30th January 2023
In a summary, three-step form there seems nothing amiss about the sacking of Nadhim Zahawi from the cabinet: (1) he did some things wrong; (2) the things he did wrong were a breach of the Ministerial Code; and (3) he was sacked by the Prime Minister.
Those three steps are what is supposed to happen in these circumstances – and there are recent examples of one or both of the first two of these steps not actually being followed by the third.
But.
This government could not even get this quite right.
In particular: the things which were done wrong were known to the Prime Minister before the publication of the report from the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests which set out the details of the wrongs and how they breached the Ministerial Code.
That said, there is a certain satisfaction from reading the report, with its methodical approach, accumulation of detail, and particularisations of breach.
(Well, apart from the “The General Principles of the Ministerial Code are very clear” – and longer-term followers will know why.)
The report by Sir Laurie Magnus is a fine piece of work, and one can only wonder what other recent ministerial transgressions would look like in such calm, lethal prose.
But it really should not be the job of an adviser, however independent or distinguished, to work out whether a Prime Minister should sack a minister.
There was nothing substantial in the report which the Prime Minister did not already know, or could have known with a due application of diligence.
This out-sourcing of ministerial discretion – which is reminiscent of the Sue Gray report – is a bad thing for accountability of ministers to parliament.
And when done by a Prime Minister is a very bad thing indeed.
So, a single-and-a-half cheer for this report and the sacking.
But not the three cheers that would have followed the Prime Minister doing his job and doing this all for himself.
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And there are still important questions outstanding for Sunak The Rayner/Dodds letter states them well. https://mobile.twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1619715713077477377
This whole episode is now an illustration of weak, rather than strong, government. Not so much for the outcome, but for the delay in action. But of course much Ministerial judgement is outsourced. Sometimes well, often not. The art is to get Ministers who know the difference.
Why as many as 1.5 cheers? Stating the known facts and the blindingly obvious conclusion is surely worth no more than 0.5, and setting it out concisely no more than than another 0.5.
As for the government: This isn’t maths of course, but the same marking principle ought to apply. Arriving at the right answer by entirely the wrong method or worse, as happened in this case, by a serious of self-cancelling errors, never merits more than 10%.
One and a half cheers is generous. Sunak was negligent in initially supporting Zahawi. The Magnus report was simply an instrument for getting Sunak off the hook on which he had impaled himself.
According to the Daily Telegraph Zahawi didn’t get a fair hearing. Sunak is to blame here for treating this affair as if it were some form of quasi-judicial process, instead of a PM exercising his right to sack a minister. Next thing we know Lord Pannick will be on the scene.
“Express” headline:-
“Boris allies call for major change to picking new Tory chair after Zahawi sacked
“A Tory campaign group wants members to have a say in who the next party chairman is.”
Time was, “party chairman” seemed to outsiders like a post of minor importance or influence, dished out to some long-serving veteran. A bit like “Mr. Mayor” in a town council, not like “Chairman of the Board” in a major company. Still, when you are desperate to assist our most corrupt Prime Minister back into power any straw is to be clutched at.
Sunak is weaker than water. It is extraordinary that he was Head Boy of Winchester: private schools have a long history of the senior boys / prefects having agency to run their Houses and the day to day management of the boys under the light touch supervision of the staff. We all know he is in thrall to the über right wing and himself a Brexiter, but he has exhibited zero leadership skills when swift and decisive action was needed. His reliance on “process” has revealed his underlying weakness and inability to lead. As for accountability etc etc, forget it. He is already a helpless hostage.
If Mr Zahawi was negotiating with senior officials at HMRC to decide the appropriate level of penalty, while he was Treasury Minister, were those officials not placed in a difficult position? It’s not impossible they might have some anxiety about the implications for their future careers. There was perhaps a degree of duress inherent in Mr Zahawi’s conflict of interest.
So, question, did no senior official at HMRC have a duty to draw the conflict of interest to the attention of, say, the head of the civil service? Do we know if that happened?
I think that is an excellent question that I’ve not seen answered by coverage so far.
I did find this interesting specialist coverage on the penalty, what’s careless and deliberate from the tax journal:
https://www.taxjournal.com/articles/a-careless-chancellor
Apparently the HMRC are independent, whether they are sufficiently independent to the person HMRC is ultimately answerable to is another matter.
Firstly the person who has been sacked was very recently a front line contender to be your Prime Minister.
Secondly it remains a mystery to the majority as to what was precisely contained in the “golden bullet” to justify his dismissal in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Thirdly why was it necessary for the SRA to issue guidance to all solicitors after a large firm of solicitors acting for the dismissed minister sent a letter before action to a journalist.
There is nothing whatsoever to cheer about here regardless of the quality of the written report.,
I’m left wondering how many ministers can be sacked for misconduct and incompetence before a government collapses and HAS to go to the country for a fresh mandate?
In this instance, other contenders for being removed would include Raab and Braverman, with Barclay also at risk at some unknown stage in the future.