Category: Coronavirus – COVID-19

That Downing Street Christmas Party – the Law, the Policy, and the Politics

8th December 2021

The Downing Street Christmas party story is a good example of an incident that can be looked at in a legal, a policy and a political way.

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The Law

From a legal perspective, it may well be that the infamous party last year at 10 Downing Street was not a breach of the law – at least for the organisers.

The experienced criminal barrister and legal commentator Matthew Scott has provided a detailed legal analysis of the situation over at his blog.

For the reasons he gives it looks as if organising the party may not have been a criminal offence – as long as it took place in the non-residential part of the building.

Less clear – oddly – is the position of the party-goers, and the only person who has read and considered every single coronavirus regulation – the barrister Adam Wagner – avers that those who attended the party may still face the possibility of liability.

Yes, this is rather counter-intuitive – but the law here was and is a mess.

And when the law is a mess, such counter-intuitive situations will happen.

But as Wagner says elsewhere, there is legal unfairness as well as inconsistency:

So, although the metropolitan police are (rightly) considering whether to investigate the Downing Street party as a breach of the law, it looks as if any prosecutions or fines may be unlikely – unless there are admissions.

This is more by luck than judgement, as one suspects nobody in Downing Street knew or cared about the legal position at the time.

They would have partied anyway, as they see legal rules as being for other people.

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Policy

Now we turn to the non-legal rules that applied at the time.

For even if organising the party was not (technically) illegal, it still may have been in breach of the guidance at the time.

And what was the policy at the time?

Helpfully, here is an official government tweet from the very day before the party, replying to a query:

That tweet in turn links to the guidance of the time.

That guidance expressly provided:

So, even if (unwittingly) the organisation of the party was not a breach of the criminal law at the time, there is no wiggle-room about it being a breach of the applicable guidance.

In essence: even if not a breach of the law, it was a breach of the rules.

But again, one suspects nobody in Downing Street knew or cared about the policy position at the time.

They would have partied anyway, as they see non-legal rules as also being for other people.

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Politics

When there is a leak, other than when the disclosure is contemporaneous, its timing and content will usually tell you more about the enemies of the subject of the leak than anything else.

Leaks are often a matter of timing – and of perceived vulnerability.

And so somebody somewhere decided this was the right time to disclose to the news the video of the mock press conference.

The fuller video here should also be watched.

Given internal security at Downing Street, the disclosure of such material indicates that the prime minister has some well-placed and well-connected political enemies.

As to the content of the video, there is nothing wrong with such questions and answers being rehearsed – and there is nothing wrong with it being done with an appropriate sense of humour and with candour about not knowing the answers.

That is how such rehearsals are usually done.

What is telling and discomforting is the general levity not of the spokesperson trying to work out a line-to-take – but the levity of all the other political operatives involved.

It was a huge joke.

There was a realisation that laws and rules had been broken, but they were just to laugh about.

Bantz.

As it happens the mock session was not a rehearsal for an imminent press conference, but (presumably) one of a sequence of sessions in preparation for the the televised press conferences that were then envisaged as commencing the next month.

And so we have a press conference room, at huge expense, which was never to be used:

(And only yesterday this blog was bemoaning the proliferating use of United Kingdom flags for political broadcast purposes.)

There are two obvious broad political consequences of this situation.

First, the currency of official denials is now not so much devalued, but worthless:

And second, there will now be no perceived legitimacy whatsoever in the government direction and guidance on public health generally and coronavirus in particular.

Politics – in a democracy – is about words, authority, and power.

And this government could not have done more to compromise its political position.

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Law, Policy and Politics combined

All this has happened at perhaps the worst moment – for the government and for the rest of us.

A new variant coronavirus may require the government to use law, policy and political leadership as means to address the new public health problem.

But the government – by this and other unforced errors – has undermined its ability to do this.

The Downing Street Christmas party story may be a good example of an incident that can be looked at in a legal, a policy and a political way.

But it also can be seen as a good example of everything the government should have avoided.

And the ultimate problem – that of a complete failure of political leadership – cannot be blamed on others:

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“Hello Nemesis? You say Hubris invited you? Go straight in and get some wine and cheese.”

