Has Acoba finally found its teeth? The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments’ chairman Eric Pickles unleashed a world of pain on Downing Street and Whitehall yesterday when he revealed that Bill Crothers, a senior civil servant, joined the board of Greensill Capital while still working as Whitehall’s procurement chief.
Not only that: in correspondence published yesterday, Crothers, the man survivors of the period recall as instrumental in introducing Lex Greensill to senior players across Whitehall, defended his second job as a “not uncommon” perk of life as a top mandarin in 2015.
Twenty-four hours ago it was unclear whether the Boardman inquiry into Cameron’s lobbying was really an inquiry at all, or a blunt instrument with which No 10 could bludgeon its way through a busy news week and never speak of again.
Now, with Boris Johnson refusing to back Cameron in interviews and No 10 letting it be known to The Times that he is personally concerned by the Crothers case, it is clear that this one won’t be wished away by a taskforce, commission or independent review.
Those words – “not uncommon” – are ringing in the ears of ministers and officials today. Red Box senses a deep unease among Tory MPs.
Advertisement
As much as the Greensill saga reeks, this story is now no longer really about David Cameron, or Bill Crothers’ £5 million in share options, or even the late cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood.
Instead it is about something much more fundamental: the integrity of the civil service and just who its most powerful officials answer to. In the case of Crothers and, it seems, many others authorised to take on second jobs by the Cabinet Office, the answer includes private companies.
And that poses an even more fundamental question about how Westminster works, and for whom. History reminds us that when the curtain is pulled back on the engine room of politics unexpectedly, few come out of it well. Just ask Cameron about the expenses scandal.
But for now, at least, it’s good news for Labour, who have an opposition day debate this afternoon. Cronyism one of the few subjects on which they’ve managed to speak with one voice and land blows on ministers.
Senior civil servants, meanwhile, are fretting that No 10 is readying itself to throw them under the bus.
Advertisement
2. Inquiries are like buses
Is the Tory tide turning on David Cameron? Yesterday Boris Johnson hurled his predecessor under the bus, admitting there were “questions to answer” over his lobbying.
Now Red Box hears the Treasury select committee, whose Conservative members closed ranks to block a probe into Cameron’s antics a fortnight ago, is meeting to consider its next steps this morning.
Labour MPs, thwarted last time, tell Red Box they’ll “certainly give it another go”. And even allowing for the Whitehall probe into Cameron’s conduct, it’s much harder to see their Tory colleagues obstructing them this time.
Tories deeply resent the fact that Cameron has chucked them headfirst into a lobbying scandal and are in no mood to spare his blushes.
Advertisement
As one veteran tells Red Box: “He says he hasn’t broken any rules, which is funny – that didn’t cut the mustard with him when he was terminating the careers of Tory backbenchers like a medieval monarch in the expenses scandal.”
The public accounts committee, meanwhile, will hear evidence from senior Treasury mandarins Charles Roxburgh and Tom Scholar – who were directed by Rishi Sunak to look into Cameron’s pleas for government help – in the coming weeks.
And Red Box understands that Meg Hillier, its Labour chairwoman, has not ruled out calling the former PM too. If nothing else, it’ll make great TV. To end up the subject of one inquiry looks careless. To end up having to answer to three…
3. Eye of the Starm
Labour’s decision to go for the jugular on lobbying in the middle of the mourning period for Prince Philip suggests Sir Keir Starmer isn’t messing around. And last night he gave the hairdryer treatment to his shadow cabinet after a spate of unflattering stories that blamed his top team for an anticlimactic first year in office.
Advertisement
In remarks first reported by HuffPost last night, Starmer branded said that the “cowards who attack my staff” among his shadow ministers should “either stop now or have the guts to get out”.
There could be no stronger rebuke to those who have told newspapers in recent weeks that Starmer’s woes are the fault of Jenny Chapman, his political secretary, and Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff.
Amateur Kremlinologists may be interested to hear that recollections of the rant differ, however. Red Box hears from shadow cabinet sources that a furious Starmer criticised attacks on “my shadow cabinet and staff”, rather than his staff alone.
Why does that difference matter? It’s the way they tell them. Labour MPs are briefing like nobody’s business of late, against a range of targets: Starmer’s aides, Anneliese Dodds, the much-maligned shadow chancellor, Angela Rayner, Starmer’s deputy, Rachel Reeves, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, and Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary.
Or, to put it another way, if you’re unhappy with Labour’s direction of travel, you’re either a Starmer loyalist who thinks shadow cabinet malcontents are the problem or you’re a shadow cabinet minister who has concerns about his inner circle. You’re unlikely to be both.
Advertisement
So far from uniting his warring top team, last night’s briefings have only heightened suspicions.
4. Union dues
Another Labour bunfight hots up today: Unite, still the party’s biggest donor despite Sir Keir’s scraps with Len McCluskey, formally kicks off its leadership election today.
It’s another rare point of consensus for a squabbling shadow cabinet, all of whom will be glad to see the back of McCluskey and none of whom want to see Howard Beckett, his dyspeptic heir-designate, succeed him.
Red Box knows several Labour MPs who are more invested in this one than next month’s locals, and no wonder.
Nor is it any exaggeration to say this may well be the most important election Starmer faces this year – if Beckett wins, he can expect several more years of internal wrangling and hand-to-hand combat with the left.
In the meantime, expect allegations of dirty tricks and stitch-ups. Read them all here in the days and weeks to come.
5. Some mistake, Shirley?
Tributes to Shirley Williams abound this week but few capture her essence as well as a touching – and, in a way that only correspondence from Times readers can be, very funny – letter from the former Liberal leader David Steel in this morning’s paper.
Steel recalls how he had been supposed to accompany Williams on a parliamentary trip to Hong Kong in the sixties, but never did. The jaunt still happened. Williams just forgot to turn up.