The Greensill affair is undermining public trust in politics. The forthcoming investigation has a responsibility to help restore it
Jonathan Evans, the chair of the government’s committee on standards in public life, recently reflected on suggestions that Britain had entered a “post-Nolan” age. The reference was to the seven guiding principles of public service set out by Lord Nolan in 1995: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. There was a perception, said Mr Evans in a lecture last November, that “too many in public life, including some in our political leadership, are choosing to disregard the norms of ethics and propriety that have explicitly governed public life for the last 25 years”.
Revelations of rampant cronyism in the government’s Covid procurement procedures were the immediate context to those remarks. The forthcoming inquiry into the lobbying scandal surrounding David Cameron and his efforts on behalf of Greensill Capital is an opportunity to address some of the root causes of the malaise they identified. If public trust in politics is not to be grievously undermined, the chance must not be missed. The inquiry’s remit will cover the Australian financier Lex Greensill’s extraordinary rise to a position of influence at the heart of government, as well as Mr Cameron’s later work as an in-house lobbyist for the now bankrupt company. Regrettably, given that transparency is the salient issue here, it will take place behind closed doors, led by a corporate lawyer with links to a law firm which has opposed lobbying restrictions in the past. Labour has proposed a separate and more wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry, but is unlikely to win enough Conservatives over in a Commons vote on Wednesday.