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The lack of care about the Downing Street rule-breaking is more concerning than the rule-breaking itself

5th December 2021

Yesterday this blog covered a government supporting politician saying openly that the police should not trouble themselves with the now infamous Downing Street party of last Christmas.

Today the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary said – incorrectly – that the police do not normally investigate offences more than a year old.

There is something up here.

Yesterday this blog averred that it is not a good thing for politicians to routinely be reporting each other to the police, and also that the penalties for parties a year ago were disproportionate.

So, on those bases, this blog is not cheering and clapping the prospect of the police and the criminal process getting involved in a matter of political controversy.

But.

Even taking any reservations at their highest, there is also something worrying about how ministers, their advisers and their political supporters are so nonchalant about having broken the rules themselves.

And for the nonchalance of the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary to extend to incorrectly stating the position of the police incorrectly, then that makes the situation very worrying indeed.

His language was also especially evasive:

‘Unsubstantiated.’

The word a lawyer often uses when they cannot deny the alleged fact, but are instead pinning everything on a lack of proof.

It is invariably telling when the word is used instead of the more simple ‘untrue’.

Perhaps the government will brazen this out.

Perhaps it will be a mini-scandal soon forgotten in our exhausting, hectic news-filled times.

But it is worth pausing a moment to consider what is actually happening here.

There are credible, non-denied reports of a substantial breach of the criminal law in Downing Street.

That would be bad enough – though sometimes mistakes and misjudgments do happen.

But it is the cavalier attitude of the government and its supporters to these reports that is more concerning.

One rule for us – and no rules for them.

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A United Kingdom politician openly says that Downing Street should be above the law

4th December 2021

Here is a tweet to consider carefully, from a British Member of Parliament:

Let’s separate out the issues here.

First, there is something to be said against politicians reporting each other to the police and seeking prosecutions.

Getting the police involved should not be a a routine part of political activity and party campaigning.

It is, to an extent, distasteful as a partisan tactic.

But second, if there are laws then they do have to be enforced equally.

It may well be that the penalty against parties last Christmas was disproportionate and illiberal.

But it was a penalty that many outside Number Ten incurred.

And so either those penalties for others should all be revoked or the party-goers of Downing Street should be treated the same way.

One does get the sense that those in the government machine regard the laws and rules they impose on the rest of us to be only for the rest of us to comply with.

Third, the Member of Parliament is openly saying that Number Ten  should be exempt from police investigation and excused from the deployment of scarce police resources.

That is an extraordinary proposition, if you think about it.

But one suspects the Member of Parliament has not really thought about it – though that, in turn, makes it worrying as a casual aside.

On any view, such a public statement by a Member of Parliament tells us some unfortunate things about the state of our polity as 2021 comes to an end.

Brace brace.

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How a new formal lockdown will be a test of legal legitimacy

29th November 2021

As I type this post in a public place, only about three-quarters of those around me are also wearing masks.

In general, I am one of the many who do not like wearing masks but do so anyway for the sake of others.

But against that many there are the few who do not wear masks, of whom a small proportion are, of course, exempt.

That means there is a substantial number of people who do not wear masks and do not want to do so.

If and when a dangerous new variant of coronavirus comes along, the law will revert to making it mandatory to wear masks in many public places.

It will cease to be matter for personal choice.

It will instead become a matter (again) for the criminal law and state coercion.

But will it make any difference?

Or have sufficient numbers of people become resistant to masks so as to make any new criminal law unenforceable?

And, if so, where does that leave the rule of law and the legitimacy of public health regulations?

What will be the approach to enforcement by the police, if any?

The strange – perhaps ironic – thing about all this is that not so long ago those who protested against the state wore masks in defiance, inspired in part by V for Vendetta.

And now the defiant act against the state is to take masks off.

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Covid and the accountability gap

24th November 2021

This is just a brief post to set out some general thoughts on Covid and the  accountability of government.

During this pandemic, the government has done and not done various things, and at some point the government should give an account of what it did and did not do (and is doing and not doing).

Because of the sense of emergency, and because information has often been incomplete, it has been difficult to hold the government to account on a real time basis.

The government has put off any formal inquiry until (at least) next year.

And the other means of holding the government to account – the courts, the parliamentary ombudsman, coroners’ inquests, parliamentary committees – all have their limitations and remits.

