In the last week or so, three tidbits of information have
passed across my desk. Each is interesting in itself. But put together, they tell
a story. And even, maybe, suggest a small but key part of a strategy towards
getting rid of the broken political system we are currently forced to live
under, and replacing it by something that can work for ordinary people.
The Nolan Principles
First, I was reminded (hat tip to Dr John Campbell) of the
existence and importance of the Nolan Principles. In 1995, a senior UK judge
named Michael Nolan, chair of the newly formed Committee on Standards in Public
Life, issued, in response to a request from then prime minister John Major, a
report entitled “The Seven Principles of Public Life.”
The full 1995 report can be downloaded from here: [[1]].
The original statement of the principles is on page 14 of that report. A brief statement
of the principles can be found here: [[2]]. But the wording, having evolved
over the intervening almost 30 years, is significantly different from that in
the original report. This wording appears to have been introduced in 2014, and
since it matches a 2022 version in the Commons Library [[3]],
I shall regard the statement at [2] as being the current master.
The preamble says that the principles: “apply to anyone who
works as a public office-holder. This includes all those who are elected or
appointed to public office, nationally and locally, and all people appointed to
work in the Civil Service, local government, the police, courts and probation services,
non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs, aka quangos), and in the health,
education, social and care services.” It goes on: “All public office-holders
are both servants of the public and stewards of public resources. The
principles also apply to all those in other sectors delivering public services.”
That covers, in my estimation, pretty much anyone whose job is
paid for with taxpayers’ money, and who has any influence at all on government
policies or on their implementation or enforcement. We, the people in the UK,
should therefore be entitled to expect that everyone in government, including politicians
at all levels, civil servants in all government departments, those in NDPBs,
police, court staff, and all staff in all the major government service
providers and their contractors, will keep strictly to, and always bear in
mind, these principles in everything they do in their jobs.
Let us now have a look at what each of the principles says.
Selflessness
1)
“Holders of public office should act solely in
terms of the public interest.”
There is a question here: exactly what does “the public
interest” mean in the context of democratic government? The usual meaning is “the
benefit or well-being of the public.” Here, “the public” is considered both as
an aggregate, and as a group of individuals, each of whom must receive benefit
or well-being. So, I interpret this principle as requiring holders of public
office to act for the benefit of each and every member of the public who pay
their wages; not of any particular set of interests, including their own and
those of their friends.
And how well do they keep to it? An obvious example of one that
didn’t keep to it is former Tory MP Owen Paterson, disgraced for his advocacy for
companies to which he himself was a consultant, that led to multi-million-pound
government contracts for those companies.
But I see two wider questions as well. One, if a political
policy goes against the public interest, or its costs to the public are greater
than the benefits to that same public, are not office holders who promote or
support that policy in grave danger, at least, of breaking this principle? And
two, are not disguising, understating or suppressing the costs of a policy, or
overstating its benefits, or failing to do a proper cost-benefit analysis from
the point of view of the people affected by it, themselves also violations of
the principle? Those who do these things are certainly not behaving as “both
servants of the public and stewards of public resources.”
Integrity
2)
“Holders of public office must avoid placing
themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try
inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take
decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves,
their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and
relationships.”
Owen Paterson, very obviously, broke this principle too. But
there is a wider question to be asked, as well. Over recent decades, politicians
have repeatedly taken on obligations to, or ideas from, external parties – most
notably, the EU, the UN, the World Economic Forum, and multi-national corporations,
such as Big Pharma – that result in policies being imposed on people in the UK,
that go against our interests. Such policies include all those that have been
imposed on us through EU directives, or through agreements with the UN, including
its Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly through its World Health
Organization. Today, these policies still include, at least, “net zero,” the
extremist approach to air pollution called “clean air,” and the WHO’s “vision
zero” road safety scheme.
To make commitments to external parties to impose such policies
goes against any idea of democracy, or government of the people by the people. So,
are those that have promoted those commitments, and supported those policies,
not also violating the integrity principle?
Objectivity
3) “Holders
of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit,
using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.”
