Alastair Campbell has an oft-quoted “golden rule” about political scandals. If they stay in the headlines for more than a week the MP or minister who features in them is doomed. Or is it more than 10 days? Or even 12? Actually Campbell now says he never said it, which is a shame because the remark contains a kernel of truth. Sooner or later No 10 has to cut its losses if it can’t get closure. John Whittingdale? Nine days into the British government’s first online dating uproar, it’s too soon to say. Every case is different.
But has Campbell’s golden non-rule been abandoned since his team lost power in 2010? The coalition government certainly changed all sorts of things, not least ministerial willingness to disagree in public (as the current referendum demonstrates) and the reluctance of the prime minister to reshuffle his talent pool.
Why so? Because David Cameron and Nick Clegg agreed that the Liberal Democrats would have 20% of the jobs, which deprived Cameron a free hand. With tensions high over Europe since he won his majority in 2015, he still has to be mindful of the balance and keep some colleagues John Major might have listed as Eurosceptic “bastards”.
So the temptation to stand by a loyal colleague is reinforced by the maths. Forced reshuffles are a nuisance – just look at Iain Duncan Smith’s post-budget resignation: Stephen Crabb got promoted from Welsh secretary to replace Duncan Smith at Work and Pensions, but he’s pro-EU. It upsets the balance and unsettles the other camp.
Solidarity against media pressure is a factor too – since the days of aristocratic 18th-century cabals it always has been. In the days when interactive social media consisted of a letter to the Times, mild-mannered prime minister Stanley Baldwin (1923 on and off to 1937) rounded on his Fleet Street tormentors for trying to exercise “power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”. The press barons had been demanding prior approval of cabinet changes. It shut them up for a while.
In updated language most subsequent PMs would share Baldwin’s sentiment, though none had Rudyard Kipling as a cousin to craft the soundbite. The sexual scandal of the Profumo affair in 1963 all but did for Harold Macmillan’s tottering throne. Powerful Margaret Thatcher was forced to abandon Cecil Parkinson, her favourite and a potential successor, over what we used to call a “love child” in 1983.
If it isn’t sex, it’s money: Peter Mandelson’s mortgage, say, or expenses. Sometimes with Labour governments even policy differences over Iraq or Gordon Brown’s leadership style prompt a walkout. A salutary “how not to do it” study came in 1992 when John Major fought to keep his pal, the culture secretary David Mellor, over his affair with an actress. Two months after it started Mellor was finally dispatched by embarrassment arising from an unrelated court case.
As so often, once the press had smelled blood – the wounded animal in the political jungle – it stalked its prey to the end. Aware that perceived weakness is contagious, Tony Blair, his media hitman Campbell, and later Brown’s crew all fought against being pushed around. After Mandelson was forced out the first time (with some help from the rival Brown camp), they realised it might be better to engineer a quick and clean resignation with a view to early recall to ministerial rank after a spell in the sin bin.
That may be the big difference in recent years. Cameron has a high strike rate, having lost half a dozen cabinet ministers at least, for a colourful variety of reasons. David Laws (2010) went quickly after a few weeks in office over dubious expenses. So did Maria Miller in 2014. Liam Fox fought hard to save his defence post (2011) after Adam Werritty, his rather special adviser, was shown to have exceeded all sorts of briefs. Lord Strathclyde got tired after 25 frontline years in the Lords. Chris Huhne fought like a tiger over that speeding cover-up, but ended up in jail. Andrew Mitchell’s spat with the Downing Street coppers ended up in the courts too, messy and undignified. Sayeeda Warsi finally quit over Gaza policy, IDS over tax credits and disability cuts. There’s usually a background history of feeling unloved.
But Laws came back. So did Mandelson (twice), and, long ago, Cecil Parkinson, damaged goods and after a decent interval. As did Peter Hain, who resigned over undeclared election donations in 2008, but was back as Welsh secretary next year. Andrew Mitchell and Liam Fox must still nurture hopes, though neither showed the clean break contrition that makes it so much easier for voters and the PM to forgive.
That’s often because they feel hard done by, usually blaming the press for cooking up a phoney row. Sometimes they’re right, but sometimes just unwilling to acknowledge their own failing. As in other walks of life it’s often the amateurs who get caught. Alan Clark and Steve Norris, two wordly serial seducers, survived, as Tim Yeo (his head under a blanket at Heathrow) and Mellor did not. Labour MPs who fiddled their expenses went to jail, Tories who better understood accountancy did not.
Whittingdale’s awkward forays into online dating do not suggest a Clark-like capacity to survive. If much more tumbles out Cameron’s patience and loyalty may wear thin. Send for the bottle of scotch and the pearl-handled revolver. The chief whip keeps them in his top drawer. So if you’re bleeding already, minister, make sure you mop up any telltale spots of blood.
