We feel like fools for
following the rules
Alice Thomson
Page 27
in the building all work for Johnson. If
the culture is their responsibility, it is
also his responsibility.
One of the arguments being used
in the prime minister’s defence is
that he is the victim of a vengeful
campaign being run by Cummings.
And such campaigns must be
resisted. Even if this was a complete
explanation for the stories (which I
doubt), it still leaves this question:
who employed Cummings?
I certainly didn’t give him the job
of senior adviser. Nor did I advise the
prime minister to employ him. And
he didn’t just show up at No 10 on
“bring your ruthless friend to work”
day and decide to stick around.
Johnson sought him out and gave
him a job because of Cummings’s
relentless focus and his
determination that nobody would
stand in the way of his objectives.
And Johnson got what he paid for.
No 10 combines permanent civil
servants and special advisers.
Because the appointment of special
advisers is more personal, it is right
that ministers face more questions
about their conduct. But it cannot
surely be the case that ministers, and
in particular the prime minister,
carry no responsibility at all for
civil servants.
Apart from anything else, the
authority of employees in No 10 flows
entirely from their relationship with
the prime minister. The system can’t
work if the prime minister’s private
secretary is not regarded as an
extension of the prime minister,
speaking and acting on their authority.
If MPs decide that Johnson is only
responsible for the candles he
personally blew out, or the canapés
he personally consumed, they will be
making a mockery of the very idea of
parliamentary accountability.[email protected]No 10’s ‘culture’ problems all stem from Johnson
Ministerial accountability is poorly defined in Britain but sacrificing staff to save your own skin is an evasion of duty
ANDY RAIN/EPA
sense of chaos, or greatly improved
the culture.
The other experiment has been to
keep Rosenfield constant while
varying the people he works for. He
was private secretary to Alistair
Darling and George Osborne before
working for Johnson. This variation
has made a difference. The private
offices of Darling and Osborne were
never the subject of criticism for
chaos or a culture of rule-breaking.
Taking these things together,
doesn’t it seem the culture problem
might be Johnson rather than
Rosenfield?
Even if this were not the case, are
we really saying that the people the
prime minister appoints and is
supposed to manage can behave
exactly as they like? No 10 is a
building. Until you put people in it, it
doesn’t have a culture. And the peopleChief of staff Dan Rosenfield wasn’t even
working in Downing Street in 2020unequivocally that the prime minister
knowingly lied to parliament, he
would have to go. But this is a fairly
high bar. The report may well not
vault it. And if, instead, it merely
shows that there was an epidemic of
rule-breaking in No 10, into which
the prime minister more or less
unwittingly stumbled, Conservative
MPs may deem him exonerated.
The suggestion is that he must be
held accountable for his own actions
and statements but not for those of
his staff. But is that a doctrine of
ministerial accountability we are
willing to accept? I do not think it
should be.
The plan appears to be for deputy
heads to roll. The most often
identified deputy head is that of the
chief of staff Dan Rosenfield. The
prime minister will announce that
the “culture of No 10” has to change.
Key personnel will be removed. Key
personnel will be appointed. Sorries
will be said. And on we will all go.
If the attempt to put the blame on
Rosenfield were not such a serious
evasion of duty and leadership, it
would be funny. When all these
parties were taking place, Rosenfield
wasn’t even working there. He was
the person the prime minister put in
place when he blamed the last lot of
senior advisers for the chaos in No 10.
Fortunately, events have provided
us with impeccable information on
where the culture of disarray and
dissembling in Downing Street might
have come from. If we employed a
social scientist to conduct an
experiment they couldn’t have done
a better job.
First, we have tried varying the
senior adviser to the prime minister
while keeping the prime minister
constant. Appointing Rosenfield in
place of Dominic Cummings while
retaining Johnson does not appear
to have appreciably reduced theT
here was a time when they
used to teach children
about Thomas Dugdale in
schools as if he was an
important political figure.
Pupils studying civics would be told
about his resignation as a result of
the Crichel Down affair, and the
lesson in ministerial accountability it
taught. Looking back, it all seems
rather quaint.
For today, as we all wait for Sue
Gray and she waits for someone else,
there seem to be plenty of people
questioning the very idea of
ministerial accountability.
Dugdale was a minor cabinet
minister who ended up leaving the
government in 1954 as the result of
an almost impossibly obscure
dispute. In 1938 the government had
made a compulsory purchase of a
piece of land, Crichel Down, for RAF
bombing practice; Churchill later
promised parliament that it would be
returned to its owners after the war.
This promise was not kept; the
resulting fuss led to a public inquiry.
The inquiry criticised the
behaviour of civil servants and
Dugdale offered his resignation, even
though his own actions weren’t being
questioned. His resignation was
accepted and immediately was
regarded as establishing an
important precedent. Ministers were
accountable for their departments,
not only their own behaviour.
Citing Crichel Down has rather
fallen out of fashion. Its precedent
has rarely been followed. Lord
Carrington’s resignation as foreign
secretary over the invasion of the
Falklands is often cited; as,
sometimes, is the decision of Estelle
Morris to resign as education
secretary in 2002 when some
ministerial targets were not met. Yet
these were about broad policy failures
rather than responsibility for scandal.
Roy Jenkins did not have to resign
as home secretary in 1966 over the
escape from prison of the spy George
Blake, nor did William Whitelaw in
1982 after the intruder Michael
Fagan managed to get into the
Queen’s bedroom, nor did Michael
Howard in 1995 after a series of
prison escapes. The latter sacked the
head of the prison service after a
critical inquiry.
In fact the story of Dugdale’s
honourable resignation no longer
looks even like a good description of
the Crichel Down affair itself.
Subsequent government papers have
shown the policy was Dugdale’s allalong. Which, as many constitutional
experts agree, has left open the
question of what exactly ministers
are accountable for. And through
this gap, the defenders of Boris
Johnson have, in the last couple of
weeks, been pouring.
No one can any longer deny that
there was a series of events in
Downing Street — some were
parties, others were gatherings —
that broke the rules the government
set for everyone else. Sue Gray, and
now the police, are trying to
establish who exactly was involved,
and how often.
It is accepted that if the facts showKey personnel will be
removed, sorries will
be said and on we’ll go
Comment
Daniel
Finkelstein@dannythefink
the times | Wednesday January 26 2022 25