The Economist 14Dec2019

20 Britain The EconomistDecember 14th 2019

2 deputy leader of the Lib Dems, took a job

with a prfirm that worked for edfEnergy.

As minister he had negotiated an £18bn

($24bn) deal with the French nuclear firm.

There has been no suggestion of wrong-

doing, but the appointment raised eye-

brows. Sir Ed says he did not work on the

edfaccount while at the prfirm.

The job portfolio of George Osborne also

draws flak. Since 2017 the former chancel-

lor, who edits the Evening Standard, has had

a one-day-a-week role at the BlackRock In-

vestment Institute, a unit of the world’s

biggest asset manager, for a salary of

£650,000 (in 2017). Mr Osborne and his

then chief of staff, Rupert Harrison (who

also works for BlackRock), brought in pen-

sions deregulation in 2014 that benefited

the firm. Critics doubt if Mr Osborne

helped it with an eye to a future job. But Sir

Bernard Jenkin, a Tory mpwho chairs pa-

cac, informally warned him that acoba’s

approval would not protect his reputation.

Mr Osborne argued the new job was noth-

ing different from what previous Treasury

ministers had done, Sir Bernard says.

Oft-used revolving doors between cer-

tain departments and business are particu-

larly worrisome. Officials from hmrc, the

tax agency, often go to the tax-advisory

arms of Big Four accounting firms. There

are two types of appointment, says a re-

tired Big Four partner: first, of civil servants

with deep technical expertise and, second,

of people who have been decision-makers

at hmrcon tax-dispute resolutions and

other matters. For some Big Four bosses it

is a point of honour to reward civil servants

who have been helpful, he says. Mean-

while, acoba has described the number of

moves from the Ministry of Defence to

arms firms as amounting to “traffic”.

One risk of all this is that taxpayers get

worse value for money. Another is that

such appointments contribute to regula-

tory capture. But the most important con-

sequence is for trust in government. “The

big cases feed the public’s perception that

money buys access and influence in a cosy

process from which voters are excluded,”

says Alexandra Runswick, director of Un-

lock Democracy, a campaigning group.

The problem is not going away. Civil

servants are told that theirs is not a job for

life. Tax rules on pensions mean senior

people cannot retire and do nothing, notes

a former intelligence chief now in the priv-

ate sector. Since the Brexit referendum,

mps and ministers are leaving politics ear-

lier because of parliamentary turbulence.

acoba“represents a failure of gover-

nance in public life—it inspires no public

confidence, nor does it protect the reputa-

tions of those it is intended to protect,” says

Sir Bernard. Its main failing is that it has no

power to check or enforce the conduct of

public servants. In its defence, it points out

that the Cabinet Office sets its rules.

Fans of public-private interchange ar-

gue that acoba’s reports on senior moves

serve only to stoke outrage. Mr Blair tried to

get rid of it and nearly succeeded, notes Da-

vid Hine of Oxford University. Successive

governments have ignored calls to beef it

up. A new chief might toughen its process-

es. But some wonder whether Boris John-

son, whom acobascolded last year when

he went back to his Daily Telegraphcolumn

before receiving its approval, might try to

curb its clout if he wins the election. 7

“T

hrown outof the frying pan, now

looking for a fire,” croons the sing-

er. “Walking around my old haunts but

I’m feeling like a ghost.” The song is

“Silver Lining” and the band is Sum-

mercross, a Yorkshire six-piece. Greg

Mulholland, on vocals, is used to fame—

but not as a rock star so much as in his

former life as a Liberal Democrat mp.

“When you’re an mp, everywhere you go

you’re the mp. Even when you go to the

pub you’re still the mp,” he reminisces.

“‘Silver Lining’ is about that profound

loss of identity I felt when I lost my seat.”

After the people of Leeds North West

voted him off stage in 2017, juicy work in

the private sector was not forthcoming.

“I knew that there would be no jobs for

me, due to my crossing swords with

corporate groups,” he says, before quot-

ing his own lyrics: “Looking for a new

life, but I see the bridges burning.” In-

stead, he believes there is a market for a

centrist answer to left-wing singers like

Billy Bragg. “There’s a misconception

that political songwriters come from the

left. It’s just about not being so preachy.”

Mr Mulholland isn’t alone in pursu-

ing alternative ambitions after Parlia-

ment. Corri Wilson, an mpfor the Scot-

tish National Party (snp) from 2015 to

2017, is now a freelance celebrant, offici-

ating at humanist weddings and funerals

in the Ayrshire area. Aidan Burley, who

stepped down as a Tory mpin 2015 after it

emerged that he had attended a Nazi-

themed stag party, runs a “friction-free”

razor-subscription service.

In 2015 the snp’s Stuart Donaldson

became the youngest male mp, aged 23.

Two years later he was the youngest

ex-mp. “I just took some time out to enjoy

being 25,” he says, over a pint. “I went on

holiday, and then started applying for

jobs. It was really quite hard to quantify

what I was good at.” Tabloids painted him

as a binge-drinker, he says. Somewhat

ironically, he has ended up working at

the Campaign for Real Ale. A quarter of

mps who got the boot in 2017 sought

re-election this week, but Mr Donaldson

declined. “I could have hung around like

a bad smell,” he says, “but I made the

decision to be in control of my life.”

Rock, razors and real ale

Life after Parliament

The ex-mps pursuing alternative careers

Mulholland’s encore

I

n imperial times Britain governed a

quarter of the world’s population. Until

the 1960s those people shared a common

British nationality and, in theory at least,

the right to move within the empire, re-

gardless of where they were born. Later, to

control immigration, the government in

London limited colonial and Common-

wealth subjects’ rights to live and work in

the mother country. Now one far-flung

group of British nationals, in Hong Kong, is

asking that those rights be restored.

Britain ruled Hong Kong from 1842 until

1997, when it passed the tiny territory, and

its 6.5m inhabitants, to China. Before the

handover Britain declined to turn all Brit-

ish nationals in Hong Kong into full British

citizens, a legal distinction which would

have given them more rights. Instead, after

1997 Hong Kongers of Chinese descent were

HONG KONG

Hong Kongers with British passports

demand the right to live in Britain

Overseas nationals

Out of sight,

out of mind

1