It’s time to demand more than just an “election-winner”

Without added qualities, being an “election-winner” is not good enough.

This article was originally published in The Stornoway Gazette

I regret to inform you that parties are back. I like the real ones, of course - I went to one on a boat last week. Like a Cal Mac ferry, it was docked and not going anywhere. Unlike a Cal Mac ferry, unless there’s been a particularly strong southerly, followed by a northerly, followed by an easterly, it was on the River Thames. Parties are legal again, then. But, wasn’t it ever thus?

Well, with thanks to the Metropolitan Police for providing no clarity at all, the answer is “kind of”. 

The Prime Minister was fined for attending one party during Covid lockdown when the laws he brought in to restrict our lives were flouted by many of those in Downing Street. However, it would seem, he attended many more than just that one. New photos leaked ahead of the publication of Mythical Sue Gray’s report into pandemic-soirées showed the PM drinking, surrounded by empty booze bottles and other people. He was attending a leaving…gathering? work event? Oh, forget it, P-A-R-T-Y for his outgoing director of communications Lee Cain in November 2020. The PM was not fined for attending this event - though at least one other person who was there has had to cough up. Not a dry, persistent cough, one would hope. This comment on Twitter caught my eye:

“So leaving parties for Downing Street workers [were] lawful. Leaving parties for dead people [were] unlawful. Got it.”

The Metropolitan Police - Cressida Dick’s failing police force - is a shambles. Nothing about their investigations and their issuing fines makes any sense. So let’s not rely on them.

Boris Johnson is facing an investigation by the Commons privileges committee over claims he misled Parliament. Last December the Labour MP Catherine West asked Boris Johnson in the Commons whether there had been a party in Downing Street on the day of Cain’s departure. The PM denied that a party had taken place, adding that: "Whatever happened, the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times".

Conservative MPs should, by now, have found a backbone to stand up in the face of someone who, until not long ago, was merely a profound laughing stock on Have I Got News For You. Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, is symptomatic of a floundering Conservative party. He flip-flopped more than a tourist walking to an Algarvian beach. No-one is laughing now, Tories. 

Did Boris-backers turn a blind eye? Some certainly did. He has this slightly aloof reputation as an “election-winner”, as though that in and of itself is noble. It is not. It is not a personality trait, however much the floppy-haired philanderer thrusts it into discourse about his misconduct. A political asset, maybe, but when you analyse “election-winner” in isolation, as it is always used in connection with Johnson - it has no additional endorsements - it means selfish ambition combined with ruthless, aggressive determination, dismissing those in one’s path. It means “that guy over there is the one who’ll get me where I want to be so I’m going to cosy up to him.” That dependence means being subordinate, beholden and generally “under the thumb”, particularly because political parties generally are terrible at cultivating other potential election leaders who do actually have additional, essential qualities. 

Perhaps to win an election, we need someone who wants more than just to win an election

Look to the SNP, where Nicola Sturgeon’s future is tied to her referendum success or failure. Like a ScotRail train, she may hit the buffers before too long. As an aside, how helpful that the SNP are overseeing such calamitous transport provision across Scotland to give us all helpful metaphors - going nowhere, lost at sea, off the rails, directionless. I’m sure you can think of your own. Who is in the co-pilot’s seat of the SNP? The Times reports that Sturgeon is becoming increasingly isolated, that there is no obvious successor. One could suggest that the SNP has run out of fuel.

Look to the Labour Party, where Sir Keir Starmer - once, one of the the most senior lawyers in England, decided that, should he be fined for drinking beer after a day of campaigning in Durham during lockdown, he’d resign as Labour leader. There are runners and riders should Sir Keir’s beer fear come near - Wes Streeting, described as a “Blairite Messiah” by my colleague at The Times Red Box, Patrick Maguire. There’s Yvette Cooper, who’s been around for time immemorial. Angela Rayner, who, you may remember, one newspaper noted has got legs. Richard Burgon is the Corbynite kryptonite, Dawn Butler, Rachel Reeves in the mix too. What a smorgasbord of mediocrity. 

Are these our potential election-winners? None set the heather alight, do they? Or am I overly cynical? It is because political parties are obsessed with “election-winners” with no substance, nothing else to offer, that we end up with rule-breaking shirkers as leaders. Further, logic highlights that one day’s election-winner is next time’s election disaster. They break, they fold, they tire, they crumble. 

The current General Election Winner is under investigation by fellow MPs because of concern that he lied to them. He got a fine for breaking the actual law - don’t let that just be a detail. Perhaps to win an election, we need someone who wants more than just to win an election, to actually serve the people and thereby become the greatest of all.