Yasmin’s Eye on …. Hedge Fund Politics 

Used to be that most elected women and men believed that politics was about serving the people and the nation. After their 2010 victory, pumped-up, brash Tories expunged that notion. They wanted power so they could serve themselves and their clients. Call it hedge-fund governance. It’s changed expectations and led to mass cynicism and apathy.

Yet now, for some reason, the recent grubby betting allegations have awakened real public anger. Brits- including many Tory voters- are crying foul.

I myself am neither shocked nor that bothered about whether Conservative candidates- now no longer supported by the party- a director of campaigning, a chief data officer, possibly others, allegedly made bets on when the election would be, just before the PM announced the July date.

Ok, it’s not right and proper if it  turns out they had a flutter, but guys ask yourselves: was it worse than, say, MP Scott Benton, in an undercover sting by the Times this February, agreeing to lobby for a gambling business for a fee, or Rishi Sunak failing to declare his family investment in a childcare business, or  PPE Medpro, currently under an NCA investigation, which received more than £200m of government Covid contracts weeks after Tory Baroness Michelle Mone contacted ministers, or taxpayers expending £370,000 for settling bullying allegations against Priti Patel and £245,000 for Boris Johnson’s Partygate lawyers, or Nadim Zahawi being made to pay taxes he owed, or Natalie Elphicke- welcomed into Labour by Keir Starmer-  trying to influence a judge presiding over the trial of her ex-husband who was convicted and jailed, or Fylde MP Mr Menzies, one of Sunak’s trade envoys, suspended after The Times published claims that he had used political donations to cover medical expenses and pay off “bad people” who were blackmailing him or this week’s scandal instalments- the first, a Byline Times, expose of a website designer firm owned by a Conservative party employee being handed £100,000 from the public purse and the second, involving health Nick Markham who apparently paid a crony advisor £1,500-a-day to work on the “40 new hospitals” programme, despite officials warning about conflicts of interest and a reputational risk to the NHS and Department of Health. And I haven’t even mentioned cash for peerages, Matt Hancock or other dissolute escapades of Boris Johnson.

The tales of dishonour are all about money, the trashing of standards, personal enhancement and political game playing. With so much of it about, outrage feels out of place and time.

From the Brexit years to  the 2019 election, integrity in public life was so casually, routinely and shamelessly devalued that people stopped noticing or caring. Three years back, in a detailed, well evidenced article in OpenDemocracy, Seth Thevoz explored growing Tory dependency on  ‘… bankers and hedge fund tycoons, who are now responsible for almost 40% of all donations.’ One hundred and forty rich Brits have gifted £11m to the Conservatives since December 2019. Peter Cruddas – once dubbed the “richest man in the City” – is among them. He got a peerage. He denies there was a link between the two. Other such coincidental appointments have been made. Hmmm.

Even more concerning than peerage handouts is the influence the donors could have on policies. Thevoz quoted George Havenhand, senior legal researcher at Spotlight on Corruption: “Party political donors paying the piper have a strong chance of calling the tune. The extent of the Conservative Party’s dependence on the finance sector, with all of its vested interests, has profoundly serious implications for the health of our democracy.”  https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/tories-rake-in-11m-from-hedge-funds-and-finance-tycoons/

Millionaires and billionaires do not hand over money for no return. They push for deregulation and low taxes, their pounds of flesh.

That brings me to Labour. The wealthy Labour peer, Waheed Alli, friend of Peter Mandelson, has given Keir Starmer £16,200 for “work clothing” and a further £2,485 for “multiple pairs of glasses”, according to the register of interests. Some previous Tory backers are also sidling up to his government in waiting. The Labour leader can well afford to buy his own gear, so why be cheap and take Alli’s cash? And what deals are the ex-Tory donors seeking? Most importantly, how does this fit in with his vows to make politics clean and honest again?

Like most voters, I am hoping the corrupt Tories will collapse. But if Starmer’s promises surrender to pragmatism, if he too is sucked in by hedge fund politics, if he refuses to raise the taxes paid by the top 10% and seeks their approval, people will rightly say “ they are all at it” and stop voting.

And our ailing democracy will get more frail, and may well collapse.