Winning the election was almost easy compared with the next task Keir Starmer has set himself. “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age,” he has said, and it will define him. Fail, and he risks the rampant right and the righteous Greens and Liberal Democrats devouring his huge majority. The country purged the most corrupt and decadent government of modern times, but Labour’s victory was almost a byproduct of that vengeful impulse. How do you reclaim trust that is so lost that politics has never been held in such low repute?
Everyone knows the reasons why deep cynicism greets doorknocking MPs. Examples of Westminster venality, bribery, bullying, sexual and financial disgrace are too many to list, too wearily familiar to need recounting. That odour of pocket-lining self-interest was extra-shocking in a government stripping down public services while voters struggled to get by. Unjustly, people often make little distinction between the parties. That’s the mood Starmer confronts. Britons are among the least trusting of their politicians in the western world, with trust at a record low thanks in part to anger over Partygate lies. Nearly 80% are dissatisfied with how Britain is governed.
Starmer, personally, takes on a colossal moral burden to earn trust back. Expect his “change” message soon from the Augean stables he inherited. How does he begin? His manifesto outlines a new ethics and integrity commission, modernising the House of Commons and “immediate reform of the House of Lords”. Immediate! The squalor of the rich buying peerages is a prime cause of the great Westminster stink. A fast bill is promised, to get rid of the 92 hereditary peers. Off with their heads! I’d add an exit for the 26 bishops.
The place is stacked with cronies – Cameron added 110 Conservative peers, May 25, Truss three, Johnson 41, Sunak (so far) 35 – and it has swelled to a preposterous 783 peers, with a for ever Tory majority. An “immediate” bill can cure these worst excrescences, before the prickly thickets of step two: how to elect peers to the Lords and balance its power with that of a reformed Commons. A 2023 report by UCL’s Constitution Unit and the Institute for Government lists quick wins. Prof Meg Russell, one of the authors, suggests there should be 600 peers or fewer, and tells me she recommends letting the parties weed out their own dross, together agreeing a formula for each party’s quota. If they won’t agree, Labour’s Commons majority can impose a fair allocation (remembering one day it will be back in opposition).
The House of Lords appointments commission has puny power to check the “propriety” of prime ministers’ nominees: Labour will give them authority to check the “quality” of applicants. Remember the shocking appointment of Peter Cruddas, who donated £3.4m to the Tories, pushed through by Boris Johnson in defiance of advice from the appointments commission, after a cash-for-access to David Cameron scandal? Labour’s proposed ethics and integrity commission would strengthen all the public standards bodies. The Tories kneecapped the Electoral Commission, putting it under ministerial control: expect the restoration of its total independence, giving it the power to prosecute. Voters will be registered automatically, and the range of eligible ID widened: how many people were deterred from voting this time?
A long list of former permanent secretaries, judges, the former clerk of the Commons and constitutional authorities from Dominic Grieve and Lord Sumption to the directors of the Institute for Government and the Constitution Unit just signed an open letter to the new government calling for toughened public standards. Their recommendations aligned with Starmer’s manifesto: independent enforcement of the ministerial code instead of leaving it to prime ministerial whim; stopping conflicts of interest and lobbying by MPs; rigorous regulation of ministers’ post-parliament jobs; ending prime ministerial patronage of honours. Starmer can act fast here. He could announce these cleansing acts by fiat, with a public declaration of respect for the civil service and the independent judiciary. No more dangerous abuse of constitutional pillars as “enemies of the people”.
Now is the moment to take money out of politics, while recent filth is fresh in the public nose. Time and again parties shied away, guarding their finances or afraid to ask the taxpayer to fund the politics they despise. But this time, the public would surely accept that a state contribution of about 50p a year each is a cheap price to pay to expunge any sniff of corrupt influence from politics. The Tories auctioned dinner with their chancellor and three of his predecessors for £40,000 last year. Democracy needs political parties that don’t depend on maverick multimillionaires wanting favours, nor on unions rattling their funds. Donations could be capped at about £5,000. Transparency International found 76% of people say “action needs to be taken” to stop the super-wealthy exerting undue influence on governments. State funding could be distributed by every voter at elections ticking a box for which party gets their allocation.
All this is quick and easy, wafting honesty through the corridors of power. In the longer term, Labour has a strong moral obligation to bring in proportional representation: the left was cheated for years when a majority voted left but the Tories took power. Now Labour has about two-thirds of the seats on one-third of the votes, reform would not be self-interested. An elected second chamber is in the manifesto: the two reforms need to go in lock-step.
Hosing down Westminster dung can be done fast. But the hard truth is that earning long-term trust from most voters depends on progressing the great issues that drove the vote this time. Will waiting lists and child poverty be down and GP and dentist appointments up? Will the public realm feel refreshed, with renewable energy becoming a source of national pride and new skills replacing some immigration? There is no magic wand, Starmer says, keeping promises modest, but trust relies on people seeing his “sunlight of hope, pale at first, but getting stronger through the day”, breaking through the clouds by the next election.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
