Friends in high places: Do voters care about sleaze allegations?

Sean O’Grady explores the issues around the appointment of Ewen Fergusson, a university friend of Boris Johnson and fellow member of the Bullingdon Club, to the independent ethics watchdog

Chum’s the word: the PM has been accused of ‘packing’ boards and quangos for political advantage (Getty Images)

The appointment by Boris Johnson of Ewen Fergusson, an old university chum, to the Committee on Standards in Public Life has been met with widespread derision, and it is easy to see why.

Sir Alastair Graham, a former chair of the watchdog, called the move “pathetic” and part of the trend towards the government becoming a “chumocracy”: “It really is desperate if you have to be a university mate of Boris Johnson to qualify to sit on the committee that is supposed to examine sleaze. I doubt that the experience of the Bullingdon would provide any of the right qualifications. It seems like a completely inappropriate appointment.”

Fergusson, 55, was, like Johnson, at Oxford University in the 1980s and a member of the notorious/exclusive Bullingdon Club. There is a famous photograph, now injuncted, of the club members in fancy dress looking the very image of youthful arrogant entitlement, with David Cameron and George Osborne also being graduates of this uproarious dining club. Well known for smashing up restaurants (though graciously paying for the damage), the most disturbing of their customs was an initiation ceremony that required them to burn a £50 note in front of a homeless person.

No matter, though, that Johnson and Fergusson have been through a lot together, possibly including baiting the homeless (there is no proof of this), or that Fergusson has kept in touch to the extent of attending a fundraising event for Johnson’s bid for mayor of London in 2008. Fergusson has had a long career with the top City law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, including 18 years as a partner, and is the beneficiary of a fine education at Rugby and Oriel College. In 2018 he left to become self-employed. He is a member of the Lord Chancellor’s advisory committee for the southeast of England and is involved in independent film production.

For all we know Fergusson may be eminently well suited to the role, and the Cabinet Office insists that “the application was carefully considered on its merits by the advisory assessment panel, which interviewed him and found he was appointable”. It is not known who was on the advisory panel for this job.

The difficulty, of course, is that even though Fergusson may be the best suited to the position, the ridicule and appearance of cronyism undermines his credibility, and that of the body itself. Or, in the words of the ministerial code of conduct, by which the prime minister is theoretically bound: “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests.” The “appearance” is the problem. Senior civil servants and ministers might wonder whether, of the 152,393 practising solicitors in the UK, it was Fergusson who got lucky.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, might be expected to criticise the Fergusson appointment as a joke, but that hasn’t been said about any of the other members of committee.

This suspicion of a chumocratic cabal at the heart of government does not apply to the other recent appointment, Professor Gillian Peele, a distinguished Oxford politics don, or with any other members of the committee on standards in public life, namely:

• Lord (Jonathan) Evans (chair) – former head of the Security Service
• Dame Margaret Beckett – former Labour cabinet minister
• Lord (Andrew) Stunell – former Liberal Democrat chief whip
• Jeremy Wright MP – former Conservative cabinet minister
• Dame Shirley Pearce – head of the London School of Economics
• Dr Jane Martin – former Local Government Ombudsman
• Monisha Shah – Trustee of the Art Fund and former BBC director

Politically, the appointment is notable in that it may be regarded by some as part of a process whereby friends, sympathisers, allies or soulmates, usually Conservative, are being appointed to various quangos, agencies and other public bodies, from the BBC to the British Museum and the boards overseeing government departments (something that landed Matt Hancock in particular trouble). Ministers are thus, arguably, “packing” them for short-term political advantage and longer-term embedding of Tories in key positions should they ever lose power, and a possible handy source of future reverse patronage in a back-scratching sort of way.

There is also a whiff of contempt in the way the prime minister treats these modest checks on his freedom of action, as evidenced by the undue delays in appointing his own adviser on ministerial conduct, and reluctance to answer legitimate questions about the Downing Street refurbishment, among other things.

Hitherto, the prime minister got away with a good deal in this regard, but there are some signs that the Labour attack on “sleaze” and cronyism is gaining a little traction, albeit much overshadowed by Covid. Voters who were invited to think of the Johnson Conservative Party as being some sort of anti-establishment “people’s government” may also wonder when they get their share of the spoils of power.