Transparency under lockdown
Source: Flickr
Jamie Singleton investigates political transparency in Britain during the lockdown.
It did not take the political elite long to capitalise on the financial instability caused by the current global health crisis. US media organisation National Public Radio has revealed that, on 13th February, US Senator Richard Burr had dumped at least $628,000 worth of stocks in 33 separate transactions before the virus swept into the US, slashed its economy and decimated its job market.
This came little more than a week after the North Carolina Senator had downplayed the threat of the virus in a 3rd February op-ed which claimed that US healthcare was in a state of unprecedented readiness to manage a health crisis such as the one that has shattered the national economy. The move has provoked suspicions of insider trading, and along with a number of other cases has been referred to the Department of Justice.
The unfolding of what could result in a scandal implicating a number of political officials facing accusations of profiteering could raise pressing questions for the future of political transparency. Robert Burr is a senior official who regularly attends meetings with leading economic experts, and has unrivalled access to the most up to date market information, and has used the privileged position the electorate have afforded him to bolster his personal finances.
Similar suspicions emerged over Jacob Rees-Mogg’s command of a 15% stake in Somerset Capital Management, an investment group which told investors that the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic made for an “excellent entry points for investors”. True, the contentious Wiltshire MP’s role and stake are legitimate, but doubts about the role of private interests in government are not easy to quiet, and in any case should remain at the front of the public’s mind while it endures an extended period of closed doors.
I spoke to Steve Goodrich, a research manager at Transparency International UK, an organisation which campaigns and designs tools to uphold political transparency, for clarity about government practice during the coronavirus period. He tells me that “people tend to see corruption as a matter overseas not here in the UK” – taking back control was a slogan of the Brexit campaign – but as Scottish Health Minister Catherine Calderwood resigns from office after making lockdown-violating trips to her second home, this notion is looking increasingly frail.
While Burr, Rees-Mogg, and now Calderwood stand at one pole of private privilege reaped from political office, looking out from their respective seats within government, lobbyists usually look in to government from the outside. But this does not immunise the industry from corruption, and Steve cites “substantial political donations made behind closed doors” as the most obvious instance of lobbying verging over into political corruption, a phenomenon the UK has seen before (see: Peter Cruddas’s 2012 resignation for accepting six-figure sums for those seeking fast-track access to Cameron and Osborne). But for the moment, this seems to be something most organisations cannot resort to while they scramble for protective measures.
The cross-section where private interest and public decision-making meet is a hotly contested area. Though it might provoke suspicion, lobbying, Steve assures me, is “an essential part of the public interest”, a “platform on which organisations put views forward” and influence policymakers between elections and referendums. It indiscriminately offers all members of a democracy the chance to exercise pressure from outside parliament and keep political officials honest and in continual response with the democratic will. Anyone can do it at any time, and it is a vital political tool.
So far during the coronavirus period, airlines have been at the front of efforts to secure financial aid. Airbus and Rolls-Royce have joined Heathrow in lobbying the government for a state bailout of Virgin Atlantic that could amount to hundreds of millions of pounds in commercial loans and guarantees. Quantas have announced that they are cutting upwards of 20,000 jobs, and British Airways have furloughed 30,000, developments that will very likely ripple across the global economy. The airline industry is a financial nerve-centre, employs more than 60 million people around the world, and a collapse could rock swathes of the economy; lobbying for financial stimulus will be crucial for stabilising the market.
Major changes to the economy, Steve warns, “might have consequences for the accountability of public funds” but this may not yet be an issue with organisations still scrabbling for allocation of government bailouts. It’s largely fearful speculation to say that certain industries that were under threat before the crisis will try and use the economic downturn for getting ahead, because at its most fundamental level, promised bailouts are directed at ensuring that people can keep their jobs and put food on the table.
But again, the unavoidable move behind closed doors may complicate accountability and keeping tabs on manipulation. Complaints from environmentalists about the details of airline lobbying surfaced last week as Corsia, a deal which holds airlines to carbon offsetting payments, has come under threat from airlines who claim that they cannot afford to pay their dues with the chips as far down as they currently are. There was, and still is, hope that the outcome of this crisis could be a heightened consciousness of environmental protections, but this ideal is evidently under threat.
One of the key mechanisms for pushing the economy toward sustainability during recent months has been direct public action. Even the financial sector has cited the September 2019 protests as a driver behind promises to clean up investment strategies. Of course, one serious consequence of the lockdown is that people can’t do this, and Steve makes it clear that imposing limits on “civic space and civility are affecting the democratic process”. You wouldn’t believe it if you’d been at Hyde Park over Easter weekend, but as Steve points out, “mass demonstrations are not possible at the moment”, putting a cap on options for voicing public grievances, and for checking government.
So far, Steve is generally complimentary about the government response in the UK, telling me, “it’s great we’ve seen daily briefings and the government is open about the decisions it is making”. Even while Boris Johnson was in intensive care, the government televised political updates and made sure that the public was more or less up to speed with any important decision. And what’s reassuring is that this transparency does seem to be the real deal. Steve explains that while parliament is not open as usual, “legislation passing through is highly unlikely unless it was related to direct measures to protect the economy and public health”, and so the government is baring all political decisions to the nation. But as face-to-face lobbying and government consultation happens less frequently and certain political decisions continue to be unavoidable, maintaining accountability may prove increasingly challenging.
Steve cautions anyone looking to offload blame onto political officials: “whenever something goes wrong the two key completing explanations are conspiracy or cock-up, and at the moment it’s just too early to tell.” It’s reassuring to hear him say that he is “hopeful things will change for the better”, but as we grow accustomed to life at home and look toward the future, the upkeep of checks and balances has become as important as ever.