The Dominic Cummings psycho-drama shows exactly why the culture of politics must be overhauled

Ultimately what we may need is not just a Covid inquiry but a culture inquiry – a complete top to bottom audit of the culture in politics from Westminster to council chambers, Whitehall to No 10

Dominic Cummings’s marathon evidence session at the joint committee on Covid-19 delivered a series of revelations that will fill newspaper headlines for days and weeks to come. Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser painted a picture of a chaotic Downing Street operation which has convulsed its way through the Covid pandemic amid a turf war between competing ministers and scientific advisers. The apparent dysfunctional decision-making was breathtaking.

Cummings, Matt Hancock, and Johnson were the focus of the psycho-drama but if we are to truly learn the lessons from Covid-19 and do justice to all of those who died ostensibly so needlessly, the real takeaway must be this: that the culture of politics – in Downing Street and beyond – is fundamentally broken and needs a complete overhaul.

Firstly, there is a lack of diversity of thought. The same names cropped up again and again throughout Cummings’s evidence: Hancock should have been fired, Johnson unilaterally decided Covid was not a credible threat. Cummings railed against them both. Whether or not his evidence holds water, it is undeniable that Cummings has left Downing Street with a clear sense that a few key men – and it was, after all, largely men – held sway and made the decisions that mattered.

Secondly, the values at the heart of government during this period seemingly lacked any sense of compassion. From the fixation on media presentation to the blinkered focus on the economy, the priorities which appear to have driven the government’s decision-making throughout Covid have been, to a large extent, devoid of humanity. A truth that we all knew – that human lives had become secondary to economic performance and government popularity – was openly betrayed when Boris Johnson (allegedly) stated that he would let the “bodies pile high” rather than impose a second lockdown.

Thirdly, we need to have a serious conversation about honesty in politics. And by this I don’t just mean honesty between politicians and the public but honesty from politicians to themselves. Decision-making structures in politics are frequently tested, and it seems that under the strains of the pandemic they have been found to be woefully inadequate.

There was also a marked difference in how countries politicised decision-making. One of the striking contrasts between the UK’s experience of Covid and that of New Zealand or Denmark, for example, has been the way that policies were announced to the public. UK government spokespeople routinely informed the public that they were making the right decisions (remember the “world-beating” test and trace system?) but elsewhere politicians were more candid and humble – acknowledging that they could not be entirely certain of the steps they were taking, seeking instead to reassure the public that they would do everything they could to protect lives. This, ultimately, made it much easier for them to change tack and adapt to changing conditions. Britons, in contrast, were encouraged to “eat out to help out” even as the pandemic surged.

It is the broken nature of British politics that led me to help establish the All-Party Group for Compassionate Politics, which I now co-chair along with my colleague Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. In order to achieve progressive and sustainable change in this country we have to transform the culture in our politics and revolutionise the way decisions get made.

That means making it a requirement that all future government decisions are informed by its citizens, for example through citizens’ assemblies, and that policy is evidence-based, including taking on board people’s lived experience. Welfare recipients must be able to co-create welfare policies. Social care users should be invited to explain what a decent social care service looks like. Doctors, teachers, nurses, the self-employed and the unemployed – everyone needs to be empowered to help form the policies that they ultimately will have to live by.

It means making it a constitutional norm that governments make decisions which, first and foremost, are helpful and not harmful to human wellbeing. Such an idea has already been proposed by Compassion in Politics and gained cross-party support and similar ideas are also contained within John Bird’s excellent Future Generations Bill.

It means also introducing a mandatory induction programme for all MPs complete with a programme of compassion-based training and an understanding of what evidence is. Such training has been proven to reduce conflict, increase empathy and sympathy, and improve overall happiness. We may not be able to change the mentality of the ministers of today but we can start to affect those of tomorrow. And understanding evidence will ensure the gap between policy intent and implementation is closed.

Finally, it means creating a new and more enforceable code of conduct for MPs and ministers, complete with sanctions for those rogue MPs who willfully lie to the public. The reputation of all parliamentarians and the public’s faith in the system they represent has been utterly destroyed by the dishonesty and duplicity of a few. It is time that we stopped using parliamentary tradition as a defence against modern HR procedures and standards and held politicians to account for bad behaviour and poor conduct.

These are just a few of the reforms that are badly needed to help improve the culture of our politics. Ultimately what we may need is not just a Covid inquiry but a culture inquiry – a complete top to bottom audit of the culture in politics from Westminster to council chambers, Whitehall to No 10. We must not be blindsided by all of the shenanigans between Cummings, Hancock, and Johnson – this is about something much deeper, wider and fundamental.

Debbie Abrahams is Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth