The dark shadow of the Blairites Our leaders are pound-shop Machiavellis

As Christopher Hitchens memorably put it, political corruption functions best when enjoying a bipartisan consensus. That certainly rings true for Britain at the moment. For while the Conservatives have long been criticised for holding the electorate in contempt, Labour’s return to power means the spotlight, however fleetingly, now falls on both major parties. For all of Keir Starmer’s emphasis on integrity in opposition, the moral character of his own troops feels no better than the Conservatives under Johnson — a supposed nadir in our recent parliamentary history. Perhaps the explanation lies in something more structural, an affliction that besets our entire political class.

How else can you explain three extraordinary scandals in a single day? By Monday morning, it was clear that Peter Mandelson’s behaviour, specifically while serving in the Brown government, could warrant a criminal investigation. Here was a man who reputedly received tens of thousands of pounds from Jeffrey Epstein, and who later sent the paedophile financier internal government memos and market-sensitive information. Even more troubling, Mandelson, through Epstein, advised JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon to subtly “threaten” the then-chancellor in an effort to stop a tax on bankers bonuses. This chancellor, of course, was Alistair Darling, Mandelson’s colleague in government. By Wednesday, the Prime Minister said Mandelson had lied to him “repeatedly”, though one wonders why he chose to believe a man who resigned twice from cabinet in disgrace. Accompanying that claim was a promise to publish documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment, by Starmer, as the Ambassador in Washington.

Meanwhile, with the media scrambling to comprehend the scale of the debacle, two other stories were breaking which, under usual circumstances, would lead headlines. The first concerned Dan Norris, elected as Labour MP to North East Somerset and Hanham in 2024. Norris was arrested last April for a string of offences including the rape and abduction of a child. This week, he was arrested for a second time. Though previous investigations relating to minors were dropped, it emerged that a second rape investigation had begun, as well as one concerning the potential sexual assault of a third woman. Norris may also stand accused of voyeurism and upskirting.

Then there was Tulip Siddiq, the Government’s anti-corruption minister until last January. In November, she was sentenced to two years in absentia by a Dhaka court for her role in a scandal centring on her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh. On Monday afternoon, as the Mandelson revelations grew increasingly salacious, Siddiq’s sentence was upgraded to six years. The assertion that Labour are less prone to scandal than the Tories suddenly feels as dated as the Metaverse.

None of this is bad luck. Indeed such stories reveal something deeper, specifically about the modus operandi of the Labour Right. Mandelson, a decades-long tribune for that political tendency, was open to briefing an investment banker about developments from within government precisely because, for him and his comrades, the truth is always defined by the contingencies of the moment — whether it was “sexing up”’ the pretext for war in Iraq or exchanging cash for honours. It’s easy to forget now, but the highest law during the New Labour years, particularly for its staunchest advocates, generally revolved around status and personal advantage. This was politics, at its worst, at the end of history.

Philip Gould, New Labour’s polling supremo, wrote that the aspirations of the post-industrial working class had significantly shifted, now revolving around things like buying a new washing machine. Ideals and utopias were a thing of the past, he contended, replaced by consumerism, Pareto optimality and public management speak. But discarded alongside the ideological refuse of the Twentieth Century — by many of Gould’s fellow travellers at least — was any belief in an ethical life. For the faction’s most senior figures that intensified into a veneration of power for its own sake. It’s no accident that Jonathan Powell, formerly Blair’s chief of staff, and now Starmer’s national security adviser, wrote a book titled The New Machiavelli.

Rather than politics being an instrument to achieve a particular good, such as social democracy, national renewal or a flourishing free market, it became an end in itself. That would, in time, give rise to some of the ugliest pathologies in public life: if politics was about technique, and not morality, then how one behaved didn’t matter — and one certainly shouldn’t be concerned about the consequences. Understand this and suddenly the actions of not only Mandelson, but Blair and Alastair Campbell, become easier to comprehend. An obsession with making money, a vice typically ascribed to the Conservatives, is far more intuitive to the common man.

To grasp how insidious this particular mindset goes, consider the case of Andrew Gwynne, whose recent resignation triggered the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election. Gwynne officially stood down for “health reasons”. In reality, though, it was a series of nasty posts — written in a secret WhatsApp group — that ended his political career. They included Gwynne wishing that a 72-year-old constituent would die: simply because she had the audacity to write to a local councillor about bin collections. Elsewhere, his wife, also a councillor, joked about local children playing in sewage.The story’s toxic postscript, with Andy Burnham blocked from standing for Labour’s nomination in the seat thanks to NEC fiat, just adds to the episode’s squalor. An ugly cliqueish culture and a presumption of impunity – combined with an instinctive aversion to popular democracy. In one small story you have distilled the outstanding features of the Labour Right.

Similar sculduggery is evident in the case of Matthew Doyle, who became a peer after serving as the Downing Street head of communications. Almost a decade ago, however, he campaigned for a councillor to be re-elected, despite the individual in question being one Sean Morton — who had been charged with possession of sexual images of children. Such was the severity of the charge that Morton, who maintained his innocence, stood as an independent after being dropped by Labour (at that time controlled by the Corbyn faction). But that didn’t stop Doyle from joining his friend on the campaign trail, and even at the election count. Morton was later found guilty of possessing indecent images of girls as young as 10.