Environmental policies, in particular, are set on the
basis of political commitments made, without any explicit consent from the
people, to external players like the UN and its WHO, not on facts or evidence. And
they are set without any regard to their costs, or to the fact that their
benefits to the people are highly dubious, if indeed there are any at all.
Those that set these policies are clearly violating the Nolan objectivity
principle.
But there’s more. In recent decades, successive
governments have more and more picked on scapegoats to be punished, without any
impartiality or consideration of merits. For example, small businesses were
closed down during COVID, while many larger companies and government offices could
continue to operate. And I myself have suffered the destruction of my career as
a software consultant through a bad tax law called IR35, supported and
strengthened by Labour and Tories alike.
Meanwhile, car drivers have been particularly singled out
as scapegoats for heavy taxes and fines, with drivers of some new luxury and
performance cars about to be hit for more than £5,000 yearly in “vehicle excise
duty” from April 2025. And the latest victims of Labour’s schemes of plunder are
family businesses, and most of all, farmers.
Accountability
4) “Holders
of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions
and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”
Accountability is another word, whose meaning is not as
clear as it ought to be. If A is accountable to B, does this mean that B has a
legal right to claim recompense from A if A’s actions cause damage to B? If
government is A, that certainly isn’t how things work today! Lack of accountability
for the “sovereign” is built in, at a fundamental level, to the Westphalian
nation state system, under which we are forced to live today.
But the requirement for “scrutiny” suggests at least that
the decisions of office holders should be routinely audited, by independent and
unbiased parties, for compliance with this and all the other Principles –
selflessness, integrity, objectivity, openness, honesty, leadership. And those decisions
that fail the test on any of these grounds should not be implemented.
Does such an auditing process happen today? Not a chance.
Openness
5) “Holders
of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent
manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are
clear and lawful reasons for so doing.”
The recent machinations of both Tory and Labour governments
are, surely, far from open and transparent. How about the Tories’ 2020 ruse
that exempted projects labelled “strategic”, including net zero, from any
requirement for cost-benefit analysis? Or Labour’s recent breaking of their
manifesto commitment not to raise National Insurance rates?
As for information being withheld… There is an entire
industry, both within government and nominally private, whose mission is to prevent
truths inconvenient to the establishment narratives from reaching the general
public en masse. One example of such a truth is the huge increase in
excess deaths since the roll-out of COVID vaccines. Another is that the science
behind the climate change narrative, and thus behind net zero, is fundamentally
flawed.
Honesty
6) “Holders
of public office should be truthful.”
That politicians routinely lie, is today a truism. Tony
Blair’s lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction have even given
rise to a popular anagram of his name!
But in my view, honesty needs far more than mere
truthfulness. It requires also candidness – that is, telling the whole
of the relevant truth. It requires straightforwardness – not attempting to
mislead, conceal, confuse or obfuscate. And it requires sincerity – that is,
the absence of pretence, deceit or hypocrisy.
Do politicians and other office holders today behave with
honesty in all its aspects? Don’t make me laugh.
Leadership
7) “Holders
of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and
treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support
the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
While this is a fine sounding statement, I don’t think it
goes nearly far enough. Holders of public office ought always to reflect their
stated principles in their own behaviours. They must always practise what they preach.
And any kind of hypocrisy is totally unacceptable.
Thus, for example, those that promote, support, make or
enforce “net zero” or policies that flow from it, must themselves be seen to
live a net zero lifestyle. There must be no flying to (or back from) climate
conferences (most of all in private jets), or arriving by helicopter to give
speeches on reducing CO2 emissions. Those that want to force others
to stop driving cars, or flying in planes, or eating meat, must themselves give
up those very conveniences and pleasures. Those, that want to phase out the use
of fossil fuels, should themselves stop using fossil fuels, and products made
using them, altogether. Yet we’ve never seen Boris Johnson, or Alok Sharma, or Charlie
Chump, or Ed Miliband or Keir Starmer, actually wearing the hair shirts they
want to force on to others.
Busybody fines
Second, my attention was drawn to two articles in the
Guardian. One recent [[4]],
the other from the summer of 2023: [[5]].