No doubt there are some politicians in (or previously in) government who want to push any inquiry as far as possible.

They will want to get to the head-shaking, sad-faced lessons learned and benefit of hindsight stage with little or no affect on their political careers.

But as it stands, we are nearly two years into perhaps the single biggest ever peacetime exercise of public policy, and there has been almost no real time public accountability for the various government decisions and actions (and indecisions and inactions).

And so this episode shows the sheer accountability gap in the constitution of the United Kingdom.

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Laws are to be suspended and the army is to be called in – and why we should be concerned when activating the law of civil contingencies becomes a civil necessity

27th September 2021

Once upon a time it would be sensational news that the army was to be called in and that laws were to be suspended.

It would indicate, perhaps, something about either a failed state or an unforeseen emergency, or both.

As it is, the news seems almost commonplace – and that it would be more exceptional nowadays for the news to be less sensational.

The laws that are to be suspended are competition laws – which (we are told) would otherwise prevent petrol companies from coordinating with each other.

I am not an energy law specialist – though I know a little about competition law – and it would be interesting to know exactly how current competition laws would prevent coordination in the current situation.

This law-suspension exercise has the grand name of ‘activating the Downstream Oil Protocol’.

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‘Dispatch War Rocket Ajax.’

Flash Gordon screenplay, 1980

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And the official statement is here, and it includes this:

‘Known as The Downstream Oil Protocol, this step will allow Government to work constructively with fuel producers, suppliers, hauliers and retailers to ensure that disruption is minimised as far as possible.

‘The measure will make it easier for industry to share information, so that they can more easily prioritise the delivery of fuel to the parts of the country and strategic locations that are most in need.’

As competition law in this respect is about preventing what would otherwise be cartel behaviour, then it would appear that the fuel industry want to (or need to) do something between themselves that would otherwise carry potential legal risk as cartel behaviour.

Perhaps more will be come clear on this as the protocol is activated, though it seems such relaxations of competition law have been done before in other recent emergencies:

If this is what is being done, we should note that the relaxations – or suspensions -of law do not have any real parliamentary oversight or control.

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And now the army.

(Source)

But as this news report explains:

“It is understood that it would take up to three weeks to fully implement, because some of those mobilised may already be on other deployments and others could be reservists.’

And so, by the time the army arrives, it may be too late – and it certainly is not something that is intended to happen in the next few days.

This manoeuvre is known, it seems as activating ‘Operation Escalin’.

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‘Dispatch War Rocket Ajax.’

Flash Gordon screenplay, 1980

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Just as constitutional law should be dull and it is not a good sign when constitutional law is exciting, the same can be said for the law of civil contingencies.

It is not normal for laws to be suspended and for the army to be used for civil matters – and it should never become normal.

But.

The various problems facing the United Kingdom mean that what are civil contingencies are becoming civil necessities.

Brace brace.

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The thin threads of power – politics and policy in an age of impotence

17th August 2021

When I was at school in the 1980s, the well-meaning progressive teachers showed us the film Threads.

The purpose, no doubt, was to make us pupils think critically about the cold war and the (then) nuclear arms race.

The primary impact it had on me was, however, different – and this was because of how the film portrayed the telephones in the bunker.

The film gave me a life-long fascination about the nature of practical political authority and control.

Here on YouTube some helpful person has put together the bunker scenes from the film:

If you watch these scenes with special regard to the telephones, you will see the telephones going from an active means of communication, to an inactive means, to being discarded, and then to finally damaged beyond repair.

And this matches the collapsing political authority of those in the bunker.

To begin with there are other people at the end of the telephone, and then there is nobody, and then ultimately nobody cares – or knows.

The political authority of those in the bunker, like the communications, is cut off.

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The lesson I learned from this as a pupil was it was not enough to have people who want to be in control and to believe themselves to be in control – there also had to be infrastructure, and for there to be people to accept that control.

Without such infrastructure and deference, those ‘in control’ are akin to the motorist wriggling a gear stick or pressing the brakes when both have been disconnected.

Those ‘in control’ may as well be playing with some grand political simulator.

And so I became interested in processes and transmissions and logistics and policies and rules and laws, and less interested in personalities and partisanship.