Why does the Labour Right receive a comparatively easy ride on stories like this? One potential answer is political sympathies. While the country’s press undoubtedly leans towards the Tories, the orientation of most in broadcast media is instinctively New Labour (hence they didn’t mind Cameron). It’s no coincidence that Mandelson himself worked in television before leading on Labour’s comms in the 1987 election. The new worlds of public affairs, political consultancy and satellite TV all emerged at the same time, as the embryo of Blairism began to grow. A snapshot of that can be found on Sky News every Sunday morning: not only did Trevor Philips know Mandelson from their time at Carlton Television, but Mandelson was also the best man at Philips’ first wedding. Adam Boulton, another iconic face on Sky in the decades since its inception in 1989, is married to Anji Hunter — a former Blair spin doctor. Derek Draper, who died in 2024, and who was central in the rise of New Labour’s ‘innovative’ PR strategies, was married to ITV’s Kate Garraway. TV news and New Labour go together like the sun and shadow. Perhaps that helps explain Starmer’s ongoing struggles. In an era of social media, and GB News, the old rules are changing.

While in opposition, Starmer tried to cast Labour as the party of public probity — a foil to a bungling, contemptible government. But glance at the party’s roll call of shame, from Gwynne to Morton, and the claim looks downright absurd. And now, with the revelations of Epstein and Mandelson, which could be the country’s most seismic political scandal since the Profumo Affair, Labour faces a tainted brand for decades to come.

Why are the two major parties like this? Why is the electorate constantly forced to choose between the Tories, whose parliamentarians included a man who took pictures of himself with cocaine, and a Labour party which appears more at ease with child abuse than a Gary Glitter garden soirée? Whatever Britain’s wider problems — its widening infrastructure deficit, the increased tolerance by the state of low-level anti-social behaviour, and a lack of economic vitality — nobody would claim such degeneracy reflects the general public.

The blame must certainly include our electoral system. The point of first-past-the-post, indeed some argue its advantage, is that it generally guarantees the stability of a system resting on two major parties: a government and an opposition. If you are unhappy with one side there is always a strong, albeit limited, alternative. Yet beyond its many failings, not least an inability to generate original thinking in areas such as foreign and industrial policy, FPTP means a deliberate, systematic foreclosure of the political marketplace. This inevitably gives rise to venal, self-serving cultures across the spectrum — not least because whatever happens, and no matter how poorly your party does, it will still access the accoutrements of opposition. The public now grasps this, which is why both Labour and the Tories — if polls are to be believed — face an existential challenge.

But even if one or both were replaced, by Reform and the Greens say, the electoral system would, in time, give rise to the same pathologies. FPTP, especially without primaries, as in the United States, encourages an insular culture that is hostile to the wider public, as Andrew Gwynne’s messages — however trivial — reveal. Instead, the political process is captured by individuals who excel at factionalism, undermining opponents and learning how to gerrymander bureaucracy: none of which is particularly useful in administering the state, building houses or having a police force that actually solves crime. In short, our system selects for politicians who can’t meet the challenges that matter to voters, and who prefer to obsess over internal power struggles.

Yes, the American system is plutocratic, indeed more so than our own. But primaries permit an openness — to new ideas, actors and policies — that ours does not. Without primaries there would be no Mamdani, Trump, Obama, Ocasio-Cortez or Marjorie Taylor Greene, and by extension there would be no challenge, or possibility of renewal, for public life. When Labour activists in this country called for something similar during the Corbyn years, and the mandatory re-selection of all party MPs, it led to a ferocious backlash from the political and media class. Why? Because it would take power away from Westminster elites, and re-distribute it — however imperfectly — to ordinary people. These political pressures, and the impossibility of internal regeneration within the Westminster system, are what gave rise to Brexit. Had Conservative associations been able to choose prospective parliamentarians in a manner that registered Republicans can select candidates for Congress, then Brexit might have been a more serene, efficient affair.

Such systemic dysfunction is only compounded by the second chamber. “Need a Lord on the board?” Mandelson cheerily asked Epstein in one email from 2010, a pithy distillation of what the upper house is really about: creating sinecures for has-beens and bag-carriers, who can subsequently leverage their status for personal gain. All the evidence suggests that the reforms to the Lords under Blair have been a disaster. And yet nobody with power seems capable of acknowledging that fact, let alone offering an alternative.

Of course corruption is inherent to political life. We all desire status, and mostly want money. Inevitably some people will pursue such things to the detriment of the public good. Yet our present electoral system incentivises such appetites, rather than seeking to mitigate them. It is ridiculous to presume that only two parties might have a monopoly on good ideas, or people. The same applies to moral conduct.

It’s worth recalling that this scandal would never have surfaced were it not for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, an unthinkable piece of legislation in this country. That should raise questions about how we do politics in Britain and, I hope, prompt a conversation about an electoral system that only generates more than two plausible parties of government at a time. If we are to retain this status quo then, at the very least, it should require primaries and mandatory reselection. During the Corbyn years the media often described such proposals as Stalinist, despite their being the default across the Atlantic. I would simply say they keep politicians honest. In the context of SW1 that increasingly feels like a revolutionary demand.

---