The “outrageous breach” of public trust as people in and around Downing Street partied while the rest were locked down, is more than a moment of risk or law-breaking.
What lies behind this display of “party politics” is the tension in society between two views of who we are — a society working together in solidarity or a group of individuals.
Those insights into how Britain found itself in this state were shared and challenged by commentators and leaders of faith and civic society in a Religion Media Centre briefing this week.
Journalist and commentator Catherine Pepinster suggested it illustrated the two camps in British society: one saying we are all in this together, solidarity, collective responsibility, abiding by the rules; and the other saying we should have much more freedom as individuals.
Tina Beattie, professor emeritus at Roehampton University, said this underlying philosophical question was really important: “We’re in the grip of populism, individualism and emotivism, fuelled by a corporate tabloid press, which does inestimable harm to the public good. And what we lack is this common set of values.”
She was outraged by the goings-on in No 10: “I think this has impacted very directly in a most hurtful way upon the lives of nearly everybody.
“To find that at the very heart of government, where these rules were being issued, there was such flagrant violation of the rules. I think it struck us all in a more intimate and personal way than some of the, in my view, more outrageous breaches of public responsibility and duty that there have been.”
For Nick Spencer, senior fellow at the think tank Theos, the events at No 10 were a specific act of hypocrisy: “It’s less to do with the truthfulness, and more to do with an unwillingness to adopt the same practices, the same very difficult burdens that have been placed on people — and seemingly in indifference to that burden on people.”
He explained that the Greek root of the word hypocrisy is ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), basically meaning performer. Politics has always been about performance, but it was clear that voters needed more: “We want more than performers to lead us. Performance has its place, but without integrity and honesty and honour and probity and all those kinds of things, it becomes a very shallow show.”
For Daniel Singleton, national director of Faith Action, a charity that receives government money for faith and community-based social action projects, admitted “a little bit of cynicism” and said the stories of parties was not a real surprise. Generally, people had bent the rules because they did not seem to be of value.
He said the media frenzy felt like an anti-Johnson campaign, as fractious as Brexit and a reflection of our fractured society. There was far too much attention drawn to these things. “Heads might have to roll” to move on — but not that of the prime minister, he said.
The attention to the parties had distracted from other important issues to be addressed and he appealed to people to move on from this one story, to look over the horizon to the kind of society that should be created post pandemic.
This was like a post-war setting: “Are we going to have a Britain fit for the heroes of the pandemic?” He said there were two very good ideas from the Conservative Party: the Big Society and Levelling Up. But he suspected “there is not enough within the party with a real sense of belief to make that happen”.
The Rev Dr David Muir from Roehampton University agreed there were bigger challenges in society but this was a total scandal.
“I think we’re at a crossroads now, where we’ve got to take accountability in public life a lot more seriously. I guess I’m a bit surprised that more people aren’t angry, aren’t outraged.
“I think it actually says to us and especially to young people, that if you break the rules enough, if you are powerful enough, then you can basically get away with the consequences of rule-breaking.”
Dr Muir had worked with Boris Johnson while he was Mayor of London, where he was appointed as deputy chair to the Metropolitan Police Authority. “I suspect [Boris Johnson] might be able to talk himself out of this one again,” he said. “But I’m hoping that there’ll be enough MPs in the Conservative ranks who will say, ‘Boris, actually, enough is enough’.”
The questioning of values in British society that the Downing Street parties had raised was fuelled by stories that emerged in the same week, that Nus Ghani, a Muslim Conservative MP, had been stripped of her job as transport minister because her “Muslimness was a problem”.
Imam Qari Asim, the government’s adviser on Islamophobia, said this was also an issue of integrity. There had been a lack of political willingness to act on a commitment to define Islamophobia, a task he had been commissioned to achieve three years ago.
“We are in the grip of populism, individualism and emotivism, fuelled by a corporate tabloid press, which does inestimable harm to the public good. And what we lack is this common set of values”
– Professor Tina Beattie
Dr Muir said he was outraged by what had been said to Nus Ghani — it was shocking. He said there was a dissonance between the government proudly showing the front bench was diverse, while anti-Muslim views were found behind the scenes.
Imam Qari Asim said what mattered now was action. Honesty was a trait valued more than any other in political leaders, according to a recent survey. So he hoped the government would take action after the Nus Ghani story, to reflect their public view that there should be zero tolerance of Islamophobia or any form of hatred.
Dr Stephen Jones, from Birmingham University, researches ideas and has identified a particular form of Islamophobia based on mistaken beliefs about Islam, which is prevalent at middle and upper-class dinner tables. They are more likely to believe that Islam teaches its followers that the Quran must be read literally, fuelling prejudice.
He told the briefing that there were elements of class in all such ideas, and in the case of behaviour in Downing Street, it was interesting to understand why one group thought one set of rules didn’t apply to them as opposed to others.
The legacy of this searing episode in public life could be disastrous. Nick Spencer from Theos said there was a “quite remarkable sense of solidarity” during the lockdowns. And the reason this story matters so much is that future attempts to establish similar levels of sacrificial solidarity have been drastically undermined.
“Who in their right mind is going to say, ‘Yes, absolutely. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make those sacrifices again, when they know that those who have led us and have made the rules are flagrantly ignoring them’.”
Ben Rich, chief executive of Radix, the “radical centre” think tank, could see some good emerging. “I think the good news about the experience the last two or three months, is that there are still consequences for British politicians, if you behave in a way that betrays the trust of voters. Boris’s polling figures have dropped off a cliff,” he said.
