After Maria Miller, the good news is that MPs can change
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Version 0 of 1. Maria Miller's resignation is a modern parable of political weakness. She was determined to stay as culture secretary. The prime minister was determined to keep her. They both came under attack. David Cameron held the line even more doggedly. Then Miller had to go. Far from looking strong, as he intended, Cameron now looks weak. And there are elections in six weeks' time. The template for Miller's demise is now a very familiar one. It's essentially the same template that fits Cameron's long, drawn-out attempt to keep Liam Fox in 2011. Further back, it closely resembles Gordon Brown's attempts to hang on to Jacqui Smith, and Tony Blair's struggles to keep David Blunkett and Peter Mandelson, the first time around at least. John Major's battle to retain David Mellor back in 1992 also has many of the same characteristics as the Miller case. All of them lost. Quite often, it is true, ministers manage to ride out calls to quit. Between 1976 and 2007, 55 ministers were forced out of office under Conservative and Labour governments alike. In the same period, however, 168 ministers managed to hang on in spite of calls for them to quit. Sometimes they survived very sustained pressure indeed, as Stephen Byers did after the "good day to bury bad news" furore in 2001, though Byers was never the same politician after that. Look down the list of historical ministerial resignations in the political reference books and one thing strikes you about the pattern. Ministerial resignations happen under every government. But it is not until the postwar period that personal scandals, including financial scandals, become the trigger. Now they have become almost the norm. In the first half of the 20th century, ministers by and large resigned over public policy – from Joseph Chamberlain over imperial preference in 1903, to Enoch Powell over economic strategy in 1958. In all those years not a single minister is listed as resigning over a private scandal of any kind, sexual or financial. Today resignation as a result of scandals or indiscretions is closer to the rule. There are, of course, honourable modern exceptions such as Michael Heseltine over Westland, or Robin Cook over Iraq. But most of the recent entries in the reference books have the words "private scandal" alongside them – as Miller's name will now have too. None of this means modern parliamentarians are more scandalous or corrupt than their predecessors. If anything, the reverse is almost certainly the case. William Gladstone, HH Asquith and David Lloyd George are only the better-known leaders whose private lives would have been unsustainable in the social media era. What has changed is that we know much more about their affairs, partly because of greater transparency and accountability, and in part because the media has changed from being respectful, to hostile. This largely explains why there are more ministerial resignations now than in the past. It also explains why calls for resignation are much more common. In the words of the main academic survey of postwar ministerial resignations: "The rise in the number of calls for resignation almost certainly demonstrates the increased scrutiny by the press of governments, and the increasing lack of respect paid to politicians by the mass media." All of which is even more true in the Twittersphere era. In the end, it is not true that Miller has been given such a hard time because she was trying, albeit rather limply, to implement the Leveson report. Having said that, it is worth noting that, along with Mellor, she is the second culture secretary to be forced out in the last 25 years, and that two others, Tessa Jowell and Jeremy Hunt, came close to sharing her fate too. It would be truer to say that Miller went because she was a wounded politician at a time when the public has contempt for politicians, and because the media, to paraphrase a character in King Lear, like to kill politicians for their sport. Always remember that the British press, with or without Leveson, has a collective self-interest in weak government and weak politicians. Miller is another victim of that, though she certainly contributed to her own downfall too. The easy conclusion from Miller's tale is that parliament has to make the expenses system even tighter and even more accountable. It is 20 years since the committee on standards in public life began to get a grip on the Westminster culture. But still MPs, through the standards committee, can put their finger on the scales of justice, as they did so destructively in Miller's case. Cameron made clear today that this will all be revisited. Self-regulation clearly has to end. MPs could also do worse than consider a suggestion made by one of Miller's Basingstoke constituents on the Today programme on Wednesday: that out-of-London MPs are housed in government-owned halls of residence, thus taking housing claims off the board altogether. The much tougher and longer-term issue is how to tackle public mistrust. Unfortunately there is no simple button to reset the dials. Restoring trust in politics is a many-layered and diverse task, involving everything from changing the look and sound of politics, to reforming the electoral and parliamentary systems. It would also benefit from a better media than we have now. Maria Miller was a fool. She mishandled her own case and she paid the price. Nigel Farage's Ukip, with its disgraceful record on EU parliament expenses, may well be the winner. But there is some good news. Unlike other groups despised by the public – such as bankers and journalists – MPs mostly understand the problem. Most are up for change. It just requires leadership. |