To answer the question: just what happens when the telephone rings out but it is not answered?

I suspect that this not the intention of the film makers, or the teachers.

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I mention this because of the impotence many in the West now feel about the fall of Kabul.

There is a general sense that something should have been done.

Here is our current foreign secretary:

The phrase “no one saw this coming” could be the motto of the United Kingdom government since at least 2016.

And here is Susie Dent, the subtle genius who no doubt will be regarded by future historians as the best political commentator of our age:

All true: but even if we had the foresight, what could have been done?

Of course: the execution of the final departures could have been better.

But beyond the arrangements for the final exit, it is difficult to see what further control the West could have had.

And part of the problem for the United Kingdom is that not only do we have no control, we also have no meaningful policy for what we could do.

Here, there are some hard truths on the lack of any meaningful United Kingdom policy in this RUSI post:

‘This week’s ignominy may be set instead against some of the blithe statements made just six months ago in the Integrated Review: that the UK will be ‘a problem-solving and burden-sharing nation’; that it already demonstrates a ‘willingness to confront serious challenges and the ability to turn the dial on international issues of consequence’; that the UK will embody ‘a sharper and more dynamic focus in order to adapt to a more competitive and fluid international environment’; and that it will ‘shape the international order of the future’.

‘The UK’s Afghanistan experience demonstrates none of this.

‘Instead, it speaks to a generation of political leaders who have too easily fooled themselves that being Washington’s most reliable military ally constitutes in itself an effective national strategy.

‘Such a relationship may be one element of an effective strategy, but it cannot simply be the strategy.’

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Yesterday this blog looked back to a 2017 Financial Times post where I put the old calls for ‘regime change’ together with other simple notions from the first part of this century, as part of a general politics of easy answers:

Since 2017, with the ongoing experience of Brexit but also with Covid and many other things, we still see the politics of easy answers.

The sense that all that needs to be done when something must be done is for politicians to want it to be done.

The hard and complicated work of policy and (meaningful) strategy is often not even an afterthought.

We have politicians in their modern-day bunkers, thinking that having telephones to hand will be enough for their will to be done.

But political power hangs on, well, threads.

And those threads snap easily, if they exist at all.

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The myth that the prime minister and this government is ‘libertarian’

6th July 2021

The myth of the libertarianism of Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, endures.

But it is a myth.

By ‘myth’ I mean that it is a thing that has narrative force, and which some people believe to be true, but it is a thing that is ultimately false.

Johnson is, of course, a political libertine, in that he believes rules – and indeed laws – are for other people.

His government attacks the independent judiciary, the impartial civil service and diplomatic corps and the public service broadcaster, as well as disregarding the speaker of the house of commons, the electoral commission, the ministerial adviser on the civil service code, the panel on appointments to the house of lords, and so on.

And so on.

If his government can get away with weakening or eliminating a check or balance, it shall do so.

It will not be told by anyone what to do.

The politics of Kevin the Teenager.

And this defiance is no doubt the basis of the decision of the government to relax the lockdown, despite various warnings.

Members of the government, and their political supporters, are fed up with being told what to do – especially as the impositions are for the benefit of others.

But.

Is this restless defiance ‘libertarianism’?

Is there a coherent vision of limiting the power of the state vis-a-vis the individual?

This is a government which is seeking to disenfranchise people:

(And here it is nice to have a return of classic David Davis, as opposed to the Brexit variant.)

The government is seeking to ban people:

And this is from just two political Davids alone.

There is also, of course, the similar myth of the prime minister’s liberalism – that he, like Donald Trump, is really at heart just a metropolitan liberal.

Yet many in his cabinet – Priti Patel, Oliver Dowden, Robert Jenrick, Elizabeth Truss – merrily play with the fires of culture wars and the politics of social division and confrontation, rather than promoting the politics of inclusion and solidarity.

The prime minister does not mind or care.

By any serious definition of libertarianism and liberalism this government is neither libertarian nor liberal.

There is no general approach to limiting those with state power to the benefit of those who are affected by state power.

Instead we have a government with occasional twitches and jolts against state power while over time accumulating as much power as possible for the executive and dismantling or dismissing any entity capable of saying ‘no’.