It seems that some local councils are taking advantage of “public spaces
protection orders,” that allow them to create completely arbitrary “busybody
offences,” and then fine people for them, to the tune of up to £500. Loitering,
falling asleep in public, feeding birds, idling car engines for more than two
minutes, and climbing trees are examples of such “offences.”
These arbitrary, capricious fines are made worse by an
approach that pays private enforcers on a per-fine basis. And the number of fines
has been climbing fast, almost doubling since 2019. More than three-quarters of
these fines have been imposed by less than 40 councils.
This is typical of how government in the UK today, at all
levels, treats the people it is supposed to be serving. These behaviours are no
more than a combination of bullying and legalized plunder. They surely violate
selflessness, objectivity and accountability among the Nolan principles, at
least. And honesty, too. Moreover, giving enforcers incentives to issue as many
fines as possible violates the integrity principle, too. Not to mention violating
the leadership principle as well, by failing to treat ordinary people with the
respect we deserve.
Local elections
On top of this, there has been talk recently of some county
council elections, scheduled for May 1st next year, being postponed
for up to a year, or even cancelled altogether.
The ostensible excuse for this seems to be that Labour are
carrying on with the Tory government’s schemes of “devolution” and “levelling
up.” Now, this is rather curious. Should not among the very first actions of a new
government coming into power be to review all projects hanging over from their
predecessors, determine whether or not they are working for the people, and scrap
or modify them if they are not working? After all, Labour only got power back
in July because very many people rejected the Tories. Why, then, have they not
already begun a programme of rolling back the worst of the Tory policies?
What is happening in Surrey
I found a description of what seems to have been going on
with regard to my local county council, Surrey, here: [[6]]. This appears to be a deal that is
being done between national government and the county council, without any public
debate, or any consultation with, or involvement of, the people of Surrey. This
certainly violates Nolan’s openness principle.
There are all kinds of bad things in there, that Tory-controlled
Surrey County Council is already doing or planning to do to us. Such as “active
travel schemes, particularly in a rural setting.” “Innovative local proposals
to deliver action on climate change and the UK’s net zero targets.” And a
quarter of a million pounds of our money for “Local Nature Recovery Strategy.” But
climate change “action” goes directly against the interests of the people, by making
energy more expensive and its supply less reliable, and so impoverishing us
all. And all for no benefit to us, since the claimed “climate crisis” is a total
fabrication. Further, it is the people of the area whom a local government
is supposed to be benefiting, not something called “nature!”
The document doesn’t mention road safety, but the “vision
zero” scheme they are now pushing on us harder and harder (I have seen the “Surrey
Roadsafe” patrols twice in the last week, both within a few hundred yards of my
home) seems not unlike the “busybody fines” of corrupt local councils. Far from
enhancing road safety, the agenda seems to be to give police excuses to enforce
ever more harshly (and expensively) on to drivers arbitrary speed limits, that
weren’t there even a few years ago.
Here in Godalming and Ash constituency, one of the furthest
parts of Surrey from London (and where I also happen to be Reform UK’s interim branch
campaigns co-ordinator), local governments ought not to be forcing down our
throats policies that we don’t want, and that are not appropriate to our area.
Our area is predominantly rural, with the largest towns being around 25,000
people. And what little public transport there is outside the main valleys, is
woeful. Many people here cannot live their lives to the full without their
cars. Yet the county council are actively using pretexts pushed by the UN and
its WHO to harass and impoverish people who are merely trying to go about their
daily lives.
This, very clearly, violates the Nolan selflessness principle
of acting always in the public interest. Taking on policies being pushed by the
UN violates the integrity principle, too. And while “scrutiny” is mentioned in
the document, it looks like the kind of top-down scrutiny that will only lead
to the bad policies being pushed on to us ever harder and harder. This, too,
violates the principle of being honest and truthful. As to leadership, Surrey
County Council’s headquarters outside Reigate is very inconvenient to access from
distance by any means of transport except car, as this page attests: [[7]].
So much for practising what they preach!
Cancelling elections?
And then, there was this story: “Some local elections may be
axed.” [[8]]. The
following shows that Labour are using “devolution” as their excuse: [[9]]. This
is most interesting in the context of the devolution framework agreement at [6], from last March. In which, clause 43 explicitly
says: “Surrey County Council elections will continue to take place on the same
cycle, with the next scheduled elections due in May 2025. Subsequent elections
will continue to take place every four years thereafter.”
