Legislation to compel transparency is vital: this is a matter not just of morality, but of national security
- Pat McFadden MP is shadow economic secretary to the Treasury
In the wake of the Owen Paterson affair, Boris Johnson hopes you will conclude that all politicians are the same, that they are all self-serving knaves and that all the fuss over lobbying is just another short-term political storm. That way, no scandal matters. That way, anything goes. That way, his own lifelong disregard for the norms of responsibility has no consequences. That way, shame doesn’t exist.
The U-turn performed by ministers over Paterson does not come from the heart. There is no real contrition here. Rather it was an entirely tactical response to what should have been a foreseeable public backlash against what the government was doing – ripping up the parliamentary standards process to save an MP found guilty of multiple breaches of the lobbying rules to push the interests of the companies paying him, one of which was awarded £600m of government contracts with no competitive tendering process whatsoever.
Pat McFadden MP is shadow economic secretary to the Treasury