The general approach of this government is authoritarian – though this authoritarianism can be set aside when the power of the state would be for the benefit of others.

There are many words for the general approach of the prime minister and his government, but ‘libertarian’ is not one of them.

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How to treat the parliamentary evidence today from Dominic Cummings

26th May 2021

Dominic Cummings, the former assistant to the prime minister excites strong opinions – and it is difficult to escape those strong opinions when you write or think about him.

But the attempt should be made – as what he had to say at today’s remarkable parliamentary committee hearing may or may not be important.

The approach I would recommend is as follows:-

First – avoid confirmation bias – especially when it is from an unexpected source.

Many of the things he said confirm the prejudices of those critical of the current government generally and the prime minister in particular – and there was glee to hear him, of all people, say these things.

You should be especially wary of things which affirm what you think must be true.

Second – be aware of the selective nature of the evidence.

For example – some ministers were damned, but other ministers – such as the chancellor responsible for ‘eat out to help out’ and uncertainty over furlough payments – were not criticised

Nor was the cabinet office minister blamed for any difficulty in his department.

If this was a general critique of ministerial competence then it was lopsided – and almost vindictive.

Third – be aware also of motivation.

The former assistant to the prime minister wants, of course, to be vindicated – not least because of the Barnard Castle tarnish.

He has an understandable desire to have been right all along – and his failures only being that he did not do more sooner.

And fourth – there is the issue of honesty.

The former assistant to the prime minister once admitted that the £350million-a-week promise for the NHS was a convenient lie.

He was also one of those ministers and advisers who could not and did not sign the statement of truth (under pain of perjury) about the true reason for the prorogation – and it was the lack of such a witness statement that meant the government lost the case in the supreme court.

Indeed, the fact that if he said something untrue today may have been a contempt of parliament holds no fear for him – as he already has been held in contempt of parliament and with no consequences.

It was a win-win situation today from his perspective – he could take the benefit of absolute parliamentary privilege to make serious allegations, but with none of the sanctions for that benefit being misused.

Nonetheless, a lot of what he said ‘rang true’ – and it may be that there will be evidence that substantiates his many general and detailed claims of wrongdoing by others – some of which are highly serious.

And nothing he said should be dismissed out-of-hand just because he was the one who said it.

Everything he said may be true.

But everything he said, for the four reasons above, needs to be corroborated.

Today was great political theatre – but more is needed before any reliance can be placed upon this great political performance.

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Why public inquiries are often an admission that the other elements of the State have failed

2nd May 2021

It is a familiar routine.

Something horrible has happened and somebody is to blame, and so the demand is made that there is a public inquiry.

There is nothing wrong with this demand.

Indeed, this blog yesterday averred that the the inquiry into the Post Office scandal should be placed on a formal basis, with powers to compel evidence.

Similarly, all sensible people want an inquiry started as soon as possible into the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

There are also many other subjects that would benefit from the focus and dedication of a public inquiry.

But.

Many public inquiries, and most demands for public inquiries, are also implicit admissions of failure.

The admission of failure is that the other elements of the state – primarily the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary – have failed in their roles.

That there has been insufficient control and transparency within the government, and/or that there has been insufficient scrutiny by or accountability to parliament, and/or a sense of general injustice lingering after attempts to litigate specific matters in the courts.

Of course, there are certain discrete issues where inquiries are appropriate and do work which could not have been done otherwise – for example, the Cullen inquiries.

But if the other elements of the state had performed their proper constitutional functions, key issues of transparency and accountability – that are the stuff of many inquiries, and of most demands for them – could be addressed more directly and immediately by elected politicians.

This, I know, is wishful thinking and no doubt the counsel of constitutional perfection – yet each demand for an inquiry is, like the ringing of a bell, often an indication of wider state failure.

Politicians are comforted and protected by this habit of thought – as they can say and nod solemnly that there should be (or may be) an inquiry whenever something goes wrong.

Lessons will be given and then learned by having an inquiry – but we will never learn the lesson that perhaps we should be catching problems at an earlier stage of the political process.

How can we shift exercises in transparency and accountability back to earlier in the political process?

To be dealt with parliamentarians, holding the executive to proper account?

There is no easy and obvious answer.

Perhaps we should have an inquiry…

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