So, it looks as if even the Tories had no intention – or, at
least, no stated intention – of cancelling or postponing these elections. This
suggests that Labour are, at the very least, failing the Nolan openness and
objectivity tests. And it doesn’t take much cynicism to divine that they are
failing the selflessness test, too.
We will have to wait and see what happens over the county
council elections in general, and in Surrey in particular. But our enemies seem
rapidly to be becoming more and more mentally deranged. I am no believer in a god
or gods, but I echo Sophocles and other sages of the past: “Those whom the gods
wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
Could we “weaponize” the Nolan Principles as a trigger for a moral
revolution?
Now, to strategy. I have for many years taken the view that
the Westphalian nation state, the failed political system, designed in the 16th
century, that we still live under today, has passed its last-use-by date.
Indeed, it had already well passed its sell-by date before the failure of the
French Revolution.
I also take the view that, in order to create a political
revolution to get rid of the state, and to replace it by something that works
for ordinary people, we will need first for very many people to undergo a moral
revolution. That moral revolution, if I sense it right, will give ordinary
people a far clearer feel for what is right versus what is wrong, as opposed to
the current system’s focus on what is deemed by those in power to be legal or illegal.
Now, the Nolan Principles, while highly imperfect and not
(in my opinion) nearly strong enough, are rooted in the idea that the behaviour
of those in positions of political power must always be right rather than
wrong, irrespective of its legality or otherwise. I therefore ask this
question. Could it be feasible for those of us, who seek to kick-start the
moral revolution that is a necessary precursor of the political revolution we
need to restore our rights and freedoms in the UK and other countries of the
Anglosphere, to take the Nolan Principles, and turn them into a weapon for
moral change for the better?
Despite their shortcomings, the principles have several
advantages over a newly crafted system. First, they have been around for very
nearly 30 years. Second, if Wikipedia [[10]] can
be trusted on the issue, they have “proved influential and are enshrined in
codes of conduct across the UK public sector, from schools and government
departments to hospitals.” They have been “incorporated into a variety of
government-related codes including the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service
Code, the Civil Service Management Code, and the House of Lords Code of
Conduct.” And “Many local authorities, charities and educational and healthcare
bodies adhere to the principles.”
This would suggest, to me at least, that, if these
principles have been included in what are in effect contracts signed by
government employees and suppliers, there could be a possibility of uncovering
particularly egregious examples, such as Boris Johnson’s conduct over
Partygate, as having been breaches of contract. With the public sanctions and penalties
that would entail. It could even lead to a set of full-scale audits, that would
in time push all the dishonest dross out of government positions, and penalize
them as they deserve.
How the Nolan principles might in practice be picked up,
dusted off and set to work, is of course a question up for debate. The Reform
UK party might possibly adopt and publicize them. Other groups, who are opposed
to the way in which all the establishment political parties have treated the
people of the UK in recent decades, might seek to do the same. It will probably
take many disparate groups, not necessarily formally associated, but working
together on issues, such as this, on which they agree.
Myself, I would support some further extensions to the
principles as currently stated. I would clarify the meaning of “the public
interest.” I would like to see more added about the issue of cost-benefit
analysis, from the point of view of the people, for government projects. The
integrity principle should specifically identify organizations like the EU, UN,
WEF and multi-nationals as being within its scope. Routine and random audits
should be established to verify compliance with the principles by all those
subject to them; and the reports should be made available to the general
public. The requirement for truthfulness should be supplemented by requirements
for candour, straightforwardness and sincerity. And hypocrisy, of any kind,
should be called out for what it is, and the perpetrators shamed.
Thus, perhaps, can we set into motion a general perception
among the people, that right behaviours versus wrong is a far more important
touchstone than legal versus illegal. And that a whole lot of what successive
governments, at all levels, have been and are doing to us, is morally wrong. In
particular, I hope that we can bring about a strong reaction against all those
in and associated with government, that have lied to us, misled us, deceived
us, concealed or obfuscated the truth, or failed to practise what they preach.
That is all I have to say today.
