good rate) the interest alone would be little short of £240,000 per annum. Mr Blair’s salary is £183,932. It is sometimes reported that Mrs Blair earns £250,000 p.a. from her legal work, but I find this hard to believe since she is not working full-time. Her paid lectures on ‘human rights and religious diversity’ etc. add less than £100,000. Let us say that the Blairs’ total earnings are £500,000 p.a., including rent on their properties. After tax, that is approximately £300,000. It is therefore impossible for them to pay their mortgage bills. Is part or all of the interest being ‘rolled up’ into the capital sum? If so, this must have been agreed on the basis of potential future earnings. Does that mean that Mr Blair has already, contrary to the rules, reached understandings about his memoirs, or in some other way sold his services in advance? Or has he got a friendly loan from someone who seeks ermine? Twenty years ago this month The Spectator published an article called ‘The New Young Rich’ by Nicholas Coleridge. I was editor at the time, and I never remember a piece of ours which was so widely syndicated. Coleridge identified everything about the people — not then known as yuppies — who had done so well out of the Big Bang in the City. BMWs, ‘company plastic’, Business Expansion Schemes, annual earnings of a thenphenomenal £125,000, expensive claret drunk too fast and young: it was all there. Where are they now? I asked Nicholas this week. ‘Hedge funds,’ he says. For some reason, they all want to work in St James’s, not the City, and there are said to be queues for offices there. ‘They’re ruining the area,’ says Nicholas, ‘but because they’re so busy doing screeny things, at least they don’t have lunch very much.’ Compared with their predecessors, they are more likely to work for small organisations which they themselves have set up, not to wear suits, and to work even harder (Coleridge, in 1986, remarked with amazement that some worked from 7.30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; today those are short hours). Now, as then, very few are women. The main point is that they are much, much richer. People quite often pay themselves more than £10 million in a year. Nicholas and I agreed that the most annoying aspect of all this was that the hedge fund people have managed to present what they do as interesting, which goes deeply against City tradition. Our only comfort is that we think they secretly know it isn’t.
Partly thanks to the explosion which Coleridge identified, another anniversary occurs this week. Ten years ago a coupon in the Daily Telegraph gave notice of a charity which dealt with the problem that many people have shares lying around worth too little to want to sell once the commission is paid. It was the brilliant idea of Claire Mackintosh to invent ShareGift, of which I am a trustee. We take the shares, sell them, and distribute the money to charity. We have given to more than 1,000 charities now, and we take in £2.5 million per year; we might just make £10 million in ten years. Claire Mackintosh should have an honour (if any is still awarded free).
The lateness of spring has given an unpleasantly extended opportunity for looking at bare roadside hedgerows and seeing how appallingly they are cut by the council’s mechanical hedge-trimmers. The machines rip rather than cut, leaving an impression of torn fingernails across the landscape.
Previous page
